“There’s a sudden clap of thunder,
  followed on by another,
  Rudely awakening
  the nestling swallows 
  and the hibernating snakes.”

When I wrote this piece, I had in my mind these lines taken from a Chinese poem by Yuanchen 元稹 (ca. 779-831). The couplet provides a perfect description of what the Chinese see in the phenomenon of "chunlei" (spring thunder) which denotes the thundery weather (usually accompanied by lightning and heavy showers) in early March that heralds the end of the cold wintry days.

The music comprises three sections. The first section contains a collection of musical gestures, performed either on a solo instrument or on a group of instruments. Silence is a major structural component in this section. The frequent occurrences of silence are intended to create a mood of suspense and expectancy as the barren fields await patiently, or impatiently, the first flash of lightning. The unannounced arrival of the spring thunder comes as suddenly as the climax of the piece contained in the ensuing section, characterized by an extremely dense musical texture. The climactic passage is an outburst of musical energy unleashed by the full tutti. As the thunder continues to roll, living creatures of all kinds – those with wings and those that creep – are aroused from their dormancy into a commotion of activities. After that, the music gradually disintegrates into a quiet section, with the strings playing a soft drone which is intended to produce a kind of “heard silence”. In this audible silence, the audience will hear the rising sound of the wind imitated on the wind instruments as the fields, now drenched with rain from the spring showers, look forward to the sprouting of the first new shoots.


Performance: 
Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra
Ondrej Vrabec, conductor
August 28th, 2013
Ostrava Days
Philharmonic Hall, Ostrava, Czech Republic

Rude Awakening (2013) for orchestra

"Sanguinante. In nomine" for string quartet is part of a cycle  entitled "In utero".

Rude Awakening (2013) for orchestra

Daniel Ting-cheung LO

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