From Dawn to Dawn was written in 1995, and is receiving its World Premiere with the University Symphony Orchestra under its conductor James Ross, with Prof. Mark Hill and DMA student Robert Tudor as soloists.
I had been studying Chinese about five years with, Ms. Jennie Wu Owens. when I decided to try my hand at translating some poems from the great Chinese Tang Dynasty, all written about a thousand years ago. My goal was to preserve in English something of the rhyme-scheme of the classical Chinese and at the same time write music, which though not specifically "Chinese" in character, would help underline the poems' delicate Nature imagery.
The opening sounds of the orchestra look forward to the second line of poem # 1: "Now, birds everywhere chirrup, cheep". "A noisy storm..." brings in the low brass, while "How many blossoms did the wind reap? brings back the quiet Spring morning.
The mysterious chords which open Song #2 are an echo of the second act, second scene from Berg's opera "Wozzeck", one of my favorites. In the orchestral introduction Berg paints a picture of spacious Nature, which is also what I wanted to do with this poem. However, Berg's hero goes on to describe his hallucinations, wiile in the Tang poem the message is one of inner preparation for meditation.
Song #3, "Passing Beauties" begins with a light-hearted description of lovely Court ladies parading by a suburban lake. The final lines delicately point to poet Du Fu's outrage over thse ladies' conspicuous consumption at the expense of the common people of ancient China.
In the fourth poem we hear the aching homesickness of one of these commoners - a recruit looking out from his post on the Great Wall.
The final poem brings us back to the dawn of the opening, as two friends part for probably the last time. This is the only part of From Dawn to Dawn" which uises an actual Chinese folk song - "Jiang He shui" ("long river's waters") The song is about the flow of a river as well as of time, which seemed appropriate.
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