A War Poem for the Lost Homeland

滿江紅．寫懷, 2018

for SATB Chorus and Piano

//video coming soon~
performed by The Greeners’ Sound and Emas Au

A War Poem for the Lost Homeland
Yue Fei (1103-1142)

Anger makes me bristle
with my cap raised;
I lean on the rail,
watching the rain cease.

Lifting my eyes,
I cry towards the sky;
Emotions burn
in my heart without ease.

The merits or fame I have achieved at thirty
are nothing more than dust;
Battling eight thousand miles under clouds and the moon,
bear the hardships I must.

Never tarry or wait!
When the youthful head
has turned white, Bitter regrets
will come too late.

What a shameful defeat of Jingkang!
We have yet to avenge the humiliation. So deep is the national hatred!
When can we bring it to the final cessation?

We are to ride long chariots
for certain,
And to trample down
the Helan Mountain.

In hunger,
we are fully determined to feast on the flesh of the Tartars;
In laughter and chatter,
we will quench our thirst with the blood of the invaders.

Let us start all over again,
And vow to recover
the mountains and rivers of our country;
By then, to the Royal Court
we shall return in glorious victory.

A War Poem for the Lost Homeland was a well-acclaimed masterpiece written by Yue Fei, which is believed to be completed when he was forced to retreat from a seemingly advantageous battle. In this poem, Yue expressed his resentment from witnessing his homeland being invaded and kept a steadfast mind to conquer the enemy.

The music setting of the poem depicts Yue’s changing emotions in contrasting texture, harmony, tempo and other musical elements. The piece is woven in various intricate rhythm pattern in phrases like “Anger makes me bristle with my cap raised”, “We have yet to avenge the humiliation” and “When can we bring it to the final cessation?”, featuring the overwhelmingly intense and impassionately moving atmosphere of the poem.

《滿江紅．寫懷》
岳飛 (1103-1142)

怒髮衝冠，憑闌處，瀟瀟雨歇。
抬望眼，仰天長嘯，壯懷激烈。
三十功名塵與土，八千里路雲和月。
莫等閒，白了少年頭，空悲切。

靖康恥，猶未雪；
臣子恨，何時滅。
駕長車踏破賀蘭山缺。
壯志饑餐胡虜肉，笑談渴飲匈奴血。
待從頭，收拾舊山河，朝天闕。

《滿江紅．寫懷》是岳飛的傳世名作，相傳寫於岳飛被迫班師回京的途中。當時南軍與金兵的戰事稍有起色，岳飛卻收到以十二道金牌遞發的班師詔。岳飛藉詞抒發對金人入侵的憤慨、國恥未雪的痛惜和收復山河的決心。

音樂上，樂曲以織體厚薄、和聲明暗、速度緩急等創作手法描寫岳飛所抒的不同情。詞中「怒髮衝冠」、「猶未雪」、「何時滅」更以各種複雜的節奏形態貫穿全首樂曲，以表達詞中氣勢磅礡、令人慷慨激昂的氣氛。