Tienhao Jan’s Choral Story: Wind, Snow, Love, Star (Score Set)

Commissioned in 2008 by the Taipei Chamber Singers’ Music Unlimited Project

Composer Tien hao Ran’s first choral composition

“Wind, Snow, Love, Star (風雪戀星) is the collective title for four modern poems by 徐志摩: ‘I Do Not Know Which Way the Wind Is Blowing’ (我不知道風是在那一個方向吹), ‘The Joy of a Snowflake’ (雪花的快樂), ‘I Have a Love’ (我有一個戀愛), and ‘In Search of a Bright Star’ (為要尋一個明星). Written in different periods, in different styles, and in different moods, ‘wind, snow, love, star’ happen to be the four themes that appear most often in his modern poetry—he was an incurable devotee of Romanticism.”

“Apart from ‘Saying Good-bye to Cambridge Again’ (再別康橋) and ‘By Chance’ (偶然), ‘I Do Not Know Which Way the Wind Is Blowing’ may well be his best-loved romantic poem. Its musical diction, its neat and elegant stanzas, and its rise and fall of emotions at different temperatures make it, for a composer, a text of perfect structure. The piano slowly stirs ripples of wind, carrying a long vocal line above it, so that the sorrow of the dream feels all the more real.

Among the four songs, ‘The Joy of a Snowflake’ is like dessert—light in portion yet sweet at heart. The snowflake, speaking in the first person, falls from the sky and sways in the wind to a waltz rhythm, drifting freely through a secluded valley into a garden, and finally melting into the gentle, wave-like heart of the beloved. I deliberately altered the structure of the original poem and increased the repetition of words to give the snowflake’s brief journey more layers of scenery, while the recurring ‘soaring’ figure captures the joy of complete freedom.

‘I Have a Love’ is not the love poem it appears to be on the surface; the object of its love is in fact ‘the star in the sky’ (echoing the theme of ‘In Search of a Bright Star’). Here the poet’s passion reveals a rare clarity and calm, like a landscape painting of clean brushstrokes. In setting it, I quite naturally drew on an Eastern Zen sensibility: clean, simple chord progressions in the piano let the voices flow naturally, spreading crystal-clear colors.

‘In Search of a Bright Star’ is the most dramatic piece of the cycle. The poet’s highly visual writing and the strong motif of ‘pursuing the star’ fully reveal his quixotic, romantic-knight character. Its three large dramatic scenes come close to the structure of an operatic aria—from the lone knight in the darkness at the beginning, to a dreamlike rescue from the brink of death, and finally to a cosmic image of the moth flying into the flame. The free form and expansive melodies gave me room to imagine it almost as if I were writing a musical.”

— Tien hao Ran (excerpted from the program of the Taipei Chamber Singers’ 2008 commissioned-works premiere concert, Music Unlimited III)