The Alchemical Wedding — Liza Lim

Amazing Moments in TimbreEssays
Written By Linglan Zhu

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In The Alchemical Wedding (1996), for large ensemble, Australian composer Liza Lim seeks contact points between “seemingly disparate musical entities” (1996)—a pursuit reflected in the work’s title. This virtual contact is evidenced by the work’s peculiar instrumentation, where the Chinese Er-hu and Indonesian Angklung are pitted against a large Western ensemble. Reflecting the cultural fusion of composer’s upbringing between Australia and various Asian countries, The Alchemical Wedding represents a marriage of musical possibilities through the collision of Asian and Western instruments and aesthetics.

Despite this cultural immediacy suggested through Asian instruments and insinuated by the work’s title and the program note, The Alchemical Wedding does not often directly quote traditional Asian music (excepting several nostalgic melodic fragments played by the Er-hu). Rather, a strong sense of unfettered amalgamation permeates the work, dismantling boundaries between cultures and instrumental conventions. Allusions to traditional Asian music are multifaceted in Lim’s music, often tapping into the realms of timbre and gestural dynamism.

About halfway into the piece (mm. 98–106), a notable timbre produced by two muted trumpets pierces the texture. For listeners familiar with traditional East Asian music and instruments, these trumpets vividly reproduce the timbre of the Chinese Sheng⏤or one of its close relatives such as the Japanese Shō⏤a mouth-blown free-reed instrument. (For a quick introduction of the timbral and musical possibilities of the Sheng, see this video or this entry from Northern Eastern University about instruments of the traditional Chinese orchestra )

 

Video Example 1: The Alchemical Wedding, mm. 98–106, brass section. Trumpet dyads with an emerging timbre imitating the Sheng are highlighted in blue.

 

To mimic the reedy and nasal timbre of the Sheng, the two trumpets are played with open wah-wah mutes, which adds to the nasal and bright sound quality (Bertsch, 1995). Additionally, as can be seen in Video Example 1, the Sheng-like timbre emerges from the two trumpets moving in parallel fourths as a kind of monophonic melody, where the first trumpet performs the main melodic line. This harmonic treatment of melodic lines reminds one of the traditional playing techniques of the Sheng, where the main melody is often harmonized (one might say “timbrally enriched”) by a parallel fifth and/or octave above it. A fourth below the main melodic line can be played instead when higher notes are not available (“Sheng (instrument),” 2022; Wu, n.d.; see also this in-practice demonstration.) Because the construction of the Sheng makes it suitable to play polyphony and chords with ease, such traditional harmonizing principle of added parallel intervals enriching the main melody (sometimes with intervals other than fourth, fifth and octave) has always been an integral part of Sheng playing. This practice contributes significantly to the characteristic rich sound of the Sheng, where a single melody is often thickened by sonorous harmonies (Wong, 2005, pp. 141–142.)

 

Video Example 2: Other examples exist where composers tap into the traditional characteristic voicing of Sheng-like free-reed instruments to emulate their sounds. Above is an excerpt from Muak (1978) by Isang Yun, mm. 59–67. Note the chords highlighted in blue played by oboes and clarinets, which evoke a distant image of the Korean Saenghwang, another close relative of the Sheng.

 

Returning to Lim’s piece, the voicing of these two trumpets, coupled with the use of mutes, ingeniously captures the signature timbre of Sheng harmonies. As if coming from one instrument, the two trumpets meld together into one virtual instrument, creating a form of “timbral emergence” (McAdams, Goodchild, & Soden, 2022) where the resulting new timbre is richer than either of the two constituents.

This timbral union between the two trumpets is, however, only momentary. The parallel movement between the two does not last long before they split into individual lines with contrasting figures. The ephemeral moment so redolent of the sound of Sheng seems more like an incidental contact between the two instruments, without deliberately dwelling on any cultural references. Just like the rest of the work, differing musical entities fall apart and recombine elsewhere. Within their meanders, those moments of union seem surprising yet inevitable.

References

Recordings

Recordings used in Video Example 1 & 2:

  • The Alchemical Wedding: Elision Ensemble / Ensemble Modern / Dominique My (conductor), in Liza Lim: The Heart’s Ear, ABC Classics, 1999.

  • Muak: Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken / Hans Zender (conductor), in Isang Yun: Muak, Pièce Concertante & Sonatina, Camerata Tokyo, 1989.

Header/thumbnail photo:

ZHOU Wenju: United by Music (合樂圖) (part), 15th/16th century

Linglan Zhu
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