High Hurdle for Symphony Orchestra

The original Mandarin for this work is 海泣, meaning “Crying Sea.” At the same time, its pronunciation is very close to the word ‘broken’ in Taiwanese, and I feel that there is a close interrelationship between breakage and grief.
Growing up in Taiwan, an island surrounded by ocean, I’ve always found the sea to be a subject of fascination and creative inspiration. Billions of pounds of trash and other pollutants enter the ocean every year. The ocean cannot speak for itself, and I wish to speak for the ocean through this music by sonically expressing how turmoil and anguish can afflict a delicate and precious ecosystem.

Play by Peabody Symphony Orchestra 2018

Broken Waves for Symphony Orchestra

In the first movement, I want to capture the different scenes above and below the sea horizon, using different tempi to present different scenes. The fast passages capture the rough movements and turmoil above the sea surface while the slow section portrays the less turbulent movements under the sea. With the ending of the first movement, the second slow and expressive movement begins immediately, capturing the scene that the ocean is facing crisis, such as with dying coral reefs. A special place on Earth where there is supposed to have colorful corals is fast becoming a tomb with lots of white dead coral. With an increasing fast and repeated notes in the melody, the music enters into third movement without pause, which is fast and energetic. Bringing back the motive from first movement reminds us how beautiful the sea is and we must do what we can to protect it.

Tzu-Chin Hsu

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