Sheng-sheng-man

This composition takes inspiration from the titular poem Sheng-sheng-man by poetess Li Qingzhao (1084–1155, Song dynasty). The poem was written after the death of the poet’s husband, at a time when the Song dynasty was about to collapse due to foreign military invasions. While reflecting on the poet’s personal drama, my composition is a free interpretation rather than an accurate quotation of the poem. For one, the music uses only a selection of words and phrases from the poem and thus does not present the poem in its existing order. For another, I incorporate elements of my own musical language that are almost irrelevant to the poem’s narrative, especially Jiao-bei, the fortune-telling blocks used in my local Taoist religion, to create a musical space where it may be possible for my identity to interact with that of the poet. One of the composition’s main features, the fast reiterations of a single word (or musical note) was inspired by the poem’s famous seven-doublet opening phrase: Hsün hsün mi mi, leng leng ching ching, chi chi tsan tsan chi chi.