MUSICAL WORKS

CHAN Joshua Kam-biu / 陳錦標

1991

Innerutterance / 細語內心
[xi yu nei xin]

Birth Y: 1962 Birth C: HONG KONG Gender: Male

Dest: Concert

Media Specification: Mixed music

Performer(s): Tony Wheeler

First perf.: University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 4 March 1991

Duration: 8:12

Perf. Country: HONG KONG

Context: Concert \"Positron Concert Series I\"

Instruments: Clarinet and stereophonic tape

Media: CD

Prog. notes: Innerutterance evokes feelings of sorrow and despair. The grief is suggested firstly by the slow, regular beating of a bass drum, which evokes the sound of a human heart beat while providing a timing reference for the soloist. It is a distressed heart, as implied by the choral-like timbre and interwoven harmonic progression of the tape accompaniment. While five independent parts move, one note at a time, every 0.5 seconds, providing a basic rhythmic background of quintuplet quavers within a 4/4 environment (each bar is 2.5 seconds long), the drum beat is being fed through a delay unit whose parameters (delay time & delay feedback time) are constantly changing. Furthermore, the clarinet part in this 3.5 minute section has ad lib repeated notes. Thus the overall effect of the ensemble is not felt as regular, even though the drum beat is constant. The unexpected musical climax that follows this melancholic section describes an emotional outburst where the inner moan becomes a surprising bawl. The sombre four-note clarinet figure taken from the opening of the piece is re-introduced immediately after the climax, and is then the motivic nucleus for the rest of the piece. The integrity of musical phrasing and sectional design is gradually broken down into short segments or consecutive notes until both the clarinet and tape parts carry, at the end of the piece, only sorrowful long notes.
這首作品著意喚起憂傷與失望之情。前半部份的緩慢鼓聲節拍是這份傷感的催化劑。此處每一下的鼓聲都配搭了不同的回音效果或不同速度的立體拖延。鼓聲既為單簧管獨奏者提供節拍上的參考﹐也為聽眾帶來心跳聲的感覺。在錄音帶中合唱似音色和交織性和聲的襯托下﹐這個心是極度悲傷的。接著來突然出現時高潮是描寫情感上的爆發：原本的內心呻吟變成了咆哮。單簧管憂傷的四音主題在高潮過後立刻再現。

在此﹐樂句句法的整體性慢慢地被分解﹐直至悲哀的長音同時出現在單簧管和錄音帶時﹐樂曲便淡淡消逝。

Editor: Ka Lun CHEUNG

Phono: CD1: \

Comment: See: http://web.hku.hk/~jkbchan/P/Innerutterance.htm, http://web.hku.hk/~jkbchan/Complist.htm.