'Lantingji Xu': A Spring Gathering, a Reflection Across the Ages
Grandevity Studio presents Lantingji Xu, a complete musical setting of Wang Xizhi’s Eastern Jin dynasty prose. Preserving 100% of the original text, the work combines cinematic Mandopop Soul, Chinese-inspired R&B, guqin, xiao flute, Rhodes piano, nylon-string guitar, neo-soul bass, pipa and orchestral strings.
Some gatherings belong to a single spring day.
Some become traces within the brief movement of looking up and lowering one’s gaze—only to illuminate readers living many centuries later.
Lantingji Xu — Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection is a Mandarin male-vocal work composed entirely from Wang Xizhi’s celebrated Eastern Jin dynasty prose.
The song preserves 100% of the original text and its original sequence.
Nothing has been expanded, rewritten or supplemented with modern lyrics.
It begins with:
In the ninth year of Yonghe, the year Guichou, at the beginning of late spring—
and concludes with:
Those who read these words in later generations will also be moved by them.
In the late spring of 353 CE, Wang Xizhi and a gathering of scholars met at the Orchid Pavilion in Shanyin, Kuaiji.
High mountains surrounded them.
Tall bamboo grew through the woodland.
Clear and rapid water passed among the rocks.
Wine cups floated along a winding stream while scholars sat beside its course, drank and composed poetry.
It was a bright and graceful spring gathering.
Yet Wang Xizhi did not preserve only the pleasure of landscape, friendship, wine and verse.
As his attention turned from the beauty before him toward the span of human life, the text moved from:
It was truly a source of joy—
toward changing emotion, vanished experience and the recognition that everything once cherished will eventually become a trace of the past.
The reflection reaches its emotional centre in the words:
Life and death are indeed matters of great importance.
Joy is real.
Disappearance is also real.
We rejoice when we meet.
We look back when what we loved has passed into memory.
More than sixteen centuries later, we read Lantingji Xu in the same way that Wang Xizhi once read the words of those who lived before him.
We see the spring gathering.
And within it, we also see ourselves.
Watch the MV: 🎬 Lantingji Xu | Official Music Video
Headphones recommended. Enter the morning mist, bamboo groves and flowing water of the Orchid Pavilion. Follow the gathering from wine cups drifting along the winding stream toward Wang Xizhi’s reflections on friendship, change, mortality and the readers who would encounter his words in generations yet to come.
“In the Ninth Year of Yonghe”
The text begins with an exact historical moment:
In the ninth year of Yonghe, the year Guichou, at the beginning of late spring.
Wang Xizhi does not place the gathering in an indistinct past.
He records the reign year, the cyclical year and the season.
353 CE.
Late spring.
Shanyin in Kuaiji.
The Orchid Pavilion.
These details give the gathering an irreplaceable position in time.
Because the opening is so precise, the later reflections on change and mortality do not remain abstract philosophy.
They emerge from a meeting that truly occurred on a particular day.
The MV begins before the gathering is fully visible.
Morning mist rests among the hills.
Light passes through bamboo leaves.
Water follows the stones in silence.
The landscape awakens before the people arrive, suggesting that time has already begun to move.
“All the Worthy Were Present; Young and Old Gathered Together”
All the worthy were present; young and old gathered together.
Lantingji Xu does not begin as the solitary meditation of one great artist.
It begins with a community.
Elders, middle-aged scholars and younger participants sit beside the same water during the same spring day.
The importance of the text therefore lies not only in its prose and calligraphy.
It also preserves the memory of shared life.
Someone has travelled from far away.
Someone meets an old friend.
Someone raises a cup.
Someone composes a poem.
Someone laughs.
And someone, during the height of happiness, suddenly becomes aware that the moment is already passing.
The MV presents Wang Xizhi together with seven principal scholars and a small number of attendants.
They approach through bamboo paths, take their places beside the stream, exchange scrolls, watch the moving wine cups and speak with one another.
The gathering is not arranged as a rigid ceremony.
It feels inhabited, spontaneous and human.
“High Mountains, Dense Woods and Tall Bamboo”
Here were high mountains and steep ridges, dense woods and tall bamboo;
there were also clear and rapid streams reflecting the scene on either side.
The landscape is not decorative background.
Mountains, bamboo, water and architecture create the spiritual space of the prose.
The mountains open the gaze toward distance.
Bamboo introduces clarity, restraint and quiet strength.
Flowing water passes between the seats, bringing movement into an otherwise still gathering.
Within this environment, Wang Xizhi experiences more than natural beauty.
The landscape allows the mind itself to expand.
