I’m delighted to announce that Thomas Mesa and Yoon Lee’s recording of “Novella (Chapter One)” for ‘cello and piano is finally being released this month.
I composed Novella (Chapter One) when I was living in Tianjin, China, during October and November 2017. It was commissioned by Fang Yijia and Li Xinyuan, who premiered it in Cincinatti Conservatory of Music on 1st December 2017. Their planned album release never came to fruition, so I’m so pleased that Thomas and Yoon have now made this recording and Parma Recordings have released it for sale.
Programme Notes (English and Chinese):
Novella (Chapter One)– Programme Note
The piece was commissioned by Fang Yijia and premiered at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music on 1st December 2017, in the version for ‘cello and piano. The piece also exists in a version for viola and piano.
In recent pieces I have used certain different ways of forming the musical structure. Three or four pieces have been strictly “geometric” or “architectural”, in which I proceeded from a global concept of the structure, and juxtaposed proportionally related blocks of different material to form an overall whole.
In Novella I attempt the opposite: not to think about proportion or length at all, but to proceed organically from start to finish. I tried above all to create a sense of dramatic narrative in the music, as if a story, the details of which we can only vaguely imagine, is being told. In order to do this, I actually wrote down a (true) story, and entirely followed what I felt to be dramatic motives and moods in this actual text. The Chinese title, which translates as Story of the Desolate City, is more suggestive of the scenic context.
《空城故事（第一篇）》– 樂曲解說
在近期的作品中，作曲家試圖運用音樂結構的不同構造方式。有三或四部作品是以幾何學或建築學的理念嚴格構造的：作曲家以作品結構的巨集觀概念為出發點進行創作，把內容不同，長短有比例關係的片段並列起來而形成總體的結構。
在《空城故事（第一篇）》中作曲家試圖用相反的方式：完全不去考慮各部分的比例或長短，而是從頭到尾通過有機的發展線索進行創作。首先，作曲家試圖在音樂中營造一種戲劇性的情節感，似乎音樂在陳述故事，儘管具體細節我們只能大致地猜測。為此，作曲家確實寫了一個（真實的）故事，其文字嚴格遵循作者對故事主線裡戲劇性主題和情感的感受。故事的場景，可以從作品的中文題目獲得一點暗示（英文題目就是《小說》）。
在創作過程中，作曲家得到了一個有價值的個人發現：用音樂描述（或喚起）事物要比用語言花費的時間長得多！在七分鐘的音樂內，作曲家才完成了故事陳述的不到四分之一，因此本人在題目後面加了“第一篇”。作曲家希望將來可以完成剩下的章節。
You can see earlier posts about the initial creation of this piece and its subsequent performances in the posts below:
Novella (Chapter One) for cello and piano (Premiere, Dec. 2017)
Thomas Mesa, Yoon Lee perform “Novella (Chapter One)” in New York (Nov.2019)