related works
Four Expressive Poems - 四⾸抒情詩 : for soprano and piano / Man-Ching Yu Donald; poem by Wong Kin Kwok
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice and piano
Scoring:
sop pf
Dialogues : for violoncello / Kris Oelbrandt
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Cello
Scoring:
vc
La belle dame sans merci : voor violoncello solo, 1991 / Chiel Meijering
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Cello
Scoring:
vc
The Other : for cello / Douglas Knehans
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Cello
composition
Polarity : for cello / Man-Ching Yu Donald
Other authors:
Yu, Donald
(Composer)
Description:
The music is inspired by the concept of polarity, exploring the dualistic and contrasting traits of the two extremes while continuum more often interconnects between them, for instance, magnetic field transverses between southern and northern poles of the earth so as any positive and negative charges atoms. The music investigates the dualistic traits of the opposite high and low registrations of cello sound, exploring the sound effects of the instrument by employing various special sound techniques. Moreover, the force of the music governs the shape of the whole piece in that cruxes are characterized by transformed and permutated chromatic cells, in particular, the ending experiments the aleatoric techniques in which chromatic cells are randomly played in extremely fast tempo for exploring the utmost possibilities of sound colors. Most importantly, throughout the course of the piece, continuum in-between the polarities is featured by any possible sound for connection between high and low registers. Alongside with registers, dynamics variations are also in extreme, exploring various sounding effects when intermingling with different extended techniques such as microtonal effects, tremolo with glissando, as well as natural, artificial harmonics, etc.
Donald Yu