Chapter 1559 - The Folk Orchestra
Inside Lingao's county seat, within the "Arts Compound" where the Central Experimental Art Troupe and the Pleated Skirt Club had been quarreling, the atmosphere was electric. Passersby on the street outside could hear the sounds of instruments and singing even through the high walls. Smartly attired young people in Australian dress came and went constantly from the compound gate—most of them young women.
For the upcoming Campus Cultural Festival—a grand occasion for promoting "new culture"—all the newly established arts organizations under the Yuan Laoyuan had been rehearsing intensively for the past month.
There were only four such organizations in all of Lingao, including the amateur ones. First was the all-encompassing Central Experimental Art Troupe, directly under the Propaganda Department, with over a dozen subsidiary company nameplates already prepared. Then came the privately sponsored Pleated Skirt Club. Finally, there were the student amateur arts troupes at the Women's Arts and Sciences Academy and Fangcaodi.
The two school troupes, being amateur, stood somewhat aloof. But the other two groups were competing fiercely to distinguish themselves at the festival. Whoever captured more favor in the transmigrators' eyes over the three-day performance would gain the upper hand in future resource battles.
Inside the compound's orchestra rehearsal hall, a practice session was drawing to a close. As the final note sounded, the weary musicians began shifting in their folding chairs, stretching sore muscles.
This was the Central Experimental Art Troupe's first performing ensemble: the Central Experimental Folk Orchestra. Though Okamoto Shin had ambitious dreams of mounting light operettas, reality had defeated him—at present, he could not even assemble an orchestra to accompany one. He had no choice but to follow Dongfang Ke's suggestion and start with the folk orchestra, which had a better foundation. Compared to the Western orchestra, which had virtually no instruments or musicians, the traditional Chinese orchestra had both.
Most modern Chinese folk instruments already existed in this era—and even those that had not yet appeared or were still in primitive form could easily be reproduced once instrument-makers were shown the relevant materials. Procuring instruments was practically effortless.
Musicians, on the other hand, were another matter. Talented performers could be recruited from among the refugees, but the playing style of a modern folk orchestra differed from traditional silk-and-bamboo ensembles. Moreover, the old musicians had learned by oral transmission; few could even read gongche notation, let alone grasp music theory or concepts like sections and registers.
"How was it? This rehearsal went all right, didn't it?" Okamoto Shin asked anxiously as Nangong Hao stepped down from the conductor's podium.
Nangong Hao was in his mid-thirties, wearing a white mandarin-collar shirt and faded jeans. His hair was not long, but he had an artistic air about him. As the Yuan Laoyuan's professional composer and arranger, he was a key creative talent in the troupe, alongside Liu Shuixin—and a figure the Pleated Skirt Club was desperately trying to recruit. After hours of continuous rehearsal, his forehead was slick with sweat.
He took the towel offered by a maidservant, wiped his face, and relaxed his brow. "Much better than a few days ago. The low-register players still need work, though. They'll need more time to adjust."
Traditional Chinese folk instruments were dominated by high and mid-range tones and lacked bass instruments. The modern folk orchestra borrowed from Western configurations, dividing into wind, plucked, percussion, and bowed families, each with high, mid, and low registers. The bass instruments—bass sheng, bass suona, gehu, and so on—were modern inventions. In the Ming Dynasty, not only was there no one who could play them, no one had even seen them.
Fortunately, the basic playing techniques were similar to their counterparts. Any musician who had mastered a related instrument could learn these quickly.
"That's a relief," Okamoto Shin said, still worried. "When I heard the first ensemble run-through, I nearly lost control of my bladder. I've heard them play together before, and it wasn't this bad…"
Nangong Hao smiled. "What you heard before was traditional silk-and-bamboo ensemble playing—single melodic lines with ornamental variations, forming heterophonic polyphony. Now I'm asking them to play their parts from independent scores. And they're accustomed to pentatonic scales, occasionally heptatonic—the tuning system differs from Western music. The modern folk orchestra is based on the Western twelve-tone equal temperament. No wonder they struggled."
"I had no idea the folk orchestra was so complicated. I thought we could just gather the musicians and run a few rehearsals."
"We could do that too." Nangong Hao examined his handwritten score, making a few pencil corrections. "But then it wouldn't be a folk orchestra—just a traditional silk-and-bamboo ensemble. It certainly wouldn't achieve the effect you want. Besides, what we have now is at best a folk band; we're nowhere near a full orchestra."
Including trainees and amateur players, the rehearsal hall held only thirty musicians—a band at most. A proper, fully staffed folk orchestra required at least sixty performers.
