Huang Ruo Red Rain 1 FOUR FRAGMENTS 13:41 Soo Bae, cello 2 RED RAIN 10:50 Emanuele Arciuli, piano SHIFTING SHADES Stephen Buck, piano 3 I 4:02 4 II 6:01 5 III 3:19 6 TREE WITHOUT WIND 13:57 Stephen Buck, piano THREE PIECES FOR PIANO Stephen Buck, piano 7 a) Prelude: Diffluent 3:49 8 b) Postlude: Left... 4:11 9 c) Interlude: Points and Lines 5:09 10 WIND BLOWS... 7:05 (for solo cello with piano drone) Arash Amini, cello; Huang Ruo, piano -—72:05—- innova 895 © Huang Ruo. All Rights Reserved, 2016. innova® Recordings is the label of the American Composers Forum. www.innova.mu www.huangruo.com Four Fragments Red Rain was commissioned by Italian pianist Emanuele Arciuli. The Norwegian painter Edvard Munch used to say, “I –H.R. never paint what I see, but what I saw.” Although the Four Fragments have no connection or influence Shifting Shades (version for solo piano) from Munch’s painting and style, it shares the same concept with Munch from a different sense and Originally composed as Drama Theater No. 2 for approach, “I compose what I heard, instead of what percussion, cello, and piano (Naxos 8.559653), Shifting I hear.” The Four Fragments are four reflections Shades is not simply a transcription or arrangement. from my memory, from my living and traveling As a solo piano work, it offers a different perspective through time and space. They are not about any on the music, and the listener’s experience is con- specific event, stage, or emotion, and are not clear- centrated and focused on different elements. In ly divided into four separate movements. They Shifting Shades, Huang Ruo’s endless capacity for should be performed in succession without pause. In invention and reinvention makes each piece differ- this continuous journey, all four fragments are ent from the others, though common themes run closely related, although each of them has its own through the whole set. form, character, and life. The first piece uses extended techniques like –H.R. plucking, stopping, and strumming the strings of the Red Rain piano, and includes a police whistle borrowed from the percussion. A slow, rhythmically fragmented The original inspiration of my solo piano piece Red opening section grows into a more driven second Rain came from a painting by the Native American half that includes powerful 5ths as points of punc- painter Jaune Quick–to–See Smith. In the painting, tuation in the lower piano registers. different sizes of rain drops, in red color and in The second piece features one of the more chal- various shapes of native-American symbols, pour lenging techniques on the piano, the repeated down on a dead Confederate soldier’s body. Are note, to create the sustained tones of a plaintive they rain drops, blood, tears, arrowheads, etc.? Once and melancholy traditional Chinese melody. I started writing the piece, the image of the paint- Colored by occasional notes played in the tradi- ing became more and more vague. The metaphor tional manner, and by lightly buzzing sheets of of red rain becomes more and more abstract, more paper laid across the bass strings, the piece ends and more symbolic, colors become sounds, sounds with an altogether new technique for the pianist. become shapes… The coda is played on six differently-pitched beer bottles that the pianist blows across to create a haunting, bass flute-like sound that roughly echoes ultimate stillness and calmness so that nothing in the original melody. one’s surroundings would be a distraction. The final piece in the set begins with startling Tree Without Wind was commissioned by Concert bursts of activity separated by equally startling long Artists Guild for pianist Soyeon Lee with funds pro- pauses. These sonic lacunae become dramatic vided by the R.G. Niederhoffer Commissioning Prize. pauses between explosive piano runs, until the –H.R. energy of the piano can no longer be contained, and the piece accelerates to full power. Kinetic Three Pieces for Piano patterns of rhythm crisscross each other at a dizzy- ing pace, gradually intensifying until the end, when Varying in character and technique, the Three powerful washes of sound from the lowest bass Pieces for Piano present the listener with a lively strings of the piano combine with a crushed cluster and exciting musical experience. Though not the- of notes at the very top of the piano keyboard, matically connected, they add to one another ending in a final flourish. through their differences. Though their titles suggest a specified sequence, they can be performed singly Tree Without Wind or together in any order. The sixth grand master of Chan Buddhism Hui Neng Prelude: Diffluent was giving a lecture to his disciples one day. While a tree in the yard was making a noticeable noise due The first piece begins with long trills, a feature of to the biting wind, some disciples