Instrumentation: 4-part unaccompanied female chorus (S.S.A.A. div.) and glasses

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Duration: ca. 6'

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Lyricist: Chi-mo Xu（徐志摩）

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Language: Mandarin Chinese

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Composition Date: 2020.01

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Première Date: TBC

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Première Artists: TBC

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Other Version(s): For 4-part unaccompanied male chorus (T.T.B.B. div.) and glasses

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Remark: Commissioned by St. Paul's Co-educational College Treble Choir (Girls)

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Score Preview: The work is free from the original 3-year exclusive premiére right of commissioner. Please contact composer for details.

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Text in Original Language:

輕輕的我走了，

正如我輕輕的來；

我輕輕的招手，

作別西天的雲彩。

 

那河畔的金柳，

是夕陽中的新娘;

波光裡的艷影，

在我的心頭蕩漾。  

 

軟泥上的青荇，

油油的在水底招搖；

在康河的柔波裡，

我甘心做一條水草！

 

那榆蔭下的一潭，

不是清泉，是天上虹。

揉碎在浮藻間，

沉澱著彩虹似的夢。

 

尋夢？撐一支長篙，

向青草更青處漫溯， 

滿載一船星輝， 

在星輝斑斕裡放歌。   

 

但我不能放歌， 

悄悄是別離的笙簫； 

夏蟲也為我沉默， 

沉默是今晚的康橋。   

 

悄悄的我走了， 

正如我悄悄的來； 

我揮一揮衣袖， 

不帶走一片雲彩。 

 

Programme Notes:

Quietly now I leave the Cam,   

As quietly as I came.   

Gently wave farewell the clouded   

Western sky aflame—   

 

There the golden willow stands   

a bride of sunset’s glow.   

How its dancing ripples glint   

and stir my heart below;   

 

crowded rushes wave in water  

bouncing with the weed  

flowing slick by soft-soil’d banks—  

I long to thus proceed!   

 

Duckweed-crumpled rainbow’s pool   

of iridescent dream   

pure as springs ’neath elmtree’s bough—   

O search the shrouded stream;      

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Punt toward the yonder whence   

the emerald fields lie;   

Return with joyous song engulfed   

by tranquil starlit sky.   

 

But as for me, I cannot sing   

this muted summer’s evening;   

Even insects hush, as silence   

plays the flute for leaving.   

 

Stealth’ly now I part from Cam,   

As bid farewell I must.   

Waving sleeve so gently lest   

a cloudspeck I should dust.   

 

A rhyming sense-for-sense translation by Silas S. Brown (2010)

 

Second Farewell to Cambridge is a choral work based on the modern Chinese poem by Chi-mo Xu. The poem is written in 1928, after poet’s third visit to Cambridge in the same year and his first poetic dedication to Cambridge in 1922. It is filled with longing for Cambridge and romantic English poetry. And it paints an idyllic portrait of King’s and the River Cam. 

 

This choral setting is the composer’s dedication to his impressions on England, as well as his tribute to versatile poet. Through colourful harmony and diversified texture, the aesthetic and impressionistic styles of the poem form the musical language and subtlety of this work. In particular, the composer pays special attention to set different duration length of notes in few constantly altered sets of choral parts. Such approach shapes and utilises the initial and final of different Chinese characters in choral textural writings with varied layering.