The Land of Luocha - Chapter of the Mountains (Live)

From innovative vocal group Shanghai Rainbow Chamber Singers and conductor Jin Chengzhi comes a stirring musical odyssey into an eerie world of fantasy and the subconscious. Set in southern China in the 1920s, the oratorio The Land of Luocha - Chapter of the Mountains continues the story of protagonist Gu Yuanshan introduced on A Trip to the White Horse Village. Jin, who composed the music and wrote the text, draws on classical stories, and infuses the piece with the language and culture of his hometown of Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. Recorded live, traditional Chinese instruments and musical modes mix freely with Western classical orchestration, while the potent choir embodies moods ranging from menacing doom to joyous celebration—not to mention the wit and humour that is their calling card. “The heart of Chapter of the Mountains can be summed up in the dedication that opens the performance—‘To all dream-makers’,” producer Xu Shiyu tells Apple Music. Below, Xu, Jin and sound engineer Huang Peng share some of the stories behind the making of this album. Where does this oratorio fit into the overall Gu Yuanshan story? Xu Shiyu: “The concept of a Gu Yuanshan series gradually took shape after the completion of A Trip to the White Horse Village. As a frustrated youth, the character is to a certain extent a portrait of the composer—but his true significance lies in the fact that both character and writer have a background in Wenzhou. When the opening piece of Luocha, ‘Breaking the Waves’, was completed in 2019, the composer went on to add first-person narrative elements to 2015’s ‘Collection Zeya’, which unified the three pieces through Gu’s character. These Chinese-style choral works set in the Republican era using the geography of Zhejiang and Jiangsu share a connection to Jin Chengzhi’s own childhood in Wenzhou. “The story proceeds in three narrative threads: Gu Yuanshan’s past, the world of his subconscious and the events taking place on Luocha Island. These plots are woven throughout the five movements. Once Gu drinks the Water Without Origin and the fruit wine and falls asleep, he will leave the real world of the island and enter a world of dreams and the subconscious, to explore the secrets hidden in the depths of his mind.” What does the work draw from Wenzhou culture? Xu Shiyu: “Gu Yuanshan’s great-grandfather He Chongguang was from Wenzhou, where he was lynched by locals for cutting off his queue. His wife, Gu’s great-grandmother, drowned herself in a well. Their orphaned son was then adopted by the neighbouring Gu family and took their name. Gu’s father later moved to Quanzhou, Jiangsu province, with a woman from the Ye family of Wenzhou. So Gu was born in Quanzhou but is a Wenzhou man by heritage. “In addition to the local language, the work also incorporates aspects of Wenzhou culture like dragon boat racing, welcoming the Buddha and venerating spirits before going out to sea. These elements appear in both this work and White Horse Village.” Is there a particular significance to the legends that are used in this piece? Xu Shiyu: “Gu Yuanshan’s era is one of dramatic transformation. With the past being abandoned and the future yet uncertain, the big question he faces—the one he’s always seeking an answer for—is what to do in the present day. The start of the album finds him hard hit by failure in Shanghai’s newspaper trade. Planning to return home and go into business, he’s pulled into a treasure hunt. True, the Land of the Luocha may be but a dream—but for this trapped young man, it is a reality that gives rise to abstract images from the subconscious, like ‘Chant for the Black Ox’. The lost ox and the vanished man are both manifestations of Gu’s unsettled mental state. As for what answer he might find, you can check out ‘Extra Story: The Dinner’ from White Horse Village, which takes place several decades later.” How would you suggest a listener go about getting the most out of this album? Xu Shiyu: “Like our live performances, the album proceeds in plot order. All text—including three family letters—appears in the lyrics scroll. If that’s too cumbersome a way to experience the piece as a complete story, videos of our live performance are also available, where we’ve attempted to capture the concert-hall experience as closely as possible. I should add that this oratorio isn’t just accompaniment or ‘background music’ to the story. The music itself tells a story and conveys emotions and feelings. The text even seems more like a footnote to the music at times. Feeling those