The MV uses a principal palette of moon white, pale cyan, bamboo green and water blue.
Distant mountains remain spacious.
The bamboo appears fresh and humid.
Morning light moves softly across the stream.
Costume and landscape do not compete for attention; together they create the refined visual order associated with the intellectual world of the Eastern Jin.
“Wine Cups Floating Along the Winding Stream”
We directed the water into a winding course for floating wine cups, and sat beside it in order.
Though we lacked the grandeur of strings and wind instruments, one cup and one poem were enough to express our innermost feelings.
A cup moves with the water.
Wherever it stops, the person beside it drinks and composes a poem.
The current determines the cup’s path.
Verse emerges through chance, play and improvisation.
This is not an imperial banquet filled with spectacle.
There is no need for monumental music or ceremony.
One cup and one poem are enough to release feelings that ordinary conversation may not reveal.
The phrase youqing—hidden or inward emotion—does not suggest theatrical intensity.
It refers to feelings that are quiet, private and difficult to exhaust in words.
The floating cup becomes a recurring visual thread in the MV.
The camera follows it past petals, stone banks, bamboo shadows and the sleeves of seated scholars.
Its movement guides the viewer from the visible gathering toward the deeper emotional current of the text.
“The Sky Was Bright, the Air Clear, and the Gentle Wind Harmonious”
On that day, the sky was bright, the air clear, and the gentle wind mild and harmonious.
These words create one of the clearest spring days in classical Chinese literature.
The sky is open.
The air is pure.
The wind is gentle.
Nothing is excessive.
Wang Xizhi experiences a moment of complete and balanced happiness.
He is surrounded by landscape.
Friends are beside him.
There is beauty to observe and emotion to express.
During this passage, the musical space gradually opens.
Above guqin, xiao flute and flowing-water ambience, Rhodes piano, nylon-string guitar, deep neo-soul bass and soft brushed percussion slowly enter.
The arrangement moves from a sparse introduction toward warm and flowing Mandopop Soul.
Joy is not represented through volume or spectacle.
It is expressed through breath, harmony, rhythm and space.
“Looking Up at the Vastness of the Universe”
Looking up, we contemplated the vastness of the universe;
looking down, we observed the abundance of living things.
The upward and downward gaze forms one of the text’s central movements.
Above is the immeasurable universe.
Below is the richness of the living world.
Human beings stand between them.
We can sense the scale of heaven and earth, yet also notice grass, water, cups, garments and faces close at hand.
Wang Xizhi continues:
In this way the eyes may wander and the heart may open, allowing us to experience the fullest pleasure of sight and sound. It was truly a source of joy.
The MV moves from close details—hands, petals, water and wine cups—toward mountains, sky and a wide view of the Orchid Pavilion, then returns to the people beside the stream.
The movement of the camera follows the movement of the prose from visible objects toward an expanded state of mind.
“When People Associate with One Another, They Pass a Lifetime”
When people associate with one another, they pass a lifetime in the brief movement of looking up and lowering the gaze.
At this point, the direction of the prose changes.
The opening belongs to spring, landscape and gathering.
Now Wang Xizhi begins to consider human relationships and the different ways in which people live.
Some meet friends and converse within a room.
Others place their feelings in what they love and move freely beyond conventional restraint.
Their choices differ.
Some are quiet.
Others are restless.
Yet all may experience a moment when an encounter, an interest or a particular way of life seems completely satisfying.
The song turns inward here.
Percussion and bass become more restrained.
The voice moves closer to the listener, allowing thought to leave the public gathering and enter private consciousness.
“Content and Self-Sufficient, Unaware That Old Age Was Approaching”
When people delight in what they encounter and temporarily gain what they desire,
they become content and self-sufficient, unaware that old age is approaching.
When we encounter what we truly value, time can seem to disappear.
We stop measuring our years.
We do not think about endings.
To be “unaware that old age is approaching” does not mean that ageing has ceased to exist.
Its force lies in the opposite truth.
Because ageing will come, the moments in which we briefly forget it become precious.
The Orchid Pavilion gathering matters not because it could continue forever.
It matters because, on that day, its participants genuinely experienced joy.
The MV shows closer human interactions: shared smiles, scrolls passed from hand to hand, cups raised, conversations beside the water.
The film does not announce sorrow too early.
It first allows happiness to exist in full.
Only a joy that was once real can later become a trace capable of awakening such deep emotion.
“Emotion Changes as Circumstances Change”
When people grow weary of what they pursue, emotion changes with circumstance, and reflection follows.
No one remains within the same passion forever.
Something once loved may gradually lose its power.
Circumstances change.
