Chen-Hui Jen, Composer

《松下》，為絲竹七重奏
“Under the Pines”, for seven Chinese instruments
(2008)

小巨人絲竹樂團委託創作。

官方版樂曲解說

我靜坐於斯
在晝與夜的光影中
面對著海，聽風
陣陣拂入松林

我靜坐於斯
時間緩緩流過

我將全曲視為一種情境的時間延展，在此過程間音樂的發展手法是近乎抽象的，直到末段尾聲時，作為樂句及結構縮影的旋律片段才正式出現。事實上這首作品對我而言是極大的挑戰，畢竟傳統樂器﹝國樂器﹞具有某種層面上的文化包袱：中國音樂五千年來大多為具象，抒懷或者敘事，如同詩文與書畫，並沒有西方所謂抽象的概念存在。以西方現代音樂的前衛寫法在技術上可以，但在音樂理解上卻往往使演奏家與聽眾無所適從，因為沒有那樣的基礎。於是我試圖將部分舊有語法重新組合、擴展，打破原本旋律式的連續性，並加上部分新的演奏法或音色﹝或者有些是舊有的，但以新的姿態呈現﹞，在「放大鏡式延展」的結構中呈現嶄新的表層面貌。

I sit here in silence
In lights and shadows, days and nights
Facing toward the ocean, listening to the wind
Breezing into the pine forest

I sit here in silence
When the time slowly passes

I consider the entire piece an aura’s time expansion.  During this time progress, the music develops mostly in an abstract way, and the melodic fragments as a miniature of the musical phrases and the structure only occur in the ending section.  This piece for me was a big challenge, because to certain degree Chinese instruments are symbolic to the Chinese culture: in the past Chinese music used to be more concrete, lyrical or narrative like poetry and literary paintings but far from the abstract contemporary art.  Writing for these instruments in the same way as Western contemporary music is technically practical; however, because of the lack of Western classical music’s historical context, this way usually confuses the performers and the audience.  Therefore I intend to reconstruct and extend some preexisting musical vocabularies to break the idiomatic, melodic continuity and add some new performance techniques (or some old ones but in a different way), and present them as a new appearance in this expanded time structure.

延伸閱讀：從《松下》談具象與抽象思維、沒有不協和音的《松下》、《松下》的結構、回到《松下》