emotions from the music without the burden of the text may let your imagination go beyond the confines of the story.” How do you achieve the group’s characteristic blend of humour and emotional heft? Xu Shiyu: “The work has humour and absurdity, magic and grandeur, softness and elegance. SRCS has always maintained that music needs to serve the story and emotions, so as a result, a single work can be a blend of various styles. Here, the humorous parts often work to regulate the plot and are usually initiated by the second lead, Zhuge Hongtu, or the five rakshasas. Carefree dialogue and lyrics are an expression of the writer’s personality. “During rehearsals, Jin Chengzhi and orchestration director Wu Jingwei would often give musicians feedback like, ‘Your tone is too good. Can you make it rougher and less pleasant?’ At those times, they were trying to bring to life the story’s wild, absurd and humorous scenes. The chorus employs more than just a traditional choral tone—in some sections, they incorporate a more natural folk style. It’s all in the service of musicality and storytelling.” What does Spatial Audio bring to this live album? Sound engineer Huang Peng: “With Spatial Audio technology, the edges of the stage disappear. Where most live albums have spatial and positional limitations for the audience and the stage, here, every instrument can have its own position in space. Near and far, orchestra and chorus, folk instruments and percussion, low register and high, direct sound and reflected sound—the point of origin for all these spatial coordinates is the listener. And the listener is no longer seated in the gallery but is on stage, helping bring the piece to life alongside the conductor, performers and musicians.” Below, Huang Peng and Jin Chengzhi recommend a few selected tracks from the album. “Breaking the Waves” Huang: “The piece opens with powerfully ominous unaccompanied women’s voices. Thanks to Spatial Audio technology, the position and layering of the chorus comes out clearly. They envelop the audience from a distance, and every note reverberates with a natural fullness.” “In the Mountain Lives an Old Immortal” Jin: “The piece as a whole is fairly austere, so by the third movement, I feel like we need something to ease the pain. So here we have a piece with a perspective unlike that of the main storyline. It could be a story that mother used to tell us at bedtime, or a myth we read in a children’s book. Structurally, it’s a slow, continually repeated melody that gradually introduces the whole ensemble. I didn’t write it using Western harmonic concepts—it has no harmony, but is richly textured. Ultimately, I pictured blue smoke swirling upward into clouds and a white-haired, young-faced old man ascending to immortality.” “Song of the Three-Eyed Fisher (II)” Huang: “The standout here is the female voice at the end announcing ‘Sunset! Feast!’ An immersive microphone array and Spatial Audio technology lets her precisely positioned voice ring out clear, followed by stirring Chinese drums that sound even more magnificent thanks to a bass effects channel.” Jin: “This is one of my favourites. I usually work quickly, but for this one, I went through a dozen revisions of the lyrics. I got stuck for a week. It’s a piece with immense power, one that sets the stage for the coming battle (‘Song of the Shadow’).” “Song of the Shadow” Huang: “In this piece, Gu Yuanshan leaps back and forth between reality and the subconscious as various characters speak. The important people in his life become his power to overcome difficulty. Static or in motion, the voices of characters who exist in reality are positioned on the ear’s horizontal plane, while the figments of his imagination are positioned above or revolving around him. It makes for a listening experience entirely unlike that of a concert-hall audience listening to amplified voices. Spatial Audio further embellishes the musical expression.” Jin: “This is a fusion and recapitulation of all of the piece’s painful elements. In the previous 20 songs, I strengthened the mood of fear and pain through continual repetition. ‘The Fire Sacrifice’, for example, expresses the indifference and inhumanity of the old society, so I used the sheng to represent flickering fire and the scraping of the pipa to convey weeping or mental fear. Or take the repetitive rhythm of the dance portion of ‘Hunting Dance’, in which I was influenced by the minimalists. In ‘Song of the Shadow’, I combine all of these elements to represent the pain of Gu Yuanshan’s subconscious, triggered by the Land of Luocha and brought to an extreme in this song.”