Leaving for the Frontier

Instrumentation: TTBB Chorus & Piano
Duration: 4 minutes
Year: 2023

Program Notes

Commissioned by Erick Lichte and Chor Leoni for the C/4 Canadian Composers Competition, Leaving for the Frontier is a choral setting of the Chinese poem by the renowned Tang-dynasty poet Du Fu (712-770 AD). The poem – in the standard five-character-quatrain structure – is the first in a series of nine poems about soldiers going to the frontier to fight for the emperor. It expresses the sorrow and bitterness of soldiers who leave their families behind to fight and questions the seemingly insatiable desire of the emperor to expand his empire at all costs. Repeated syllables such as “qi”, “yi” and “fu” are used in a clever word play, emphasizing the feeling of anger that is prevalent.

The piece is to be sung in mandarin and the score includes the pinyin pronunciation for each character. When sung, the tones normally associated with each character is secondary to the pitch and dynamic of the phrase.

Original Poem in Chinese

前出塞九首
其一

戚戚去故里，悠悠赴交河。
公家有程期，亡命婴祸罗。
君已富土境，开边一何多。
弃绝父母恩，吞声行负戈。

Score

Currently under exclusivity until 2025.

Score Sample