Mallarme's Tuesdays (2022)

Mallarme's Tuesdays (Chinese: 馬拉美的星期二) is the third studio album by Taiwanese singer-songwriter Wu Qing-feng. Produced by Qing-Feng Wu and Howe Chen (陳君豪), the album was officially released on September 30, 2022. It collects 12 songs and had domestic and oversea musicians from different fields invited to participate in the production of each song, including singers Stefanie Sun, Lisa Ono, ohashiTrio, Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc and pianist Chun-Chieh Yen. The title of the album is inspired by the Tuesday evening salons hosted by French poet Stéphane Mallarmé. Released earlier in July, the EP L'Après midi d'un faune (牧神的午後), also named after a poem written by Stéphane Mallarmé, is the intro to the album.

Background

Production

Taking Qing-Feng Wu two years to produce, Mallarme's Tuesdays (馬拉美的星期二) is so far the most time-consuming work of his. The collected songs were mostly inspired when he was between awake and asleep in 2020. Although all of the songs were already completed at that time, Qing-Feng Wu didn’t find himself emotionally and circumstantially ready to write the lyrics for these bright-toned pieces. To make sure that he was true to himself when creating the lyrics, he waited for two more years. In early 2022, after completing 3 songs for the EP L'Après midi d'un faune (牧神的午後), one specific dream made him realize that he could carry on the unfinished task:“ In my dream, a shadow, sometimes shaped, sometimes formless, kicked me and said ‘You shall write now’. I woke up with a start. The lyrics started to flow gradually like some cork was pulled out. “ Waking up, Qing-Feng Wu started to write down the lyrics of “(......The Great Hypnotist)” and the other 11 lyrics began to form piece by piece.

Concept and production

The theme of the album surrounds “the relationship between singers and creation”. As a singer-songwriter, Qing-Feng Wu values “creation” as the most personal thing in his life. The album is therefore a “creation exploring ‘creation’”

The title of the album is inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé whose Tuesday salons hosted at his home were highly distinguished in the French cultural circle. In light of this, Qing-Feng has applied the concept of “salons” to his music creation.

In terms of content, the 12 songs of the album respectively depicts certain aspects of creation, such as consciousness and subconsciousness, loss and awakening, understanding and encountering, alchemy and experimentation, exploration of real names and traumas, accepting differences and the courage to be different...etc.. In terms of form, Qing-Feng Wu images the album as a salon that gathers 12 musicians as the guests to stimulate and encourage each other to give the music works a brand new look. The intro EP L'Après midi d'un faune (牧神的午後) is also named after the title Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem which happened to inspire Claud Debussy to compose Prélude à L'après-midi d'un Faune.

All of the works were born when Qing-Feng was between awake and asleep. The arrangement of the songs embarks on “(......The Little Shepherd)”(......小小牧羊人) as its theme is about consciousness, and ends in “(......Sleeping Beauty)”(......睡美人) that describes the state of unconsciousness.