“Colorful clouds chasing the moon” is a famous Guangdong folk music spread in the Qing Dynasty. It is a Cantonese music score. The implication of the music name is that the immortal drives the auspicious clouds to the Moon Palace. The music vividly depicts the moving scene of clouds and moonlight flowing through the smooth and graceful melody. Story of “Colorful clouds chasing the moon”“Colorful clouds chasing the moon” appeared in the Qing Dynasty. It is a famous Guangdong music score. Its style is light and unique. It describes the relaxed freehand brushwork of ordinary people’s life and highlights the typical Guangdong folk music style. When Li Hongzhang was governor of Guangdong and Guangdong, he copied it to Dani for performance. In 935, Ren Guang and Nie Er adapted “colorful clouds chasing the moon” into a piece of national orchestral music. In 1960, Peng Xiuwen rearranged the orchestration according to the band of the central broadcasting national orchestra. The moral of the song name “Colorful Clouds Chasing the Moon” is that immortals ride colorful auspicious clouds to the Moon Palace. There are often descriptions of immortals driving colorful clouds in Chinese classical literary works. This song describes the Moon Palace fairyland in people’s minds and sets off the relaxed freehand brushwork of ordinary people’s life. Among his best-known compositions are Rosy Clouds Chasing the Moon (彩雲追月, Cǎi Yún Zhuī Yuè), composed in 1935 for Chinese instrumental ensemble and transcribed for piano in 1975, and Song of the Fishermen (渔光曲, Yú Guāng Qǔ), used as the theme song for a namesake film . Other films for which he provided songs include Kangdi ge (Resisting the Enemy), Dadi xingjunqu (Great World March), Yue guangguang (Bright, bright moon) and Wang laowu (Wang Five). He invited the musician Huang Yijun to compose The Flowers are Blooming and the Moon is Full (花好月圆) which was included on a 1935 recording Ren Guang supervised. After another research trip to France, where he set up a Chinese choir, he returned home in 1938 to concentrate on anti-Japanese propaganda with the opera Hong bo qu (Turbulent Waves) and Gaoliang hong le (the sorghum is red. He went to Southeast Asia in 1939 to assist the National Salvation Movement and in 1940 he worked as composer for the New Fourth Army, for which he wrote Xin Si Jun dongjin qu (The New Fourth Army marches east). He died in the Wannan Incident (also called the New Fourth Army Incident, during the Second Sino-Japanese War) in Wannan, southern Anhui, in January 1941. In 1932, Ren Guang, a great Chinese musician, was the director of programme department of record company EMI (Shanghai). At that time, together with another famous Chinese musician Nie Er, he wrote a number of Chinese orchestral music for an album by EMI Chinese orchestra. Colorful Clouds Chasing the Moon is one of them, composed in 1935. Colorful Clouds Chasing the Moon indicates a picture of the night sky. We can see the color of the night, which is not black but “colorful”. And there is the glorious moon, crystal clear, like water. “Chasing” the word gives action to the picture, with some vividness in the twilight. Under the night sky background, the clouds and the moon chase each other. What a beautiful scene of serenity! In 1960, Peng Xiuwen re-orchestrated this music according to the establishment of Chinese National Orchestra. With an ethnic pentatonic melody, dizi, erhu reciting the main rhythm in turns, then light rhythm of plucked string instruments, the bass of plucked string and open sound of hanging cymbals, all together depict the charming scenery of the vast night sky. Was it originally a Cantonese folk song? No … A lot of online sources credit this music as originally a Cantonese (Guangdong Province) folk song. The direct reason, I guess, is that the most famous vocal version of this music is sang in Cantonese (a Chinese dialect, popular in southern China including Hong Kong). However, as mentioned above, this music was composed by Ren Guang and Nie Er in 1935, and it’s NOT a Cantonese folk song. So what happened? Given its beautiful and simple rhythm, many lyricists have written lots of versions of lyrics to the music. Among those songs, the Cantonese version was the earliest and most successful one. In addition, for a long time after World War Two, Hong Kong is the center of Chinese entertainment industry. The prosperous music market in Hong Kong produced lots of successful and influential singers and songs. Thus, the Cantonese version of this music became more and more popular and prevalent. Gradually, people start to believe it is a Cantonese folk song … The mid-autumn festival is on 24th September 2018 which is 15th August in the lunar calendar. In the past few weeks, many Chinese are buying mooncakes to prepare for the celebration of the festival. Usually Chinese families bring mooncakes, taros and fruits and gather in the parks under the full moon at night during the mid-autumn festival. Many remember the fairy tale of the Phoebe flying to the moon palace and living there forever. The music “Colourful clouds chasing the moon” describes their imagination of the beautiful scene of moon palace during the festival. The piece of music is a traditional Cantonese music(廣東音樂). It is arranged by the two well-known composers Ren Guang (任光) and Nie Er (聶耳) as an orchestral music in 1935. It is composed in A major pentatonic scale which is common in many traditional Chinese music compositions. The music is in ternary form with an introduction and three conjunctions between the parts: The introduction (bars 1 to 4) is played by the plucked instruments(彈撥樂器) such as Yangqin(揚琴) and Guzheng(古箏). It describes the start of the imagination with the blurry scene. Figure 1 The introduction of the score of Colourful clouds chasing the moon Part A (bar 5 to 26) is the motive of the music. It is played by the wind instruments, Dizi(笛子) and Sheng(笙) and is repeated by the string instruments, Gaohu(高胡) and Erhu(二胡). The motive describes the imagination of the beautiful moon palace. Figure 2 The motive started by the wind instrumentsFigure 3 The motive ended by the wind instrumentsFigure 4 the motive repeated by the string instrumentsFigure 5 the motive ended by the string instruments The first conjunction appears from bar 27 to 28. There is a big contrast in pitches and dynamics between bar 27 and bar 28 to make the music more melodic. |