Relationships change.
The mind changes.
Wang Xizhi does not present this as a moral failure.
He observes it as an unavoidable movement of life.
He continues:
What once delighted us, in the brief space of looking up and lowering the gaze, has already become a trace of the past.
The phrase suggests both a small physical movement and the speed with which an entire life may pass.
The most familiar present can become memory before we understand that it is leaving.
“Life and Death Are Indeed Matters of Great Importance”
Whether life is long or short depends upon transformation, yet all must ultimately come to an end.
The ancients said: “Life and death are indeed matters of great importance.”
Is this not painful?
Wang Xizhi does not conceal mortality beneath decorative language.
Nor does he dissolve it into a light philosophical abstraction.
He acknowledges that life and death carry profound weight.
This passage forms the emotional summit of the song.
Strings gradually widen.
Bass and percussion deepen.
Guqin, xiao flute, pipa and contemporary harmony move together.
The male vocal remains clear, cultured and restrained.
The power of “Is this not painful?” does not require theatrical shouting.
It comes from recognising, during the brightest spring gathering, that every joy before us will one day disappear.
“Later Generations Will Look Upon Us as We Look Upon the Past”
Later generations will look upon the present just as we now look upon the past. How sorrowful!
Wang Xizhi reads the writing of earlier people and recognises emotions similar to his own.
He therefore imagines the future.
Those who live later will look back upon us as we look back upon those who came before.
Everyone who experiences life as “the present” will eventually become history.
Every familiar face may become a name that later generations can no longer recognise.
Every gathering taking place today will become someone else’s account of the past.
Yet this does not make human feeling meaningless.
Because people living in different worlds remain moved by similar experiences, language can pass through time.
“Those Who Read These Words in Later Generations Will Also Be Moved”
Though ages differ and circumstances change, the reasons that awaken emotion remain fundamentally the same.
Those who read these words in later generations will also be moved by them.
Wang Xizhi understood that the future would not resemble the Eastern Jin.
Institutions would change.
Language would change.
Daily life would change.
Yet the foundations of human reflection might remain recognisable:
meeting and separation,
joy and weariness,
youth and ageing,
memory and disappearance,
life and death.
When a later reader responds emotionally to the text, Lantingji Xu is no longer only Wang Xizhi’s record of one day.
The reader enters the work.
We are now the later readers he imagined.
This song transforms that act of reading across centuries into an encounter that can also be heard.
Cinematic Mandopop Soul Without Rewriting the Original Prose
Lantingji Xu was not written according to the structure of a modern song.
It contains no recurring chorus and does not rely upon repeated lines.
The prose moves continuously from narrative and landscape toward emotion, change and mortality.
This musical setting does not translate the text into contemporary lyrics and does not add a newly written refrain.
It preserves the complete original text and sequence, using melody, rhythm, silence, instrumental interludes and dynamic development to create a contemporary musical structure.
The production is built around approximately 70 BPM and a slow-burning 6/8 pulse, combining:
- Guqin and flowing-water ambience, establishing morning landscape and the atmosphere of the written scroll.
- Xiao flute, extending the spatial impression of bamboo, distant mountains and clear air.
- Fender Rhodes piano, bringing warm, contemporary and inward harmony.
- Nylon-string guitar, adding intimate detail and refined Mandopop texture.
- Deep neo-soul bass, supporting the movement from spring joy toward reflection on life.
- Soft brushed drums and subtle hand percussion, maintaining the 6/8 pulse without disturbing the breath of the classical text.
- Pipa, adding definition to grammatical turns and emotional transitions.
- Cinematic strings, gradually opening at “Life and death are indeed matters of great importance” before resolving into the closing silence.
- A warm, clear and restrained Mandarin male vocal, preserving cultured classical diction without operatic tone, theatrical shouting or anthem-like grandeur.
The composition is largely through-composed.
The beginning is clear and spacious.
The middle becomes warm and flowing.
The final movement turns increasingly inward.
At “Those who read these words in later generations will also be moved,” the music returns to a quiet, distant resonance that does not feel completely finished.
The MV: From a Late-Spring Gathering to a Scroll Left for the Future
The MV is set entirely at the Orchid Pavilion in Shanyin, Kuaiji, during an Eastern Jin late-spring morning.
Its visual world includes:
high mountains, bamboo groves, clear rapid streams, a winding watercourse, stone banks, floating petals, pavilion architecture, scholar seating, wine cups, poetry scrolls, brushes, inkstones and an unfolding manuscript.
Moon white, pale cyan, bamboo green and water blue form the principal palette.
Soft morning light and humid, clear air unify the visual world.
