per aspera (ad astra)

solo percussion
marimba [4.3 octave with separated layer of resonators for ‘black’ and ‘white keys’, mallets needed: medium yarn beaters (rattan shaft x4, wooden shaft x4), hardest yarn beaters x4 (all with rattan shafts), softest yarn beaters x4, prepared plastic binding comb]; 2 tom-toms [pitch: mid or high-mid, very low]; gran cassa [dry sound needed, place damping device (e.g. cloth) if needed]; wind gong [coin/metal]; 1 single plate of crotale (E5) [coin/metal]

offstage part:
glockenspiel [very hard mallets x4]; trap table x1; single plate of crotale (E5) [hardest beater or triangle beater x1]

bass clarinet in Bb
also doubling on:
1 single plate of crotale (Bb5) [hardest beater or triangle beater x1]

violin

The work features percussion solo (predominantly different sounds on marimba) as the timbre source, in which different subtle tone color shades are explored.

The music embarks on its journey in the chaotic first movement, where obstacles are presented in highly polarized patterns as foreign pitches to the tone “A2”, the “root” of the whole work. After the noisy, then mechanical and hoarse first movement would the music arrives in a more peaceful second movement which the bass clarinet would join the marimba solo to become the agent to transform the highly dissonant foreign tones into more conjunct lines. The last movement features instead a violin solo, in which the violin would “place” the chromatic notes, originally anchored in the lower octaves of the marimba, into their correct places (higher octaves) in the spectrum of “A” as partials, then they would no longer be foreign to “A”, just like the stars in the galaxy.

This also represents the title “per aspera”, that the process of one overcoming obstacles would leave traces and probably reincarnate in the stars that we all long to reach (“(ad astra)”).

此作品探究敲擊樂（尤其是馬林巴琴）的演奏音色並以此為音樂發展之重要線索。第一樂章充斥著凌亂破碎。音樂從音域上到和聲上都十分「極化」。我不斷以其他不和諧音試探A音（A是整首作品的根音）。中段有粗獷的噪音的控訴過後，第二樂章則稍微平坦。低音單簧管將會加入，成為將不和轉為和諧的使者。最後，第三樂章，小提琴則從「音色」逐漸綻放出「音高」。原本在第一樂章不諧調的低音半音階已經悄悄蛻變重生成A音（4.3八度馬林巴琴的最低音）的泛音列中的其中一員，如繁星點點。這也呼應題目，每日常在的荊棘滿途，可能會是「可能到達繁星」的些微盼望。