”Water Album 4 – Realms of Interim II” (2022)

for Sheng, Zheng, Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Viola, Cello, Contrabass & Electronics

Premiered – TimeArt Studio Taipei Taiwan,25 December 2022 ,Experimental Theatre, National Theatre, Taipei.

Program Note

Ma Yuan’s ink wash painting series Water Album features seemingly degraded art. Faded ink, yellowed paper, and the residue of time are defining characteristics of her work. However instead of viewing this as damage, I see this loss of information as an integral part of the work. This idea is also the theme of my Water Album works. From the purely physical phenomena to the cultural level, I explore the disappearance of sounds from multiple different prospective and present them in a non-linear way. In 2018-20, I composed four Water Albums, which are ensemble pieces of different instrumentation. Even though they are inspired by Ma Yuan’s Twelve Water Albums, they do not point to any specific images. They are more about looking for a tangible connection between the water as a cultural symbol and personal emotions. The theme of the Water Album #4 Realms of Interim is “rippling”. On the macroscopic level, there are three layers of time in the piece. These layers correspond to the unknown universe, our time, and the time of the witness (or narrator, who will travel between the time spaces and tell the story). On the microscopic level, the music will expose the fact that all these three layers are indeed interconnected; an event that happens in one layer will affect the others and creating a rippling effect.

褪色的墨水、泛黃的紙張、時間的殘留物與信息丟失是馬遠的水圖最吸
引人之處,也是我在 2018-20 年創作的四首水圖的主題。 從純粹的物理現像
到文化呈現,從多個不同的角度探索聲音消失的過程,並以非線性的方式呈
現。儘管它們的靈感來自於馬遠的《十二水圖》,但它們並沒有指向任何具
體的圖像。 他們更多的是在水作為文化符號和個人情感之間尋找有形的聯
繫。

《漏斷 II》的主題是 “rippling” (漣漪)。 在宏觀層面上,這部作品分為三
個時間 / 聲音的層次。 分別對應著未知的宇宙,我們的時代,以及觀察者
(或者說敘述者,穿梭於時空之間講述故事的人)的時間。 在微觀層面上,
音樂將揭示這三個層面確實相互關聯的事實。