Title: Boat song

Arranger:Tong Leung-tak

Year: [1980]

Genre:

• Large ensemble
• Arrangement
• Chinese orchestral music

Call No.: SC387

Description: "Boat Song" is Tong Leung-tak's arrangement of the qin piece Ao'ai for a Chinese instrumental ensemble. The earliest extant notation of Ao'ai is included in the anthology Xilutang qintong (1525), and the version most widely used since the mid twentieth century, among many existing ones, comes from the anthology Tianwen'ge qinpu (1876). The title of the original qin piece refers to a line-"ao'ai yisheng shanshui lü"-from Liu Zongyuan's (773–819) poem Yuweng ("A Fisherman"), which lends itself to various associations between the piece and the poem, even leading to speculations that Liu himself composed the piece. In the poem, Liu depicts himself seeking solace in nature after experiencing setbacks and adversities in his career as a scholar-bureaucrat. While this allusion is widely accepted, both the meaning and pronunciation of Ao'ai as a word have been under debate. As an onomatopoeic expression, the word could refer either to the sound of an oar while rowing, or to the sound of a boatman singing or shouting. The most popular version of Ao'ai in the current qin repertoire-a condensed version with nine sections out of the original eighteen-is Guan Pinghu's second "interpretation" (dapu) of tablatures notated in Tianwen'ge qinpu. Tong's arrangement is based on Guan's popular version of the qin piece. It features a full range of Chinese instruments, including louder instruments like the suona and the yunluo. Similar to his arrangement of Yangguan sandie, it assigns the original melody to various instrumental parts, coupled with either chordal accompaniment or countermelodies, resulting in frequent changes in texture and timbral combination. Perhaps echoing Guan's artistic vision, the suona is placed strategically in the climactic moments near the end, amplifying the segment of the melody that imitates a boatman shouting.

Note:

• Orchestral arrangement of "Boat song" for guqin

Instrumentation: di (1), xiao (1), sheng (1), suona (1), yangqin (1), liuqin (1), pipa (1), zhong ruan (1), da ruan (1), sanxian (1), zheng (1), da gu/fengluo/large cymbals/suspended cymbal/peng ling (1), yunluo (1), gaohu (1), erhu (1), zhonghu (1), cello (1), double bass (1)