"A journey of a thousand li begins with a single step. We'll take it slow. Is this level good enough for the cultural festival?" That was still Okamoto Shin's chief concern.
"Not good enough to fool the transmigrators, but it should be fine for naturalized citizens and natives." Nangong Hao said, "Being able to play at all is an achievement. The folk orchestra may be called 'folk music,' but it has a lot of Western elements. Except for the instruments, it's really played according to Western music theory. Overall, it's a hybrid of Chinese and Western music. These purely Chinese-trained musicians find it hard to adapt."
"Chief, please have some tea."
As they spoke, a naturalized-citizen woman in her thirties brought over a teacup. She was of modest height and unremarkable appearance; beneath her dress, a pair of "liberated feet" were visible. Yet her manner and expression exuded a certain allure.
"Thanks." Nangong Hao accepted the cup. He did not care for this woman called Liu Yisi. Her pipa, zheng, xiao, and dizi playing were all superb, but she had a constant air of coquetry that made him uncomfortable—she reeked of the demimonde. He suspected that, besides having been the head of a theatrical troupe, Liu Yisi had probably once been a courtesan in the imperial pleasure quarters.
The problem was that Liu Yisi was the mother of Liu Siyu, one of the orchestra's musicians, and the "foster mother" of Zhao Jinghan. Several of the troupe's young women were her disciples—they all called her "Shifu."
In other words, roughly a third of the orchestra's musicians had trained under her. In terms of the number of instruments she could play and her skill level, she was second to none in the troupe, serving almost as a secondary instructor. Moreover, Liu Siyu was a student at the Women's Arts and Sciences Academy, and Zhao Jinghan was Elder Zhu Mingxia's personal secretary. All of this combined to make Liu Yisi rather haughty in front of the orchestra's other naturalized-citizen musicians.
Seeing that the Chief showed her no favor, Liu Yisi felt a twinge of disappointment. She was an old hand at the pleasure quarters, adept at reading faces. When Nangong Hao set down his teacup, she quickly retrieved it and withdrew.
Nangong Hao picked up his baton and tapped the music stand. "All right, let's run through The Charm of Youth once more. You should all be very familiar with this piece by now. Pay attention to the rhythm. Bring out that youthful, spirited atmosphere."
The folk orchestra's musicians could not read staff notation, of course—much less understand Nangong Hao's conducting. His gestures were purely to give them a sense of the new performance style.
Rehearsal continued for another hour. As the light began to fade, Nangong Hao announced the end of the group session. But this only applied to the ensemble; the musicians would continue with individual practice after supper, and several would receive intensive private coaching.
As for Nangong Hao himself, he had more important work—arranging the music for the festival performances. Conditions here differed from the other timeline; everything had to be adapted.
Wang Qisuo stood up and carefully cleaned his flute before placing it in its dedicated wooden case. After sitting in the folding chair almost all day, his back and waist ached. Being a soldier in the Security Battalion while also serving as a "musician" here was exhausting. Though his patrol duties this month had been cut to a third of normal, spending every day cooped up blowing a flute was hardly a pleasant duty.
Why did I ever bother showing off my flute-playing? Now I have to come here every day for rehearsal. What a waste…
He was only a part-time "cultural activist," and he had patrol duty tomorrow morning, so he did not need to stay for extra lessons. After returning the flute, he went to the changing room, put on his uniform, stretched luxuriously, and hurried out of the compound. If he caught the light rail now, he could still make it back in time for supper at the mess hall—the meal stipend the orchestra gave him could be saved…
Just as he was about to leave, the gatekeeper called out, "Qisuo! You have a letter!"
"A letter?" Wang Qisuo was surprised. His correspondence address was his barracks, not here.
"A soldier delivered it personally. He said to make sure I gave it to you before supper."
Wang Qisuo thanked the gatekeeper. The letter bore no stamp—it had been hand-delivered. He tore open the envelope. Inside was a single thin sheet of plum-red paper: an invitation to a family banquet.
The host was Huang Ande. To celebrate his "housewarming," he was hosting a dinner at his new residence tonight. Ever since the end of Operation Engine, Huang Ande had not only been decorated and promoted but also selected for a six-month training course at the General Staff Tactical Class—he was clearly a rising star in the Fubo Army. Naturally, a group of brothers had gathered around him. Although Wang Qisuo had not served in the old Security Regiment or been among the old comrades at Penglai, he had fought under Lu Wenyuan's command and had gone on reconnaissance patrols with Huang Ande—they had been through life and death together. They kept in touch.
(End of Chapter)