Revolutionary Poetry: 长征组歌

2009 marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Accordingly, this year’s art and cultural scene in Beijing has been inundated with activities with an unmistakably revolutionary theme. One such activity is the revival of the monumental 长征组歌, a Liederkreis that poetically draws up the poignant history of the Chinese Red Army’s Long March between 1934 and 1936.

The cycle starts with Bidding Farewell (告别), a serious number portraying the scene where marchers parted with their families to fight for a greater cause. In the middle of the cycle, Traversing the Snow Mountains and Grasslands (过雪山草地) depicts the great difficulty when the marchers scaled the rugged mountains in the brutal continental winter. The cycle ends with a predictably upbeat but still stunningly rapturous finale, set at Gansu’s Huining (甘肃会宁), where the choir tutti praises Chairman Mao and the Communist Party. This struggle-to-victory story flow is understandably similar to that of Flower Girl, the DPRK revolutionary opera that I attended and wrote about last year.

In keeping with tradition, the musicians wear red army uniforms (红军服) and straw sandals during the performance of the cycle. The evening’s performance also includes recitals of a few revolutionary classics, including Our Soldiers (咱当兵的人; video) and Motherland (祖国慈祥的母亲; video).

As someone who does not regularly tune into CCTV's entertainment programming that caters to the patriotic crowd, I must confess I am not at all familiar with revolutionary music -- the genre. I am attracted to and intrigued by last night’s performance not least because the performance is supposedly a defining moment in this year's gargantuan slate of anniversary activities, but because I like to wean on and study more about this patriotic culture that grows beyond what is parochially required of all citizens in China. After all, the tickets are not cheap; and no one (at least for people like me) is forced to attend the concert. Still, judging by the way the audience connects with the music and its stars, it is obvious to me that: (1) many audience members are intimately familiar with the music's genre and can readily recite most of the lyrics by memory; and (2) some of these stars, including Liu Bin (刘斌; bio, in Chinese) and Geng Lianfeng (耿莲凤; bio, in Chinese), are genuine heavyweights in the genre of revolutionary music, much like Pavarotti and Sutherland in opera. They draw a rabid fan following – as evidenced by fans’ enthusiastic reception upon their entrance on stage. They issue their own CDs (revolutionary music usually has its separate section at CD shops all over Beijing), run their music troupes, write new music (咱当兵的人, which was used by President Jiang Zemin to inspect the line during 1999’s military parade, was written by Liu Bin) and star regularly in CCTV’s plethora of entertainment programming. This culture is something that I am only recently introduced to; in fact, I am eager to find out if this culture exists all across China, or only in the unabashedly patriotic fishbowl of Beijing.

I was grateful to find one friend willing to attend this amazing performance with me. Our attendance was quite improbable: considering that most of these sing-along attendees -- some in their uniforms -- were in their 50s or 60s, we were conspicuous by virtue of our relatively young age. In the end however, we, or at least I, realized that well-written lyrics and melodic tunes find no bounds in affecting the audience and bringing the audience back for a brief ride back to history’s past.