SKU: PR.110418500
ISBN 9781491137277. UPC: 680160690039.
DUNHUANG FANTASIA is a fascinating 12-minute drama inspired by art from grottoes in the ancient town of Dunhuang in western China. These frescoes preserve images of music and dance scenes, including the postures and attitudes of performers, and of the musical instruments used. Zhou Long’s music begins with a mysterious introduction driven by drum-like textures, followed by a series of episodes, enhanced by captions of the artwork inspiring each section and evocations of the ancient musical instruments.Commissioned and with fingering by Zou Xiang, Dunhuang Fantasia was composed in the fall of 2017. The music was inspired by the art of the Mogaoku grottoes in the ancient town of Dunhuang in western China. The frescoes of the Dunhuang grottos preserve a number of music and dance performance scenes, including images of the postures and attitudes of performers, and of a number of musical instrument types are used.The most popular form of music indigenous to this region is the huar, a folk-song type current among a number of nationalities. The huar is actually a kind of mountain song. Along with huar, Dunhuang pipa qupu (Dunhuang pipa notation) is also an inspiration for elements in this music.The music begins in adagio as a mysterious introduction. The drum-like rhythm patterns beating in the lowest region of the piano, with a muted-string sonority, creates an expanded space to enhance the echoes from the grottos. This is soon followed by the first main section, Cup of Happiness, featuring the huar and Dunhuang pipa melodies along with the dance rhythm. In the next section, Water Drum, the music becomes medium tempo. In the section Dialogue in Presto, the music becomes more active and contrapuntal. The section Tune: Changsha Girl is in a faster tempo as a dance scene. The Coda starts with dense rhythms, and tension is gradually intensified to reach a climax, culminating in a return of the opening section.
SKU: CL.014-0029-01
Note: This is a reprint from a vintage publication of 1926. If a C Piccolo/C Flute part was not published originally, one has been subsequently added by our editorial staff.
SKU: CL.014-0029-00
SKU: CL.014-0059-01
Note: This is a reprint from a vintage publication of 1928. If a C Piccolo/C Flute part was not published originally, one has been subsequently added by our editorial staff.
SKU: PR.11441359S
UPC: 680160582341. 8.5 x 11 inches.
Commissioned by Music From China ensemble and Prism Saxophone Quartet, with a grant provided by the New York State Council on the Arts in 2008. Premiered in New York City, February 2009.Commissioned by Music From China ensemble and PRISM Saxophone Quartet, with a commissioning grant provided by the New York State Council on the Arts in 2008.The imagination of this music came from the figures in the murals carved in the Mogao Caves in the ancient city Dunhuang more than a thousand years ago. The name Dunhuang originally meant “prospering, flourishing.â€Â Lying at the western end of the Gansu Corridor in China, Dunhuang was very important in the Silk Road that carried new thoughts, ideas, arts and sciences to the East and West in the ancient time. The Mogao Grottoes were built and developed over 11 dynasties over more than 1,000 years (from the 4th to 14th centuries), with murals, sculptures, wooden cave buildings and books. It was really the heyday of the art of Dunhuang in the brilliant Tang Dynasty (618-907).  The murals depict rolling dance gestures, the flapping streamer lines, the flying melodies around the clouds, and the fiery rhythms in the sky! They show the high spirit and the strong power of the people and their society. All these impressions are translated into the textures of the two Chinese traditional instrumental parts with support from a set of percussion instruments, and the sound of a saxophone quartet. It’s mysterious, vivid, colorful and energetic, it brings us to dream of the ancient glory and yearn for the future...—Chen Yi.
