Song in Winter

SKU: PR.114409470

UPC: 680160014200. 8.5 x 11 inches.

The idea of Song in Winter came from the imagination of the pine and the bamboo. They are so persistent and dauntless. Standing in the frigid winter, they are evergreens. In Chinese paintings, they are featured characters; in Chinese literature, they are praised as symbols against evil influences and unhealty trends. Chen Yi admires their beautiful appearances and their strong spirit and expresses their feelings through their music, which combines Chinese and Western musical materials and medium. The silence between the gestures is like the space in brush painting and calligraphy.
Song in Winter is a trio written for harpsichord, dizi (bamboo flute) and zheng (Chinese zither).  My idea for this piece came from the pine and the bamboo.  Such persistent and dauntless trees!  Standing in the frigid winter, they are evergreens.  In Chinese paintings, they are the featured characters, while in Chinese literature, they are praised as symbols against evil influences and unhealthy trends.  I admire their beautiful appearances and their strong spirit.  I express my feelings through my music, which combines Chinese and Western musical materials and media.  Using the harpsichord, an old Western instrument, and the zheng and dizi, two old Chinese instruments, I mix keyboard, plucking and blowing instruments into a whole.  The silence between the gestures is like the space in Chinese brush painting and calligraphy.  Although I have been living in a western society for seven years, I have found my thinking closely linked with Chinese arts.  I merged them into my musical language in the trio. Song in Winter was commissioned and inspired by Prof. Joyce Lindorff, the winner of the Pro Musicis Foundation's international competition, for her March 23, 1994 concert at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, sponsored by the Foundation.  It is dedicated to Ms. Lindorff and Ms. Susan Cheng, the founder and executive director of Music From China, who has been enthusiastically supporting Chinese new music in New York for many years.  The work has been recorded on the album “Sparkle: Chamber Music of Chen Yi” on CRI, released in New York in 1999. The trio has also been adapted for quartet: flute, zheng (Chinese zither), piano and percussion, for ALEA III, for the premiere concert in Feb. 4, 1994, in Boston.—Chen Yi(born in China, 1953).