Dream Landscapes (2008)
for Saxophone Quartet
I. Sunshine through the Rain
II. Peach Blossoms Dancing
III. The Blizzard
IV. The Tunnel of Soldiers with Light Blue Faces
V. Wheat Field with Crows (homage to Claude Debussy)
VI. The Weeping Demons after the Red Mountain
VII. Village of the Watermills
Commissioned by Composition VII Saxophone Quartet
World Premiere:
July 29, 2008
Composition VII Saxophone Quartet Concert
National Recital Hall, Taipei, Taiwan
Composition VII Saxophone Quartet
Po-Yuan Ku, soprano saxophone; Cheng-Yu Lee, alto saxophone; Chia-Chia Wu, tenor saxophone; Chih-Huan Wu, baritone saxophone
Duration: 20 minutes
Program Notes
Accepting a commission from Composition VII Saxophone Quartet made me remember a piece I wrote a few years ago, A Traveler’s Moments of Dream in the Midnight for Oboe and Chamber Orchestra, a single-movement work in seven different sections. Therefore, as I was continuing to work on my dream series, I recalled the plot of the film “Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams” (1990). I conceived a piece in seven different movements: a beautiful rainbow hung above a mountain; amazing peach blossoms dancing in the breeze; mountaineers suffering and perishing in a blizzard; dead patriotic soldiers in a tunnel; virtual realities in the paintings of Vincent van Gogh; demons killing each other after a volcano eruption; and an arcadia of self-sufficiency. I not only used the structure of the film, which emphasizes switching between unconnected dream landscapes, but also tried to interpret it as a completely individual musical work from the perspective of the audience. In the composition process, the music became an acoustic movie to express the actual and symbolic meanings of the film itself as well as those I may have myself created.
For the further information of “Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams” (1990), Please visit this Wikipedia page – Dreams (1990 film).
This recording is the live performance from:
July 10, 2009
World Saxophone Congress XV
Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand
Composition VII Saxophone Quartet
Po-Yuan Ku, soprano saxophone; Cheng-Yu Lee, alto saxophone; Chia-Chia Wu, tenor saxophone; Chih-Huan Wu, baritone saxophone
接受「第七樂章薩克斯風四重奏」的委託創作，想起多年前我寫過的為雙簧管與室內樂團的《深夜，旅人夢的瞬間》，是一個有七個短小片段的連章形式。於是我繼續了尋夢的旅程的同時，我想起一部電影《黑澤明之夢》（1990）的畫面，在雨後掠過山巒的美麗彩虹、空氣中飛舞的燦爛桃花、被暴風雪吞蝕的登山者、死後仍盡忠報國的軍人、遊走在梵谷畫中的虛擬實境、火山爆發後自相殘殺的魔鬼、自給自足的世外桃源，形成了七個擴大而且風格迥異的樂章。在跳躍而不連續的夢境中，我只擷取了原本電影的結構，並試圖加入觀者的角度去詮釋一個嶄新的音樂作品。在這個過程中，音樂變成了一種聽覺上的電影，而且傳達出我與電影關係之間的表徵意義。
為薩克斯風四重奏的《夢的景色》是一個有七個獨立樂章的音樂作品：
一、雨後的陽光
二、桃花飛舞
三、暴風雪
四、陣亡將士的隧道
五、麥田上的烏鴉
六、火山爆發後的悲哀魔鬼
七、水車村莊
延伸閱讀：
Wikipedia: Dreams (1990 film)
– Feng-Hsu Lee (March 25, 2008 Rochester, NY)
Feng-Hsu Lee 