Music Unlimited III: “The Sleepwalker” (夢遊女)

Included in “Chinese Choral Music Anthology: Music Unlimited III.”

About the Work

The text of this a cappella work for eight-part mixed choir is taken from the poem “Song of the Sleepwalking Woman” (夢遊女之歌) by 陳黎. The piece is in five sections. The first draws out the dream scene through the gradual spreading of finals and compound finals: at times form and shadow follow each other, at times one form casts several shadows that branch out and diffuse, wandering in a cycle of “consonance” – “tension (dissonance)” – “release (consonance)” to create what feels like a self-contained prologue. In the second section, phrases are split up or piled in fragments, producing a more irregular tension and an unbalanced momentum, rather like the exposition of a plot. The third and fourth sections each begin with recitation and are then sung at a slightly slower tempo, building dramatic tension and contrast and bringing out the two ultimate dimensions of the story: “love” for the beloved and “hatred” for the rival. The final section briefly reverses the scene of the second, returning to the original dream; yet as the situation runs backward, it suggests that the entanglement of love and hate can find no peace, and the piece slowly draws to a close like an epilogue.

This work was commissioned by the Taipei Chamber Singers and received a creation grant from the National Culture and Arts Foundation. Its performance calls for portable percussion instruments (a yinqing handbell, a frog guiro and a rain stick) to heighten the ideas and atmosphere of the poem. The expected duration is about 10’30”.