The Lord of East

Prefatory Notes:

about the text:

“Nine Pieces" (Jiu Ge) is an ancient poem set. It is one of the 17 sections in the anthology that is included under the title "Chuci". All 11 poems in the set were written by the poet Qu Yuan, who lived over two-thousand years

ago. The individual poems within the set are related to each other as parts of a religious drama, which is meant for performance. The

performances were replete with fantastic shamanic costumes and were mostly performed indoors, and with orchestral accompaniment to the tune

of "lithopones, musical bells, drums, and various kinds of wind and string instruments".

Despite the “Nine”, in the title, the number of these poetic pieces consists of eleven separate songs, or elegies. The Lord of East (Dong Jun) is

the seventh individual poem, which describes the lord of the East’s (the lord of the Sun) actions. He soars up to Heaven, shoots the baleful Wolf

Star, then using the Dipper Star as a ladle refreshes himself with a drink of cassia-juice. Finally, bow in hand, plunges into the abyss, to make his

subterranean return-journey to the land of sunrise. There is no love-meeting or tearful parting in this song. (There is a translation of this Song by Maspero in Journal Asiatique, 1924, pp.21-23)

As a ceremony song, it happened a thousand years ago. In this part, it includes three sentences and then I developed it into three big part. For my composition, I want to describe powerful and mysterious music for this unreal content. The prepared piano gives me a lot of new musical words. Also for the voice part, I borrow some Beijing Opera tune and

some Chinese traditional songs to enlarge the timbre of the melodies, which to be exaggerated.

Text:

Coat of blue cloud, skirt of white rainbow,

I gather my reins and my chariot sweeps aloft.

I take up my long arrow and shoot at the Heavenly Wolf (Name of a baleful star),

Then draw toward me the Dipper (name of four stars in Ursa Major) and pour out for myself a drink of cassia(to celebrate his victory).

And bow in hand plunge into the abyss,

Am lost in mirk and darkness as I start on my journey to the East.