Written for the World Premiere of Yuan-Chen Li’s “Reminiscence II”
May 30, 2019
Western Front, Vancouver B.C.

 

 

I am at Vancouver B.C. this week to rehearse my latest work Reminiscence II for mixed ensemble (octet), to be premiered by Sound of Dragon, director/producer Lan Tung (Sound of Dragon Society), conducted by Chih-Sheng Chen (Little Giant Ensemble). There are a few of questions accumulated since the ensemble started rehearsing two weeks ago. I wish to share some thoughts with the musicians as well as my friends/readers of my Facebook and blog.

這週我人在溫哥華, 為《離歌之二》的首演來指導排練。該作品是寫給中西混搭的八人室內樂團“龍吟滄海樂團”，是董蘭老師監製，小巨人樂團陳志昇老師指揮。自從兩週前的排練，其中開始累積了一些詢問，我想在此與大家分享。

 

Half of the instrumentations in this ensemble is in Chinese origin. In the literature of Chinese music, Realism is as common as the abstraction of Ying & Yang in art. Such as “十面埋伏” (Ambushed from Ten Sides, dated since 1818), a famous solo piece for Pipa, well depicts the sound of the martial scene. My imagination went back to the 20th century on the Second Sino-Japanese War and the civil war between the Communists and Republicans in China. In my Reminiscence II, sounds of missiles, machine guns, and rolling vehicles are depicted by glissando, knocking on the sound box of the instruments, and group tutti of seemingly irregular rhythms.

The section of the group irregular rhythms in Reminiscence II lasts roughly two minutes. It is a series of rough and quick sound made by Ruan, Guitar, Cello, and four different cymbals. They play four 16th notes in quick succession with an accent, and sometimes play a few of these figures in different dynamics in a roll. Despite the variety of these elements, the part looks like a lot of repetitions of the same notes. I wrote this rhythmic section, however, in 3/4 as the time signature, and underlaid subtle changes of meters in every six beats, hoping to make it somewhat “dance-like.” This design of rhythm intends to elicit the desire to dance, a sonorous manifestation of the drive to fight and kill – it is dangerous, but it is excitable.

在《離歌之二》裡，大約有兩分鐘左右的段落演著不規律的節奏。實際上是一系列快速音群，由大阮、吉他、大提琴、和四種不同的鑼與鈸所組成的。他們演的是四個16分音符，加上突強，於不同強度間轉換。除了這些變化的元素，分譜看來是一樣的音給一而再再而三的重複。然而，這段落是用三拍標的，並且潛藏了六拍群組，希望造成舞蹈的感覺。如此的設計是為了讓舞蹈的慾望來代表廝殺的彰顯 – 即便是危險的、但卻是興奮的。

I have questioned myself about what it means to write about someone’s memory of the human tragedy. About 13 million people perished in the civil war, and more than 17 million people died in the Sino-Japanese war. Not only that my grandmom survived through these battles in China, but also escaped with 1.2 million people to Taiwan in 1949. It is the magnitude of the life experience and pain that didn’t have the chance to be expressed until slipped through a little song sung in her late years while suffering from dementia. I compose Reminiscence II in hopes of presenting the song for her, and think of my grandmom that she would already have reunited with her family in the gardens of heaven, and never feel lonely and wandering again.

譜寫他人的故事，於我，我自問著，是什麼樣的意義？特別是，有關人生悲劇的故事。大約1300萬人死於國共內戰，1700萬人死於抗日戰爭。我祖母不僅自這些戰場僥倖，還與一百多萬人於1949年間逃到台灣。如此駭人的生活經驗和苦痛，卻一直沒有機會訴諸；而直到祖母晚年失智時才從她自編的小調裡透露出來。我寫著《離歌之二》，希望能把她的遭遇呈現出來，並希望她在天之靈已與她的親人團圓，而且不再感到孤獨與飄盪。