The Three Gorges: From Baidi at Dawn to the Cry of Gibbons
Grandevity Studio sets Li Daoyuan’s Northern Wei classic The Three Gorges to Premium Cinematic Mandopop Soul. At 72 BPM in slow 6/8, the music moves from towering cliffs and racing summer currents to green pools, waterfalls, frost-filled forests and the haunting cries of gibbons echoing through the gorge.
Seven hundred li of gorge.
Mountains close in from both banks.
Summer water races between towering cliffs.
Then comes a frost-filled morning.
The forest turns cold.
The ravines fall silent.
And somewhere high above,
the long cry of a gibbon begins to echo through the empty valley.
Li Daoyuan’s The Three Gorges is far more than a static landscape description.
It contains height.
Speed.
Season.
Light.
Water.
Sound.
And finally,
human emotion.
Grandevity Studio sets the project-established Classical Chinese text to Premium Cinematic Mandopop Soul × Chinese-inspired R&B, allowing the structure of Li Daoyuan’s prose itself to guide the composition.
The mountains dominate.
Summer water accelerates.
Spring and winter open into luminous clarity.
The frost morning withdraws into silence.
Then the gibbons are heard.
Watch the MV: 🎬 The Three Gorges | Official Music Video
Headphones and full-screen viewing recommended. The film imagines the Three Gorges within the historical world of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. A scholar figure inspired by Li Daoyuan and an elderly boatman enter the gorge in a small wooden boat. From mist-covered cliffs and racing summer water to green pools, ancient trees, waterfalls and the cold silence of a frost morning, the human figures remain only a measure of scale. The true protagonist is the landscape itself.
A Passage from the Shuijing Zhu
The text now commonly known as The Three Gorges was originally part of Volume 34 of Li Daoyuan’s Shuijing Zhu, in the section devoted to the Yangtze River.
That context matters.
Li Daoyuan did not begin simply as a travel writer attempting to describe a beautiful place.
His larger work was concerned with:
rivers,
mountains,
settlements,
roads,
historical sites,
inscriptions,
earlier geographical records,
and local traditions.
Yet in the Shuijing Zhu, geography repeatedly becomes something more.
Mountains gain scale.
Water gains speed.
Trees gain colour.
Valleys gain sound.
Human emotion begins to enter the landscape.
The Three Gorges is one of the clearest examples of that transformation.
It begins as geography.
It becomes literature.
Li Daoyuan and the Northern Wei
Li Daoyuan,
courtesy name Shanchang,
was a Northern Wei official, geographer and writer.
His family came from Zhuo County in Fanyang Commandery,
roughly corresponding to present-day Zhuozhou in Hebei.
Born into an official family,
Li himself also spent much of his life in government service.
Alongside that career,
he studied earlier geographical records,
historical sources,
inscriptions,
local traditions,
and landscapes.
The result was the monumental Shuijing Zhu.
Li lived during the political division of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
Northern China was ruled by the Northern Wei,
while the south passed through the Liu Song, Southern Qi and Liang dynasties during his lifetime.
It was also a crucial period in the development of Chinese landscape writing.
Mountains and rivers were increasingly becoming aesthetic subjects in their own right.
“Within the Seven Hundred Li of the Three Gorges”
The work begins:
自三峽七百里中， 兩岸連山， 略無闕處。
Within the seven hundred li of the Three Gorges,
mountains line both banks almost without interruption.
The first effect is scale.
Distance.
Continuity.
Then the prose moves vertically:
重巖疊嶂， 隱天蔽日。
Layered cliffs and overlapping peaks hide the sky and block the sun.
Horizontal distance becomes vertical pressure.
When Mountains Change the Experience of Sun and Moon
自非亭午夜分， 不見曦月。
Except around noon or midnight,
sun and moon can scarcely be seen from deep within the gorge.
The point is not simply that the mountains are high.
Their scale changes how the traveler experiences light and time.
The human observer is enclosed inside the landscape.
Summer Water Changes the Rhythm
Then comes summer:
至於夏水襄陵， 沿溯阻絕。
The water rises.
Normal travel upstream and downstream becomes obstructed.
The mountains remain massive and stationary.
