Ge Gan-ru - Present Music

Ge Gan-ru (1954)
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong! (2006)
Ge Gan-ru
Born in Shanghai in 1954, Ge studied violin when he was very young. At 17, he was sent to a labor camp to
receive “re-education” during the Cultural Revolution. When he was 20, he was admitted by Shanghai
Conservatory of Music where he studied both violin and composition. After graduation in 1981, Ge was
appointed assistant professor of composition at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.
Ge Gan-ru, has been described as China’s first avant-garde composer though contemporary and avant-garde
techniques which were prohibited at the time. He is often regarded as one of the most original composers of his
generation with music that is immediately identifiable for its individualism and unique sound.
In 1983, Ge became the first Chinese composer to be invited to study at Columbia University in New York
where he obtained a doctoral degree in composition. Ge has since been living and working in New York.
Source: www.geganru.com
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!
Ge Gan-ru, described in the New Grove Dictionary as ‘China’s first avant-garde composer’, came to the USA in
1983 where he established a reputation for writing music marked by an immediately recognizable individualism
and a unique sound. His latest CD, Fall of Baghdad (Naxos), was chosen as one of the best recordings of 2009
by The New York Times.
Since 1985, Ge Gan-ru has composed for me Gu Yue (Ancient Music), inspired by traditional Chinese
instruments and an unusual piano concerto, Wu (Rising to the Heights). Two decades later he has created
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!, a Peking opera-inspired melodrama for my voice self-accompanied by a toy orchestra
of 16 instruments.
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong! is a poem of sorrow and anguish by the illustrious Song dynasty poet, Lu You (11251210). This renowned poem was written spontaneously on a wall of the Sun garden in 1155 following a chance
encounter with his cousin and former wife Tang Wan, whom he was made to divorce on the decree of his
tyrannical mother. (The “malevolent East Wind” in the first stanza is but a caustic metaphor for the hateful
matriarch!) The girl wasted away from a broken heart while Lu You composed poems of loss and abiding love
into his autumnal years. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong! speaks of her grief while clearly reflecting the torment of the
poet himself.
From my toy arsenal Ge chose the toy piano, a toy table harp (which he could treat as a toy qin or zither), toy
glockenspiel, and a percussion battery consisting of two claves, three cup gongs, one beaded gourd rattle, a
pitched plastic hammer and a Japanese toy taiko drum. The hammer, plastic flute, and a paper accordion
endowed with a two-note compass each cost one dollar in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Electronic frog and cricket
boxes, along with a water warbler, completed the ensemble.
Given the limitations and idiosyncrasies of my untrained voice, Gan-ru allowed me free rein to experiment. In
offering my own personal take on the Chinese operatic tradition I do not claim authenticity, but I have tried to
capture something of the nasal timbre and melismatic flights of fancy so characteristic of the woman's singing
as well as the peculiar guttural texture of the declamatory male voice.
Excerpted from notes for Lost Style (NA134), courtesy of New Albion Records ©2006.
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! (1155 AD)
by Lu You
Hong su shou,
Her hand rosy, tender,
Huang teng jiu,
Man cheng chun se
Gong qiang liu.
Dong feng e,
Huan qing bo.
Yi huai chou xu,
Ji nian li suo.
Cuo, Cuo, Cuo!
Pours the yellow t’eng wine,
Spring hues adorn the city,
Willows embrace garden walls.
The East Wind malevolent,
Conjugal bliss evanescent.
A heart sorrow-laden,
Cruel years steeped in loneliness asunder.
Oh, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!
Chun ru jiu,
Ren kong shou,
Lei hen hong yi
Jiao xiao tou.
Tao hua luo,
Xian chi ge.
Shan meng sui zai,
Jin shu nan tuo.
Mo, Mo, Mo!
Spring as in days of yore,
So wan and wasted is she,
Rivulets of tears
Drench her pink kerchief.
Peach blossoms falling,
Stillness pervades pond and pavilion.
Vows immutable as mountains,
Yet how futile a lovelorn epistle.
Ah, Woe, Woe, Woe!
Translation by Margaret Leng Tan and Wan-he Ge
Source: www.geganru.com