Cantonese Operatic Songs – Moving with the Times
Chow Fan-fu
As the title of the concert ‘The Trials of Love – A Night of Cantonese Operatic Songs with Lin Yingshi’ suggests, the headliner is obviously the rising Cantonese opera star Lin. That said, even the artiste herself would not disagree that the real highlights of the show are the Cantonese operatic songs, for, without them, there would be no Lin Yingshi in this concert.
Immense scope for contemporising
Popular in the South China region, Cantonese operatic songs (also called ‘Cantonese sung music’) (yuequ) has its roots in the vocal performances with repertoires taken from Cantonese operas (yueju), which in turn originated from bayin (‘eight sounds’) ensembles of the mid-Qing era. At the time, such ensembles consisted of eight musicians, as performing venues sometimes offered only limited space, and demand for opera troupe shows outstripped availability. These ‘eight-sound groups’, formed whenever there were invitations to perform, sang largely in the pihuang vocal style. As such, they were also referred to as xiqin ensembles. Subsequently, the bayin ensemble developed and grew to consist of twenty-four pieces, and became known as dabayin (‘large eight sounds’) ensembles. In addition, groups where members simultaneously played instruments and sang an entire opera were called changbayin (‘singing eight sounds’) ensembles.
During the Qing Dynasty, when Cantonese opera was pared down to narrative singing performances, the field was dominated by blind female singers. In the early days of the Chinese Republic (early 20th century), Cantonese opera began to take on new looks, a modernized form of Cantonese sung music appeared, with female artistes emerging on the sing-song stage. The yuequ and yueju genres cross-fertilized, feeding off each other, and gained much popularity in the 1930s and 40s. The rapid growth of the recording industry also created a sharp demand for new vocal styles and new content. Cantonese sung music morphed from solo singing to ensemble performances, and saw a consolidation of the many musical styles and traditions of the South China region. They included yueou (Cantonese ballads), longzhouge (‘dragon boat songs’), muyuge (‘wooden fish songs’), nanyin (Southern tunes), Cantonese music, dadiao (‘major melodies’) and xiaodiao (‘minor melodies’).
In the past, teahouses, tea shops and herbal tea shops in Foshan, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macao were popular venues for performances of Cantonese sung music. During the 1930s and 40s, there were no less than 30 or 40 teahouses in Hong Kong which offered evening sessions. The boom led to the rise of outstanding professionals in the field, such as vocalists, composers etc.
In its development as a folk performing art, yuequ has for the past century always shown immense scope to keep pace with the times. For almost fifty years, Mandarin pop songs, pop songs, folk songs from all over the world, and even American and Western pop, jazz and songs from movie soundtracks, had been a huge source of melodic content for ‘borrowing’ and were incorporated into Cantonese tunes in the yuequ genre. The lyrics were diverse, as they could feature traditional and contemporary stories, with themes taken from Buddhist scriptures as well as Christian gospels. Thus, it can be said that Cantonese operatic songs have indeed moved with the times, and the field has developed a completely different outlook nowadays.
More than mere accompaniment
The concert programme covers some instrumental pieces such as The Prelude of Dagger Society and The Dragon Boat Race, performed by the HKCO. But other than these, the rest of the programme features Lin Yingshi on vocals, accompanied by the Orchestra. The twelve sung pieces are made up of traditional arias and sung music from Cantonese operas, ancient tunes, set tunes, folk songs, pop music, as well as the title piece Trials of Love for which Lin Yingshi wrote the lyrics, set to the melody taken from the renowned Butterfly Lovers violin concerto by He Zhanhao and Chen Gang. This broad spectrum underscores the scope and versatility of yuequ. Yet, the one unifying commonality throughout the concert is that all the pieces are performed in combination with a full-size Chinese orchestra.
In addition to considering the impact of origin on yuequ’s development, the instruments providing rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment have also kept pace with changes in music trends. Western musical instruments have long been used to accompany Cantonese operatic arias. Likewise, full-size Chinese orchestras performing in combination with Cantonese operas is not something new either. Take Wang Zhaojun Going Beyond the Frontier in this concert as a case in point. Arranged by Kuan Nai-chung years ago, the piece is now part of HKCO’s stock repertoire. Nevertheless, the other songs in the programme are all newly arranged for performance with a large Chinese orchestra, and illustrates what may be deemed the contemporary 21st century look of yuequ.
A major characteristic of a large Chinese orchestra is its rich expressive power accorded by the instrumentation. So, when performing in conjunction with yuequ, it not only provides the accompaniment but also highlights the song’s content and therefore lends intensity to a performance. The combination of vocals by a solo singer and an orchestral backing can often add emotional depth, a stimulant that makes all the difference in Cantonese sung music.