The river becomes motion.
Baidi at Dawn, Jiangling by Evening
有時朝發白帝， 暮到江陵， 其間千二百里， 雖乘奔御風， 不以疾也。
Baidi was located around present-day Fengjie in Chongqing.
Jiangling corresponds broadly to the region of present-day Jingzhou in Hubei.
The power of the passage is not that it functions as a modern transport timetable.
Its purpose is speed.
Morning at Baidi.
Evening at Jiangling.
Twelve hundred li between them.
Even a racing horse carried on the wind would not seem faster.
The mountains are immovable.
The summer river is almost unstoppable.
White Rapids and Green Pools
Then the prose slows:
春冬之時， 則素湍綠潭， 迴清倒影。
In spring and winter,
white rapids and green pools appear together.
Movement and stillness coexist.
The violent water of summer has become clear,
reflective,
almost luminous.
The season changes,
and the personality of the river changes with it.
Precipitous Peaks, Ancient Trees and Falling Water
絕巘多生怪柏， 懸泉瀑布， 飛漱其間。
The eye moves upward again.
Precipitous heights.
Strange old cypresses.
Hanging springs.
Waterfalls.
The vertical world of the gorge becomes fully layered.
Li Daoyuan then compresses the whole scene into:
清榮峻茂， 良多趣味。
Clear waters.
Flourishing vegetation.
Lofty mountains.
Luxuriant growth.
Truly full of delight.
The Frost Morning
The final movement changes everything:
每至晴初霜旦， 林寒澗肅。
When the sky first clears on a frosty morning,
the forest is cold and the ravines solemn.
The energetic sound world of river travel seems to withdraw.
The landscape tightens.
Cold enters.
Then another sound begins.
The Long Cry of the Gibbons
常有高猿長嘯， 屬引淒異。
High gibbons cry at length.
Their calls continue,
one after another.
Then:
空谷傳響， 哀轉久絕。
The empty valley carries the sound.
The echo turns mournful,
lingers,
and only gradually disappears.
At this point,
the prose has moved from seeing the Three Gorges
to hearing them.
Why Does a Fisherman’s Song End the Work?
The final words are introduced with:
故漁者歌曰：
Then:
巴東三峽巫峽長， 猿鳴三聲淚沾裳。
Long is Wuxia among the Three Gorges of Badong;
three cries of the gibbon,
and tears soak the robe.
Li Daoyuan does not end with another geographical statement.
He gives the final voice to the fisherman’s song.
Earlier we had:
seven hundred li of mountains,
twelve hundred li of river travel,
towering peaks,
waterfalls,
and deep pools.
The final image is much smaller:
a human being hearing the cry of gibbons
and weeping.
The work begins with geography.
It ends with emotion.
Music: Let the Seasons Become the Form
The production is built around:
Premium Cinematic Mandopop Soul × Chinese-inspired R&B
Tempo: 72 BPM.
Meter: slow 6/8.
Form: through-composed.
The structure does not depend on a conventional repeating pop chorus.
Instead,
the prose itself creates four musical environments:
mountains → summer water → spring and winter → frost morning.
The principal sound palette includes:
- guqin
- xiao
- pipa
- guzheng
- cinematic strings
- Fender Rhodes
- nylon-string guitar
- neo-soul bass
- brush drums
The mountain section is broad,
dark,
and restrained.
The summer section develops greater rhythmic momentum.
Spring and winter open into clearer harmony and wider space.
By:
林寒澗肅
the arrangement gradually withdraws.
The final emotional destination is no longer the grandeur of the mountains.
It is the emptiness of the gorge,
the gibbon cry,
and the fisherman’s song.
The MV: Human Figures as a Measure of Landscape
The visual concept is set within the historical atmosphere of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
Two recurring human figures appear:
a scholar in his early thirties, used as a visual embodiment of Li Daoyuan,
and an elderly boatman familiar with the gorge.
They travel in the same small wooden boat.
They are not conquerors of the landscape.
They exist to reveal scale.
When the cliffs rise,
the people appear small.
When summer water surges,
the boat appears small.
When waterfalls descend,
the human figures become smaller still.
By the frost-morning sequence,
even the people begin to recede.
