Program Notes

This piece Lunar Rainbow wants to show the feeling of a flower’s life. It describes the flowers coming into blossom from the beginning and withering in the end. And it also implies the beautiful ladies’ life as short-lived, as the beautiful flowers in ancient China. The music is basic on the pentatonic scales and the structure is in “A B A” form. The whole piece described the character of ancient Chinese young women who are very emotional and prone to mood swings, and also as having been sickly and prone to illness. The B section used a Chinese folk song blue flower to be the main melody. Blue flower is the folk song of Northwest of China and it is a powerful folklore popularly sung in Northern Shan xi province. Of Mongolian origin, its sound is similar to yodeling. Moreover, I also borrowed some Chinese instrumental techniques and used them with western instruments.