By the Lotus Pond 《蓮葉清響》
(2010)
無極彈潑
ISMN : 979-0-2325-2989-9
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This piece, “By the Lotus Pond”” was composed for and dedicated to Wuji (ruan) 阮Ensemble. Composer was interested in the beauty of nature and space. Composer has visited the four lotus ponds at the “Chi Nin Temple” at Diamond Hill, Hong Kong and he enjoys and likes to spend his leisure time to promenade at park. In this piece, he imagines the living lotus lives in the pond and have their owns border between lotus’s life and human’s life. In lotus’s world, lotus chats to each other, sings and dances in the wind. Actually, human can be able to hear and sense lotus’s world as they can cover their ears in distant space from somewhere far way the city’s hustle and bustle.
Composer used limited aleatoric (indicated improvisation) technique and traditional “measured” notations in this piece to demonstrate the freedom of the living lotus. Through the entire piece, players need to sing and play at the same time. The singing sound in this piece is influenced by “Peking opera” style. And there are four main sections with different names: 1. Lotus, 2. Leaves, 3. Purity and clarity, and 4. Sonority. All four sections are linked together and are played without pauses or breaks. There are some musical passages are just like some dialogues and are linkage to each instrument by musical repetition, or imitations. Sometimes, the subject (or motive) is imitated to each other and sometimes they are played in contrast ways to show the variety of gestures and characters of lotus. Through different and variety of the dialogues, there are some “tutti” (together) sections to present the lotus singing and dancing together in the pond.
By the Lotus Pond by Stephen Yip
無極樂團---“襌琴不二”音樂會
“Zen & Qin As One” concert by WUJI ENSEMBLE
23.11.2013
葵青劇院演藝廳 Kwai Tsing Theatre Auditorium
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