29 Jun 2019

GAO PING: Four Pieces for String Quartet, Prayer Songs

From Music Alive, 8:00 pm on 29 June 2019
Gao Ping

Gao Ping Photo: Supplied

Since Gao Ping moved from New Zealand back to China in 2011, he’s kept in close touch with the New Zealand String Quartet and has written them several pieces.

The Quartet members say they especially love his atmospheres, textures, his sense of beauty and wit.

Gao Ping’s 'Four Pieces for String Quartet', subtitled ‘Prayer Songs’, were commissioned by the New Zealand String Quartet and in them, the composer explores different ways of conversing within a group of individuals.

Gao Ping says, “I imagine these short pieces as a variety of chants, or prayers, which are shared by the four reciters who take turns in the chanting. They follow and comment on each other and, sometimes, they join into a larger stream, and then separate again, slide into smaller active units. All the time, though, they are bound by the same focus and direction, trying to stay together, moving towards a peaceful and harmonious union.”

First is an introduction, second a meditation featuring viola, and the the third piece is like a little fairy dance. In the fourth movement the members of the String Quartet say they can hear ‘echoes of Chinese opera and some real crazy stuff.’

Recorded 29 June 2019 at St. Mary of the Angels, Wellington by RNZ Concert

Producer/engineer: Darryl Stack

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