Season opener: Art Songs in Mandarin and Cantonese with Stephen Ng, tenor
By Stephen Ng
This program is my first ever attempt to sing an all-Chinese recital. It consists of art songs written from the 1920s and beyond, in Mandarin and Cantonese.
My pianist, Ting Ting Wong, and I both graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and have been living in Philadelphia for quite some time; however, we have never met until 2020. We decided to work together in song recitals, with the first being in 2022. Since our first concert, I have always programmed some pieces that represent us as immigrants and Hong Kong musicians. I really appreciate Ting Ting’s energy and interest in my work. She is a busy pianist in the Philadelphia area, coaching and accompanying singers at Curtis, AVA, Opera Philadelphia, Mendelssohn Chorus and so on. I have been teaching at West Chester University since 2010, and my position as Professor of Voice has enabled me to continue my love in presenting song recitals.
As a Hong Kong Chinese musician, there is a big division between studying Western and Chinese music. The majority of music study is Western-oriented. We grew up singing some traditional and modern Chinese songs, but it’s considered more “trendy” to study music from Europe. Despite Cantonese being my first language, art songs are mostly set in Mandarin Chinese because of the more lyrical aspect of Mandarin. Previously I have been “avoiding” singing in Chinese, as I did not feel the connection to the languages; however, in recent years I am interested in searching for my identity as a Hong Kong musician. In programming Chinese art songs, I find an unexpected excitement and curiosity from the audience in my performances.
The entire Chinese art song genre is very young. In fact, solo songs with piano accompaniment do not exist until the 1920s. During the Qing Dynasty, China was a “closed” country. It was not until the establishment of the Republic in 1911 that China become much more open to the West. The opening of China has encouraged students to study overseas, (mostly to Europe and the US) to learn about the new technology and economics. Many of these students have heard the well-known genres of German Lieder and French mélodies, and they were moved by the expressiveness and beauty of these songs. After their return to China, they began to write Mandarin songs in these styles, and a number of them became professors in the music conservatories in China, introducing this new genre to their pupils.
As I mentioned, Cantonese art songs are almost non-existent until the recent two decades. I have come across a few composers whose work in promoting Cantonese has produced great results. Cantonese is a difficult language to set because of its nine tones and frequent use of “stopped” sound and consonants, as well as its throaty position — it is challenging to make it sound lyrical. Yet, I am excited to get to know Adrian Wong and Kai-Young Chan’s works: they have continuously written music to promote our native tongue and our identity.
Huang Tsu, Qing Tzu, Chao Yun-Ren are some of the major composers of Chinese classical music during this important period of musical development. Many of these tunes are quite Romantic, mirroring songs by Schubert, Schumann, Strauss, Fauré and Liszt, and some of them are set with the traditional Chinese pentatonic scale as their basic tonality. I am excited that Brenda Leonard has agreed to join is to perform some of these beautiful tunes on her cello, as there are a number of songs that use instrumental obbligato with the vocal lines.
