Fretwork

A Sinking Love, for voice and four viols. 1994.

A setting, in Chinese, of a text by Li Po (701-762)

So bright a gleam on the foot of my bed
Could there have been a frost already
Lifting myself to look, I found that it was moonlight
Sinking back again, I thought suddenly of home.

The pitch material of A Sinking Love is based on patterns derived from the first six notes of Henry Purcell’s Fantazia No. 8. This excerpt was approached not so much as a quotation, but rather as a base pattern for development of stylistic variation and exploration of articulation possibilities, such as overtone production, ricochet, pizzicato, etc. Throughout the entire piece the strings play only in harmonics. The melodic pitch material of the vocal line, although derived from intervals found in the Purcell phrase, is based upon the tonal properties of the Chinese text. In the Chinese language the meaning of the word is directly related to the pitch inflection. The same word can have several different meanings depending on the register of its pronunciation. Elements of Peking Opera style are also evident in the vocal writing.

As with many of his other compositions Tan Dun reflects on what he refers to as the ‘cultural counterpoint’ of the ‘positive blending’ of the West and East - represented here in the form of the Purcell excerpt and the tradition of the viol consort underlying the Chinese text and vocal techniques. Through such a cross-cultural fusion of styles, Tan Dun aspires to the creation of a new musical language, which is neither strictly Eastern nor Western - a language for the coming century in which these diverse elements take on a new colour, and are no longer limited to the fields of their native language, culture, or technical traditions.

Commissioned by The South Bank Centre. First performed 2nd May 1995, The Purcell Room, London.

Published by Schirmer Inc. New York.