related works
Four Dramatic Chinese Poems : for tenor and piano / Man-Ching Yu Donald; poems by Wong Kin Kwok
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice and piano
Scoring:
ten pf
Rain : for piano, vibraphone and marimba, 2001 / Bart de Kemp
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Mixed ensemble (2-12 players)
Scoring:
vibr mar pf
Labyrinth : for oboe and percussion / Robert Groslot
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Mixed ensemble (2-12 players)
Scoring:
ob perc
Bilingua : [voor] sopraanblokfluit en orgel/clavecimbel, opus 112, 1977 / Louis Toebosch
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Mixed ensemble (2-12 players); Recorder and keyboard instrument
Scoring:
rec-s org/cemb
composition
Lost Civilization : for chamber ensemble / Man-Ching Yu Donald
Other authors:
Yu, Donald
(Composer)
Description:
The piece is inspired by the Chinese modern artist Zhang Guanghai’s painting Lost Civilization. It is the first time to associate music with the particular painting. The beginning of the music initiates with haunting dissonances generated by strings as well as chromatically-blended woodwind sections, symbolizing the dark and profound color characterized in the painting. Gradually surging into the climax at the dramatic and micropolyphonic-oriented central section where all the instruments culminate at high registrations, here the music imaginarily generalizes the motion of the bird in the painting. After finishing the climax, the music transforms into a rather mysterious moment where harmonics take place at the strings, featuring the gaps and lines emerged in the painting. Besides symbolizing the painting, the music reflects my intrigued profound feeling towards the recent political situation in Hong Kong where only true democratic freedoms are strived for as if the bird in the painting surges into the sky, but not being controlled and bounded by the dark boundaries. All in all, the music is characterized by the utilization of extensive chromatic elements as elaborated melodic lines and micropolyphonic elements, while fusing with harmonics, dissonance and Chinese color including Peking operatic effect.
Man-Ching Donald Yu