April Story (2016)
Click to purchse the score.
Instrumentation -
flute, clarinet in A, percussion, violin, viola, cello
Duration - ca. 8'30''
Performance history -
June 6, 2016, Riety, Italy, Ensemble Edi with Davide Innani (conductor)
Programme Notes -
The piece reflects a poem I composed in April, 2016.
April Story
April shines,
Brighter than the sunlight on snow.
You run to me,
Once, and twice...
Cross the daytime traffic,
And cross the iron buildings.
Like the flower from gunpoint,
You pierce my chest.
(April, 2016, in Boston)
四月
四月闪耀着
比阳光撒在积雪上的影子
更为耀眼。
你一次次地向我跑来
穿过白昼的车鸣
穿过钢铁的楼宇
你像从枪口射出的花朵
穿破我的胸膛。
（2016年4月10日，波士顿）
During the piece, I alternate two kinds of musical gesture settings in contrast. One of them reaches a wider range and thus is seemingly more active, and the other is steadier in register. On the other hand, formally, the two gestures are both rendered either by long phrases or by fragments (or shorter/incomplete phrases). This kind of arrangement provides another contrast in which the fragments – or the shorter phrases - are always breaking the longer phrases either by replacing them or interweaving into them. These two kinds of contrast generate energy and then also drive the music towards the final spoken part at the coda section. In the poem, the character (i.e. the poet) sees and/or feels someone running to him, again and again, finally when she arrives, she “hits his chest”. The total structure of the music tries to catch the emotional process and then interpret it by sound. The piece – both the poem and the music versions – ends on the phrase “hit my chest”, as the final dramatic result of the “April Story”.
Recording by Ensemble Mdi
Click to purchse the score.
Instrumentation -
flute, clarinet in A, percussion, violin, viola, cello
Duration - ca. 8'30''
Performance history -
June 6, 2016, Riety, Italy, Ensemble Edi with Davide Innani (conductor)
Programme Notes -
The piece reflects a poem I composed in April, 2016.
April Story
April shines,
Brighter than the sunlight on snow.
You run to me,
Once, and twice...
Cross the daytime traffic,
And cross the iron buildings.
Like the flower from gunpoint,
You pierce my chest.
(April, 2016, in Boston)
四月
四月闪耀着
比阳光撒在积雪上的影子
更为耀眼。
你一次次地向我跑来
穿过白昼的车鸣
穿过钢铁的楼宇
你像从枪口射出的花朵
穿破我的胸膛。
（2016年4月10日，波士顿）
During the piece, I alternate two kinds of musical gesture settings in contrast. One of them reaches a wider range and thus is seemingly more active, and the other is steadier in register. On the other hand, formally, the two gestures are both rendered either by long phrases or by fragments (or shorter/incomplete phrases). This kind of arrangement provides another contrast in which the fragments – or the shorter phrases - are always breaking the longer phrases either by replacing them or interweaving into them. These two kinds of contrast generate energy and then also drive the music towards the final spoken part at the coda section. In the poem, the character (i.e. the poet) sees and/or feels someone running to him, again and again, finally when she arrives, she “hits his chest”. The total structure of the music tries to catch the emotional process and then interpret it by sound. The piece – both the poem and the music versions – ends on the phrase “hit my chest”, as the final dramatic result of the “April Story”.
Recording by Ensemble Mdi
© 2018 by Zhuosheng Jin.