When the Taiwanese composer, Tai-Hsiang Li received the National Cultural Award in 2013, he said, “My blood is full of music. If you take out the music from my life, I am nothing!” Tai-Hsiang Li brought contemporary music to Taiwan, combining folk music with the modern orchestra, and raising the quality of Taiwanese popular music. He almost single-handedly infused Taiwanese culture into classical, modern, popular, film, and television advertising music. His arrangements of folk music have shown the Taiwanese the beauty of their own music and inspired countless younger musicians. The music critic Chung-Heng Yang declared, “Without Tai-Hsiang Li, the music history of Taiwan will not be complete.”
After the composer’s death in 2014, his life story was made public by various media, but many of the information disseminated were not accurate. Musicians have difficulties performing his works because of his constant revisions to his scores. For this thesis, I have personally interviewed the composer’s family and the Hakka singer Yu-Wei Hsieh. I investigated documents, collected Hakka mountain songs and three different editions of his Hakka-style suite Mountain and Farmland. I also investigated journal articles, newspaper articles, and read the books about the composer. In addition to presenting an updated biography of Tai-Hsiang Li’s life, I also prepare a critical performance edition of the Mountain and Farmland.
It is my desire that more musicians will find interest in performing Mountain and Farmland as well as scholars doing research on Hakka music and works by Tai-Hsiang Li.