Scalar Transformations in Some of Chen Yi's Music

Below are the first fifteen measures of the solo cello part of the last movement of Chen Yi's Ballad, