Robert Carl

Zheng and Sustaining Instrument

Composer's Note:

Processional: "A Tree Rises" is a brief work for the zheng (21-string Chinese zither) and a sustaining instrument (see below). Its mood is grave and austere. Designed to slowly "bloom" through an increasingly large and rich palette of pitches, it creates a progression of harmonic fields in an ever-growing registral space. The zheng provides the "bones" of the piece, while the sustaining instrument connects the music from one harmonic region to another with common tones. The zheng tuning is non-traditional, but is based on the pentatonic content of its lowest octave, which is then used to generate the pentachords in each successively higher register, simultaneously adjusted to reflect overtone relations off the low D.

While developed from a rather abstract structure outside of real time, a sort of "sonic architecture", I hope the music also projects a certain "naturalness" of sound, rather like the image of the subtitle. If it also evokes a sense of the archaic and ritual, then it's done its job.

This piece dedicated with gratitude to Chen Yi, whose request brought this piece into being.