Night Thoughts

Nights Thoughts, by Li Bai of the Tang Dynasty, has traversed time and space for its existence of over a thousand years. One of its translated versions, by Arthur Cooper, runs:

     " Before my bed

      There is bright moonlight,

      So that it seems

      Like frost on the ground.

      Lift my head,

      I watch the bright moon,

      Lowering my head,

      I dream that I'm home."

      Night Thoughts, music for the sheng solo, thus conjures up not only the everlasting feelings of longing for home, but also the sound from Tang - a prosperous dynasty. Or, should it be the melancholy from a night of bright moon and cool breezes too?

      Lu Ji, president of the Musicians' Association in China, after listening to the performance of Lei Jian Gong(one of the composers) on this piece, was moved to write that: " It is totally refreshed music from the sheng, after ten years of cultivation. The sound is crystal clear, and the sentiment is utterly truthful." 

      Perhaps one should be reminded that the sheng is an ancient instrument mentioned in the three-thousand-year-old Shi Jing, the Book of Poems. Night Thoughts, rendered by the sheng, is fittingly a piece of lament in the heart of the forlorn travellers.

Composed by Xiao Jiang, Lei Jian Gong