Illuminating the legacy of the Long March

In a village in Xingguo county, Jiangxi province, two young Chinese composers listened carefully as local singers repeated old folk melodies.

They sang along word for word, checking the pronunciation and rhythm of every phrase. Later, in Zunyi, Guizhou province, they revisited the site of a historic turning point in the Long March (1934-36) — a strategic transfer of the Communist Party of China-led Red Army — searching for the musical meaning of "dawn". In Yan'an, Shaanxi province, they stood in a cave dwelling beside a lamp associated with the creation of The Yellow River Cantata, tracing a musical tradition that has carried revolutionary memory across generations.

The journey would eventually find its way into Towards the Light, a new symphonic choral work by the China National Traditional Orchestra, marking the 90th anniversary of the victory of the Long March.

Towards the Light is scheduled to premiere on Oct 13 in Ganzhou in Jiangxi, followed by a performance in Yan'an on Oct 19 and a final presentation at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing on Nov 8.

The three cities trace a journey from southern Jiangxi, one of the departure points of the Long March, to Yan'an, one of the CPC's most important revolutionary bases, and finally to Beijing. Artists from Beijing, and Shaanxi and Jiangxi provinces will join the performances.

Rather than retelling the epic journey event by event, the work asks a different question: How can musicians born decades after the Long March understand — and express — the spirit of those who lived through it?

The answer, for the creators of Towards the Light, begins with a single image: light, says Zhang Yafeng, the Party secretary of the China National Traditional Orchestra.

The eight-movement work unfolds through the overture, then "Glimmer", "Flame", "Dawn", "Morning Glow", "Starlight", "Glory" and the finale with the same name as the production. It opens with voices resembling a lullaby before moving through the fires of battle, the dawn of a historic turning point and the bonds formed along the journey. An erhu (two-stringed Chinese fiddle) concerto, "Starlight", pays tribute to heroes with a restrained, lyrical melody, while "Glory" builds toward the emotional culmination of reunion before the finale turns its gaze toward the future.

"The work is not about simply retelling history," says Zhang. "It is about reactivating spiritual memory."

That approach is also reflected in the choice of composers. The orchestra entrusted the project to two resident composers born in the 1990s — Zhao Zeming, 36, and Li Shangqian, 33 — with lyrics by the young lyricist Xu Junrui. Resident conductor Yuan Bei leads the production.

For Li, who is responsible for the first half of the work, the challenge was to approach the Long March through the eyes of people living today. His music follows the journey from departure and strategic retreat toward a crucial turning point in history.

Zhao, who composed the second half, focuses more closely on emotion: the relationship between soldiers and civilians, the memories of veteran soldiers and the strength generated by unwavering belief.

Their research took them from southern Jiangxi to Zunyi and Yan'an. In Yudu county in Jiangxi, where the Red Army gathered before beginning the Long March, they visited former crossing sites and met a 108-year-old widow of a martyr who had guarded her husband's memory for 94 years.

In Xingguo county, they collected local folk songs directly from village singers. In Yan'an, they encountered the musical legacy of an earlier generation of composers. Those experiences gradually became musical material.

Xingguo folk songs and melodies from northern Shaanxi have been woven into the score, linking the work to the regions through which the Long March passed. But the composers have avoided using folk music simply as historical decoration.

"Using Chinese traditional instruments to express the Long March has a natural advantage," Yuan says. "The journey took place across the Chinese landscape, and the folk songs and melodies of those regions can be expressed directly and delicately through Chinese instruments."

The use of Chinese instruments, he adds, gives the music an immediate sense of familiarity.

"The timbres of traditional instruments are deeply rooted in Chinese music," the conductor notes. "And when a chorus sings in Chinese, audiences can feel that the music is close to them."

For Zhang, the three-city route represents more than a touring schedule.

It is a way of allowing the music to travel through places where history itself still has a physical presence, from the old crossing sites of southern Jiangxi to the cave dwellings of Yan'an, before arriving in the capital.

And for the young composers who followed that route during their research, the journey has become something more personal.

Facing the challenge of creating a work about such a significant chapter of Chinese history, the creative team felt the weight of responsibility.

Lyricist Xu notes she was under enormous pressure when she first took on the project. But once she immersed herself in the writing, she found a central question to guide her: "What does the Long March mean to people of our generation? The theme of Towards the Light is 'light' — so what does that light look like through our eyes today? That was the starting point that the two composers and I kept searching for.

"We sought to create a dialogue between the young generation and those who lived through the Long March 90 years ago," she says, adding that images associated with the journey, such as oil lamps and torches, became musical and literary motifs — turning memories of the past into a language that can speak to audiences today.