Lei Liang 梁雷 - Memories of Xiaoxiang 瀟湘的回憶

Alto Saxophone - Aiwen Zhang
Xiaoxiang refers to the region in Hunan Province, China where the rivers Xiao and Xiang intersect. A tragic event took place in that region during the Chinese Cultural Revolution: a woman’s husband was killed by a local official. Without the means to seek justice, she decided to take revenge on the official by wailing like a ghost in the forest behind the official’s residence every evening. Months later, both the official and herself went insane. My friend, the Chinese composer Mo Wu-ping (1958-1993) once planned to compose an opera based on this story. However, he only finished the overture before he died of cancer at age 34. I composed Peking Opera Soliloquy for alto saxophone in his memory in 1994. In the summer of 2002, I met with his family in Beijing and heard more descriptions of his unfinished project. The story still deeply disturbs me, as I continue to be moved by the power of his soul. I decided to revisit pieces of these memories in this project for electronics and saxophone. In this piece, I use some of the materials from my earlier saxophone composition, Mo Wu-ping’s singing, as well as materials related to that part of the region (including field recordings of the Yao minority people and excerpts from the ancient Chinese zither composition Water and Mist over Xiaoxiang). It is the woman’s search for her husband, my friend Mo Wu-ping’s search for her, and my search for him---we are all searching for memories of realities, fragments of truths in this broken, fractured, and scattered soundscape.
- Lei Liang
Liang begins his song by imitating a woman’s sad wailings, as described in his story. (Figure 10) The pitches for the mouthpiece-only playing are written out specifically since this technique is not used simply as an effect but is an imitation of singing in the style of Chinese opera. This style of singing takes advantage of the tonal style of the Chinese language: “The exclamation style, yunbai, is a beautiful example of how the intonation of Chinese language can be elevated into a form of singing. The tonal contours of the language itself can be treated as melodies.”22 The saxophone uses this style without words. In the story, the woman begins to wail because she herself is not allowed to articulate in words. It was as if her tongue was cut off by the injustice of that social system. Separating the mouthpiece from the horn symbolizes the cutting off of her tongue. Its meaning also extends to the injustice done to her and many other people during the Cultural Revolution
- Gao Xing

[@pbob3]

freaking amazing, love it!

[@jonasdanielseneskeland3001]

Fantastic playing, and incredible filming and video!! I wish you wrote more about where the film snippets are from, to full out like the good legend of this piece.

[@andref3419]

Allowing myself to comment once more 😊. The video really illustrates, visualizes the music, something I personally really like a lot here. A quite clever way to offer access to contemporary music, here inspired by Chinese classical compositions, as I believe. Wonderful performance and impressive video direction.

[@Valentinkmusic]

Thank you so much for your great feedback!

[@marinakovaleva2940]

Вау!!!! Как же это круто!!! Айвен, браво!!! Умница, красавица!!! 🙏💖👏👏👏Сьемка шедевральная!!!!Спасибо вам🙏❤️

[@Valentinkmusic]

Спасибо!!!❤️❤️❤️

[@judylam8145]

👏👏

[@Valentinkmusic]

Thank you!