Horologia sinica

Commissioned work for the 40th Hong Kong Arts Festival commemorating the 50th anniversary of Hong Kong City Hall.

World premiere on 6 March 2012 at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall
Andión Fernández, soprano
Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra
Yan Huichang, conductor

 

 

"Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall
Jeffrey Ching’s ambitious new work, premiered here, employed classical Chinese elements but with a 20th-century American flavour

Of the nearly 2,100 works to date commissioned by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, it’s safe to say that few are as ambitious as Jeffrey Ching’s Horologia sinica. Eschewing the usual historical or literary narratives, the Manila-born, Berlin-based Ching instead found inspiration in a handful of cultural artefacts – an ancient clock (the title of the piece is Latin for “Chinese clocks”), two odes from the classic Book of Songs, an emperor’s calligraphy – that he renders in strictly sonic terms.
At the piece’s premiere last Tuesday, five percussionists sustained mutually exclusive rhythmic patterns while modern Chinese string instruments (both plucked and bowed) occasionally clashed with a traditional wind section tuned to match Song Dynasty court instruments. Soprano Andión Fernández (the composer’s wife and frequent collaborator) performed the odes with archaic Chinese pronunciation, initially facing upstage with strong dramatic effect.
Classical Chinese references aside, the results carried a distinctly 20th-century American flavour, with Horologia sinica in most of its 20 minutes sounding rather like a determined synthesis of the microtonal, polyrhythmic experiments of Charles Ives and the ritualistic mash-ups of George Crumb, as if Ching had enlisted those two composers to help reconstruct his archeological finds. Conductor Yan Huichang led the piece with effective understatement, following with the evening’s interval to let Ching’s various strains resonate a bit longer."

Ken Smith, The Financial Times, March 8, 2012

 

 

“The only piece in the first part of the programme, the roughly twenty-minute Horologia sinica, was creativity of the highest order, revealing the multi-cultural background of [its composer] Jeffrey Ching…and in particular the intellectual fruit of his researches into Chinese history.

“…As the printed programme note points out, the time between 03:57:30 and 04:16:40 during the solar period jingzhe of the Chinese calendar works out to the twenty-odd-minute duration of the piece; but further, jingzhe generally falls on 6th March of the Gregorian calendar (though a day late this year), which was the date of this concert, so evidently the date on which the commissioned piece was to be premiered itself became a source of inspiration for the piece.

“…For his first composition employing a large-scale ensemble of Chinese instruments, Ching seems to have assumed the role of cool spectator, or historiographer.  One doesn’t hear a big emotional palette in the entirety of this work, which unchangingly represents the rhythmic passage of time, further reinforcing the historical atmosphere of the whole piece.  In the Chinese calendar the solar term jingzhe ['Awakening of Insects'] was the period when Mother Earth was restored to life after the harsh winter, with the dormant beasts and insects all awaking to new vigour. The looting of the astronomical clock, Emperor Song Huizong joining the list of history’s 'foolish rulers', twenty minutes of 'Awakening of Insects'—all are turned into transient historical vicissitude.  Finally, the music itself disappears into the silence of the past, as if betraying a sense of the composer’s own emotions of helplessness and pity.”

Chow Fanfu, Xianggang Xinbao [Hong Kong Economic Journal], April 25, 2012