Wang Xizhi is portrayed as a refined aristocratic scholar of approximately forty years of age: slender, composed, with black hair arranged in a high topknot beneath a dark crown, wearing moon-white and pale-cyan Eastern Jin robes with broad sleeves and subtle woven patterns.
Seven principal scholars represent elders, middle-aged men and younger participants.
A small number of attendants complete the gathering without drawing attention from the central figures.
The MV unfolds through ninety principal images.
The first movement establishes the landscape, the arrival of the scholars and wine cups floating along the winding stream.
The middle follows the brightness of the day, the upward and downward gaze, conversation and shared enjoyment.
The later movement gradually reduces the group scenes and turns toward Wang Xizhi’s reflection, brushwork, ink and manuscript.
Calligraphy becomes the principal visual thread.
The brush descends.
Ink takes form.
A gathering that would otherwise end with the spring day becomes a text capable of reaching the future.
In the closing images, the people recede.
The winding stream continues to flow.
Petals continue to move upon the water.
Bamboo sways gently in the wind.
Wang Xizhi looks toward the landscape of the Orchid Pavilion.
The final image leaves a manuscript, a brush and a question that remains open:
Will those who read these words in later generations experience the same joy, loss and awareness of mortality?
📜 Complete Original Text and English Translation
[Wang Xizhi, “Lantingji Xu — Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection” — Eastern Jin Dynasty]
永和九年，歲在癸丑，暮春之初，
In the ninth year of Yonghe, the year Guichou, at the beginning of late spring,
會於會稽山陰之蘭亭，修禊事也。
we gathered at the Orchid Pavilion in Shanyin, Kuaiji, to perform the spring purification ceremony.
群賢畢至，少長咸集。
All the worthy were present; young and old gathered together.
此地有崇山峻嶺，茂林修竹；
Here were high mountains and steep ridges, dense woods and tall bamboo;
又有清流激湍，映帶左右，
there were also clear and rapid streams reflecting the scene on either side.
引以為流觴曲水，列坐其次。
We directed the water into a winding course for floating wine cups and sat beside it in order.
雖無絲竹管弦之盛，一觴一詠，亦足以暢敘幽情。
Though we lacked the grandeur of strings and wind instruments, one cup and one poem were enough to express our innermost feelings.
是日也，天朗氣清，惠風和暢。
On that day, the sky was bright, the air clear, and the gentle wind mild and harmonious.
仰觀宇宙之大，俯察品類之盛，
Looking up, we contemplated the vastness of the universe; looking down, we observed the abundance of living things.
所以遊目騁懷，足以極視聽之娛，信可樂也。
In this way the eyes could wander and the heart could open, allowing us to experience the fullest pleasure of sight and sound. It was truly a source of joy.
夫人之相與，俯仰一世，
When people associate with one another, they pass a lifetime in the brief movement of looking up and lowering the gaze.
或取諸懷抱，晤言一室之內；
Some draw forth what lies within and converse face to face inside a room;
或因寄所託，放浪形骸之外。
others place their feelings in what they love and move freely beyond the restraints of the physical self.
雖趣舍萬殊，靜躁不同，
Though their choices differ in countless ways, and some are quiet while others are restless,
當其欣於所遇，暫得於己，
when they delight in what they encounter and temporarily gain what they desire,
快然自足，不知老之將至；
they become content and self-sufficient, unaware that old age is approaching.
及其所之既倦，情隨事遷，感慨係之矣。
When they grow weary of what they pursue, emotion changes with circumstance, and reflection follows.
向之所欣，俯仰之間，已為陳跡，
What once delighted them, in the brief space of looking up and lowering the gaze, has already become a trace of the past,
猶不能不以之興懷。
yet they cannot avoid being moved by it.
況修短隨化，終期於盡。
How much more so when life, whether long or short, follows transformation and must ultimately come to an end.
古人云：「死生亦大矣。」
The ancients said: “Life and death are indeed matters of great importance.”
豈不痛哉！
Is this not painful?
每覽昔人興感之由，若合一契，
Whenever I examine the reasons that moved people of the past, they seem to match my own experience like two halves of the same tally.
未嘗不臨文嗟悼，不能喻之於懷。
I have never read their words without sighing in sorrow, unable fully to explain the feeling within my heart.
固知一死生為虛誕，齊彭殤為妄作。
I therefore know that treating life and death as one is an empty falsehood, and equating the longevity of Peng Zu with an early death is a mistaken invention.
後之視今，亦猶今之視昔，悲夫！
Later generations will look upon the present just as we now look upon the past. How sorrowful!
