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World Musics & Cultures
World Musics & Cultures

A Section of Reper
A Section of Repertoire & Resources
toire & Resources

Cantonese is mainly an oral language but has slowly
World Musics & Cultures grown into a written Chinese vernacular. It is not mu-
World Musics & Cultures
tually intelligible with Mandarin, the national language
Madlen Batchvarova of the People’s Republic of China. In terms of offi-
National R&R Chair, cial writing, the grammar and lexicon are derived from
World Musics & Cultures Modern Standard Chinese, which is compatible with
batchvarova@hanover.edu Mandarin’s written system. In other words, though
Mandarin and Cantonese use the same writing system,

Cantonese Choral Music: the same character can be pronounced differently.
From Lack of Interest to Rising Prominence Cantonese has a long, vibrant history dating back to
the seventh through tenth centuries during the Tang
by Michelle Kwok Dynasty. Its rich tonal system makes it one of the most
tonal languages in the world. Modern Cantonese pre-
Over the past decade, there has been increased served many ancient sounds, such as the unreleased
scholarly attention toward Chinese choral works. final consonants -p, -t, and -k that no longer exist in
1
Much of the research, however, centers around works Mandarin. Currently, there are around 85.5 million
sung in Mandarin Chinese. Although Cantonese is one Cantonese speakers in the world. Cantonese is spoken
3
of the official languages spoken in Hong Kong, Can- in the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, Hong
tonese choral works have not been a prominent genre Kong, Macau, and Chinese communities in Singapore,
in choral performances. Until 2000, most of the choral Malaysia, Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney, New York, San
repertoire in Hong Kong consisted of either Western Francisco, Ho Chi Minh City, and Kuala Lumpur,
works or Chinese works performed in Mandarin. Be- among others. 4
tween 1998 and 1999, Daniel P. L. Law from the Chi- Although the choral scene in Hong Kong was quite
nese University of Hong Kong published an eight-vol- active at the end of the twentieth century, Cantonese
ume work titled Hong Kong Vocal Music Collection. Out choral music had yet to become prominent. This is like-
of approximately one hundred works included in the ly due to three reasons: the delayed emergence of a
collection (choral, solo, and chamber music work com- local identity, lack of local composers’ interest in setting
bined), only five were written in Cantonese. 2 Cantonese texts, and the difficulty of setting Canton-

CHORAL JOURNAL May 2026 Volume 66 Number 8 21