turned their heads Huang Ruo’s music that the listener may recognize to check out where the sound was coming from. in Tree Without Wind. The trills descend into a rush Master Hui Neng raised the question: “What is mov- of alternating perfect fourths spiked with accents ing?” A monk answered: “The wind is moving?” The that destroy any sense of meter. While the piece master shook his head. “It must be the tree that is continues in frenetic perpetual 16th note motion, moving.” Another monk answered. The master shook hints of a larger meter drift in and out; we hear again. “Our eyes are moving?” One monk asked. hints of 4/4 time, but also 3/8, 5/8, 5/16, and others. Master Hui Neng finally gave them his answer: “All The sudden hush in the middle of the piece gives wrong, it is your internal mind and focus that way to a delirious ending as the pianist alternates moves.” leaps to the farther reaches of the keyboard, Inspired by this story, Tree without Wind was before accelerating to a crushing tremolo in the written as an echo of the highest level of deep highest register. meditation in Chan Buddhism, where one achieves Postlude: Left… scape. These two elements, the lyrical and the har- monic, complement each other in a manner char- The word “left” has three meanings in English: acteristic of Huang Ruo’s music: the lyrical line, something is gone, something remains, and the left colored by the harmonic 5ths below it, is unstructured hand. This piece seeks to encompass all three and free; the piano tremolos oscillate through a meanings: written for the left hand, it explores a recurring ostinato pattern, as though they are the dark, contemplative mood in a lyrical style quite frame holding the image of the lyrical line. The different from the other two pieces in the set. The composer himself plays the piano for this piece, cantando nature of the lines foreshadows Huang which ends in an ever quieter, gradual descent to Ruo’s current success as an opera composer with Dr. the absolute lowest register of the piano. Sun Yat-Sen and An American Soldier. —Notes by Stephen Buck except as indicated Interlude: Points and Lines BIOS Huang Ruo’s only 12-tone work, Points and Lines explores the contrast and complementarity inher- Huang Ruo ent in its title. The rigorously contrapuntal language insists on being heard in a linear way, but the the- Huang Ruo has been lauded by the New Yorker as matic material itself is highly pointilistic. In Huang "one of the world's leading young composers" and Ruo’s words, the points and the lines “compete by the New York Times for having “a distinctive against, yet complete each other.” After a short style.” His vibrant and inventive musical voice draws introduction based on repeated notes (points) and equal inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk spiky chords, the piece gradual rises in rhythmic music, Western avant-garde, experimental, noise, complexity and drive, leading to a middle section natural and processed sound, rock, and jazz to cre- that returns to the repeated note theme. The lines ate a seamless, organic integration using a compo- reassert their hegemony, but dissolve in a short sitional technique he calls “Dimensionalism.” Huang coda before a final explosive dissonance. Ruo’s diverse compositional works span from orches- tra, chamber music, opera, theater, and dance, to Wind Blows cross-genre, sound installation, multi-media, experi- mental improvisation, folk rock, and film. The lyrical cello line of Wind Blows is meditative and Huang Ruo’s music has been premiered and per- wandering, while the continuous tremolos in the formed by the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia piano part bring to mind a vast, untouched land- Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, National Polish Radio Orchestra, Kiel Stravinsky, and Lutoslawski, to include the Beatles, Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, rock and roll, heavy metal, and jazz. Huang Ruo was Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, able to absorb all of these newly allowed Western New York City Opera, Opera Hong Kong, Chamber influences equally. As a member of the new gen- Music Society of Lincoln Center, Asko/Schoenberg eration of Chinese composers, his goal and task is Ensemble, Remix Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Quatuor not just to mix both Western and Eastern elements, Diotima, and Ethel Quartet, and conducted by but also to create a seamless integration and a Wolfgang Sawallisch, Marin Alsop, Michael Tilson convincing organic unity, drawing influences from Thomas, James Conlon, Dennis Russell Davies, Ed various genres and cultures. After winning the Henry Spanjaard, Peter Rundel, Alexander Liebreich, Xian Mancini Award at the 1995 International Film and Zhang, and Ilan Volkov.