Dhyana
Zhou Long
About this work:
Published by Oxford University Press. Contact: http://www.oup.co.uk/ and/or Suzanne Ford: suzanne.ford@oup.com
Dhyana was composed in 1989 and completed in March 1990. The composition won the Fifth International Composition Competition in D’Avray, France, on 14 February 1991. The work was premiered at the Pacific Music Festival, Sapporo, Japan, 7 July 1990. The inspiration for Dhyana comes from the Buddhist concept of “cultivation of thought”—the process of gathering scattered thoughts and focusing them on one object to arrive at enlightenment. To express the progression from worldliness to serenity and, finally, to purification, the musical structure moves from complex to simple in pitch, from dense to relaxed in rhythm, from tight to open in range, from colorful to monochrome in timbre, from foreground to background in sonority. In addition Zhou Long pays homage to ancient Chinese instruments and musical gestures by bringing their distinctive characteristics into full play. The sound of bells, chimes, gongs, and harmonics made on the guqin (Chinese long zither), featured in Chinese percussion music, are re-created by playing inside the piano; the sound of temple blocks and the various sonorities produced by different gestures on the guqin are depicted in the violin and cello; and the reciting style of the vertical Chinese bamboo flute is reproduced by glissandos with microtones on the flute and clarinet. Dhyana is one of several chamber works by Zhou Long based on various Buddhist concepts. Through his use of complex textures and polyphonic structures, Zhou Long leads the performers to enter into the spirit of dyhana—the movement between freely flowing and densely concentrated thoughts.
Year composed: 1990
Duration: 00:10:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Other Combinations, 2-5 players
Instrumentation: 1 Flute, 1 Clarinet, 1 Piano, 1 Violin, 1 Cello
Instrumentation notes: Pianist plays harmonics inside piano by touching string nodes, as well as fingernail pizzicati and other extended techniques inside the instrument. Flautist plays F-rims.