The final images belong to:
mountains,
water,
mist,
and light.
📜 Complete Sung Text / Original Chinese
Li Daoyuan, The Three Gorges
Project-established Classical Chinese text
【Seven Hundred Li・Layered Cliffs】
自三峽七百里中，
兩岸連山，略無闕處。
重巖疊嶂，隱天蔽日，
自非亭午夜分，
不見曦月。
【Summer Water・Baidi at Dawn】
至於夏水襄陵，
沿溯阻絕。
或王命急宣，
有時朝發白帝，暮到江陵，
其間千二百里，
雖乘奔御風，
不以疾也。
【Spring and Winter・White Rapids and Green Pools】
春冬之時，
則素湍綠潭，迴清倒影。
絕巘多生怪柏，
懸泉瀑布，飛漱其間。
清榮峻茂，
良多趣味。
【Frost Morning・Echoes in the Empty Valley】
每至晴初霜旦，
林寒澗肅。
常有高猿長嘯，
屬引淒異。
空谷傳響，
哀轉久絕。
故漁者歌曰：
「巴東三峽巫峽長，
猿鳴三聲淚沾裳。」
From Seven Hundred Li of Landscape to Tears on a Robe
The structure of The Three Gorges continually changes the scale of perception.
First:
mountains.
Then:
speed.
Then:
colour and reflection.
Finally:
sound.
By the last section,
the eye almost withdraws.
What remains is the echo of gibbons in the valley.
And then:
猿鳴三聲淚沾裳。
An immense landscape ends with a very small human response.
Tears on clothing.
That movement,
from geography to emotion,
became the foundation of this musical setting.
💿 Credits
- Song Title: The Three Gorges
- Chinese Title: 三峽
- Romanised Title: Sanxia
- Classical Source: Li Daoyuan, Shuijing Zhu, Volume 34, Yangtze River section
- Author: Li Daoyuan
- Period: Northern Wei Dynasty
- Literary Form: Geographical prose / landscape prose
- Original Text / Complete Sung Words: Li Daoyuan
- Lyrics Version: Project-established Classical Chinese text
- Music Style: Premium Cinematic Mandopop Soul × Chinese-inspired R&B
- Tempo / Meter: 72 BPM / Slow 6/8
- Form: Through-composed
- Main Instrumentation: Guqin / Xiao / Pipa / Guzheng / Cinematic Strings / Fender Rhodes / Nylon-string Guitar / Neo-Soul Bass / Brush Drums
- Composition / Arrangement: Suno AI
- Music Production: Grandevity Limited / Grandevity Studio
- AI-Assisted Visuals: ChatGPT Images
- Video Editing / Storyboarding / Art Direction: Grandevity Studio
- Project: Classical Literature Reimagined in Music
- Language: Classical Chinese
- Publication Date: October 6, 2026
- Official MV: https://youtu.be/rOHdlU283uM
- YouTube Music: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nIXg9wMFyjccmhvR5-okkziXzwYfUmr54
⚖️ Copyright Notice
Li Daoyuan’s The Three Gorges is a public-domain classical literary work.
This musical production uses the project-established Classical Chinese text adopted for the finished song.
The music production, recorded master, arrangement, mix, master, AI-assisted visuals, video editing, subtitles, shot design, art direction, cover visuals, promotional writing and overall creative production were produced by or lawfully licensed to Grandevity Limited / Grandevity Studio. Relevant rights are handled subject to applicable law and the terms of the platforms, models and production tools used.
© 2026 Grandevity Limited / Grandevity Studio.
This notice does not restrict lawful use of Li Daoyuan’s public-domain original text.
Business Inquiries & Licensing:
About This Project
The Three Gorges is part of Grandevity Studio’s Classical Literature Reimagined in Music series.
The purpose is not to use Classical Chinese as a decorative historical label.
The real starting point is what the text already contains:
rhythm,
speed,
space,
light,
sound,
and emotion.
The Three Gorges begins with geography.
It moves through mountains and water.
It ends with a human response.
More than fifteen centuries later,
we no longer need the Shuijing Zhu to navigate the river.
But through music,
we can still hear the landscape.