A classical rendition

"There is no road longer than feet," Wang posited, "and there is no mountain higher than people."

His works were hand-copied by people to achieve a wider circulation during that era, and his encouraging lines once gave strength to a generation of people.

"If some modern poets wrote about people's common emotions and touched a whole generation," Kang comments, "they must know our own traditional culture very well. Consequently, it is also a way to pay homage to our ancient classics by including these new works."

Many celebrity musicians have vocalized Chinese classics on the show.

Taiwan singer Chyi Yu selected Nostalgia, a well-known verse by a modern poet Yu Kwang-chung-who was born on the Chinese mainland and moved to Taiwan-about people's emotional cross-Straits connections. Pop singer Zhang Liangying, a native of Chengdu, Sichuan province, taps into her childhood memories by adapting Delighting in Rain on a Spring Night, a Tang Dynasty verse by poet Du Fu that depicts her hometown.

Tian Mei, director of the show, says she also wanted to add some ordinary people's voices to the program.

"We want to emphasize more personal stories and ordinary people's expression of their moods," she explains. "Only the most common emotions and the most down-to-earth experiences can be felt by everyone."

In the first season, a rural elementary school teacher from western Guizhou province brought his students out of the mountainous region and shared their adaptation of a lesser-known Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) poem eulogizing moss, which looks fragile living in the shadows, but has a strong will to flourish.

Accidentally, it became one of the show's most popular songs and consequently, half of the performers in the second season are non-celebrities.

For instance, a police officer suffering from cancer shows his tenacity and optimism by chanting out his lifetime affection for poetry, while a group of senior professors from Tsinghua University also vocalize their pride at nurturing talent and serving the country.

"What is popular among today's young people does not necessarily become classic," Tian says, adding, "but the classics of the past can become popular among today's young.

"We just try to find the right ways to explain them to a new audience," she continues. "Creativity is always needed to pass on the classics from one generation to another."

Nevertheless, Xu Wenguang, deputy director of CCTV's Channel One, still thinks more ideas are needed to bring more widely-accepted musical adaptations of literature classics like Moss to the stage.

"Diversity is needed," he says. "Classics should not be treated as cultural relics in museums, which can only be admired. Each era has its own language of understanding."

Other than pop music, the new season of Everlasting Classics has also incorporated ballads, folk music and even rock 'n' roll. Maybe the soundtrack that accompanies the words of the past will be even more abundant in the future.

Contact the writer at wangkaihao@chinadaily.com.cn