WHY YOU SHOULD LEARN THIS PIECE
Color.
Valley 影谷
by Stephen Yip
Stephen Yip’s Color. Valley (影谷) is a special piece for several
reasons. The first of which is its connection to the visual arts. Writing music
that responds to visual art is nothing new, however Yip’s selection of visual
artist is something new. The visual basis for the piece is Wu Guan Zhong’s (吳冠中) paintings.
Wu’s paintings often depict natural scenes, and waterscapes. These paintings
are equally influenced by impressionist painters from Europe, such as Van Gogh,
and Monet as well as traditional Chinese calligraphy and ink wash paintings.
This merging of East and West can be heard in Yip’s Color. Valley as well. The other reason why this piece is special
is because of the composer’s novel approach to musical impressionism. If you
are only familiar with the Impressionists Debussy and Ravel I encourage you to
explore Dutilleux, Boulanger, Dukas, Jolivet, and Jean Francaix. Their works
take the listener deep into the world of musical Impressionism.
Color.
Valley opens with the composer exposing the pitches of
the open strings G, C, and D. It’s done in such a way that makes us aware that
this is something very familiar, something most listeners have heard many
times. But, rather than simply play these open strings in succession, they are
broken up by natural harmonics, glissandi, and sul ponticello colors.
Something wonderful happens throughout this
first page of music. The composer gives us such intriguing material to play,
while more or less staying in a key with no accidentals, and giving us a rich
colouristic line to play without any melody. It's a fantastic introduction to
non-melodic writing that challenges the player in a totally unique way.
The piece gets progressively busier as we move
up the range of the cello, all the while maintaining a very conservative pitch
selection based entirely on the cello’s natural harmonic series. To convey all
of the nuances of this kind of writing it is of the utmost importance to follow
the prescribed dynamics and bring out all of these timbral curiosities.
I would be remiss if I introduced this piece
without mentioning any of its melodic content. Melody is not the focus of the
piece, but it is here, and it can’t be treated with secondary importance. It is
in these melodic gestures that I hear the ‘Eastern’ influence in Yip’s work.
This work on the whole, reminds me of a lot of guzheng writing. The resonating
open strings with interjectory melodic fragments really convey to the listener
a work of ‘impression,’ and atmosphere rather than one of concrete forms, soaring
romantic melodies, and driving rhythms.