故列敘時人，錄其所述。
I have therefore listed the people of this gathering and recorded what they composed.
雖世殊事異，所以興懷，其致一也。
Though ages differ and circumstances change, the reasons that awaken emotion remain fundamentally the same.
後之覽者，亦將有感於斯文。
Those who read these words in later generations will also be moved by them.
A Text About the Orchid Pavilion—and Every Gathering That Must Become Memory
Lantingji Xu has endured for more than sixteen centuries not only because it is connected with Wang Xizhi’s calligraphic achievement.
Its deeper power lies in the honesty with which it preserves joy and disappearance at the same time.
The Orchid Pavilion is gathering.
The winding stream is time.
The floating cup is an encounter that arrives through chance.
One cup and one poem represent a brief but genuine understanding between people.
The bright sky and clear air are the rare moments in life that feel complete.
Changing emotion is the movement no person or circumstance can stop.
A trace of the past is the form left behind after happiness departs.
“Life and death are indeed matters of great importance” is the weight that human beings cannot avoid.
And “those who read in later generations” is a place Wang Xizhi reserved for the future.
We now occupy that place.
We read his words, hear his reflection and remember our own gatherings, separations, friendships, passing years and irretrievable moments.
The age is different.
The reasons that awaken emotion remain recognisable.
That is how one Eastern Jin spring gathering became part of the shared memory of later humanity.
💿 Credits
- Song Title: Lantingji Xu
- English Subtitle: Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection
- Chinese Title: 蘭亭集序
- Classical Source: Wang Xizhi, “Lantingji Xu”
- Date of Composition: Ninth year of Yonghe, Eastern Jin Dynasty, 353 CE
- Literary Form: Classical Chinese prose preface
- Original Text / Complete Lyrics: Wang Xizhi
- Lyrics Format: 100% original text set to music, with no expansion, rewriting or additional lyrics
- Composition / Arrangement: Suno AI v5.5 / Grandevity Studio
- Vocals: Suno AI v5.5 AI-generated Mandarin male vocal
- Music Production: Grandevity Studio
- AI-Assisted Visuals: ChatGPT Images
- Video Editing / Art Direction / Creative Production: Grandevity Studio
- Released by: Grandevity Limited
- Production Year: 2026
Music Style and Mood:
Premium Cinematic Mandopop Soul / Chinese-Inspired R&B / Classical Chinese Fusion at approximately 70 BPM, built upon a slow-burning 6/8 pulse. Guqin, xiao flute, flowing-water ambience, Fender Rhodes piano, nylon-string guitar, deep neo-soul bass, soft brushed drums, subtle hand percussion, pipa and cinematic strings move from the brightness of the late-spring gathering toward changing emotion, mortality and the timeless weight of “Life and death are indeed matters of great importance.” The Mandarin male vocal remains warm, cultured, clear and restrained, with precise classical diction and no operatic tone, theatrical shouting or anthem-like production.
⚖️ Copyright Notice
Wang Xizhi’s Eastern Jin dynasty text Lantingji Xu — Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection is a public-domain work of classical literature.
This musical setting uses the complete original text without modern expansion, rewriting or additional lyrics.
The music production, sound recording, arrangement, mixing, mastering, MV visuals, cover artwork, video editing, subtitles, copywriting, storyboard design, art direction and overall creative concept of this project were produced or lawfully licensed by Grandevity Limited / Grandevity Studio and are protected by copyright and related rights to the extent permitted by applicable law.
Unauthorized re-uploading, redistribution, reproduction, editing, sampling, commercial use, public broadcasting, platform distribution, AI training, dataset use, remixing, or use in any other audiovisual work is strictly prohibited.
Licensing Contact:
info@grandevity.co.nz
https://grandevity.co.nz
About the Project
Lantingji Xu is part of Grandevity Studio’s Classical Literature Reimagined in Music series.
The project seeks to bring classical Chinese prose beyond textbooks, annotation, recitation, calligraphy practice and memorisation, allowing it to re-enter contemporary melody, rhythm, sound, imagery and emotional life.
In 353 CE, Wang Xizhi wrote:
Later generations will look upon the present just as we now look upon the past.
Today, we have become the later readers he imagined.
Our way of life is different from that of the Eastern Jin.
We gather in different places.
We preserve memory through different media.
Yet we still rejoice when we meet those who understand us.
We still look back after circumstances have changed.
We still fear the passing of time.
We still recognise that the people and experiences we love cannot remain unchanged forever.
May this song accompany everyone who has ever treasured a gathering.
And while the moments before us have not yet become traces of the past, may we learn to see one another more clearly.