Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

Moon Rhyme is based on a Chinese nursery rhyme that is fantasy-like and imagery-filled. The title of the piano piece is taken from the nursery rhyme's first word, which refers to the moon. The Chinese language consists of several tones with some dialects having 9 tones. It is, therefore, inherently lyrical. The tones in a poem are exaggerated, hence its recitation is very song-like. The melody of Moon Rhyme is adapted from the melodic contour of the nursery rhyme. The poem is of a village dialect known as Kaiping, a variant of the Taishan dialect, which is related to Cantonese.

Much of the harmony of Moon Rhyme is derived from the pentatonic scale but with an omission of one note and, sometimes, an alteration of a note to a semitone. The four-note chord is applied simultaneously with another such chord, but mirrored, to form a stronger dissonance and thereby creating a richer harmony. These symmetrical chords, which are characteristic of the composer, were developed for the piano and to some extent influence the formation and selection of the symmetrical chords, because the physiology of the hands facilitates the performance of particular arrangements of notes more suitably than others on the instrument. The mirrored chords also coincide with the physical symmetry of the two hands.

Work Details

Year: 2010

Instrumentation: Piano.

Duration: 5 min.

Difficulty: Advanced