Water Dragon Tune excerpts is from an ongoing collection of Chinese poems set to music by L. Mark Armanini. The power of these ancient poems is in the common but intimate experiences being shared between the time they were written (347 -1200 AD), and the present. This work fuses together erhu and harp with the spoken word. The power and majesty of nature is expressed in the ancient Chinese poetry and forms a common experience with the present time. Vancouver's beautiful and abundant landscape and Chinese ancient poetry's love of nature is the collective experience that infuses this work. Water Dragon Tune is Imagistic Music : poetry and music combining to create an imaginative virtual world consisting of past and present. Imagistic Music emerges through the mixing of three elements:
1.The narrator personifies the poet speaking to us in the present, but travelling across the ages with time tested wisdom and a message from the past
2.The erhu is the poets shadow, expressing wordless passion, animating and relaying intimate unspoken thoughts, bringing to life feelings from deep within the poem.
3.The harp is the moving landscape, through which the poet walks and which goes hand in hand with the atmosphere the erhu inhabits. Sparkling shards of light, deep earthy bass tones compliment and support the harps large musical space and sonic presence. Harp, in partnership with the erhu, frames the poem and creates the feeling of movement through time, as if listening directly to the poets, speaking to us using their own words.
鹿 柴
王 维 (701 - 761)
空 山 不 见 人，
但 闻 人 语 响。
返 景 入 深 林，
复 照 青 苔 上。
Deer Park
Wang Wei (701 - 761)
Empty mountains, no one seen,
and yet you do hear voice-like sounds
Setting sunlight penetrates the wood
and shines upon moss-covered grounds.
饮 酒
陶 渊 明 (365-427)
结庐在人境，
而无车马喧
问君何能尔，
心远地自偏。
采菊东篱下，
悠然见南山。
山气日夕佳，
飞鸟相与还
此中有真意.
欲辨已忘言。  
Drinking
Tao Yuanming (365-427)
I made my home within the human world,
but without the raucous traffic din
How is this possible, you say?
The reclusive heart feels far away
I pick chrysanthemums by the eastern fence
gaze at South Mountain, far away
Mountain mists are lovely late in the da
and flying home together there are birds
There's something meaningful in all this,
which I would share, if I could find the words.
Background :New York Metropolitan Museum:
Chinese philosophy quote: In no other cultural tradition has nature played a more important role in the arts than in that of China.. In the Chinese imagination, mountains were also imbued since ancient times with sacred power as manifestations of nature’s vital energy (qi). They not only attracted the rain clouds that watered the farmer’s crops, they also concealed medicinal herbs, magical fruits, and alchemical minerals that held the promise of longevity. Mountains pierced by caves and grottoes were viewed as gateways to other realms-”cave heavens” (dongtian) leading to Daoist paradises where aging is arrested and inhabitants live in harmony. From the early centuries of the Common Era, men wandered in the mountains not only in quest of immortality but to purify the spirit and find renewal. Daoist and Buddhist holy men gravitated to sacred mountains to build meditation huts and establish temples. They were followed by pilgrims, travelers, and sightseers: poets who celebrated nature’s beauty, city dwellers who built country estates to escape the dust and pestilence of crowded urban centers, and, during periods of political turmoil, officials and courtiers who retreated to the mountains as places of refuge.
New York Metropolitan Museum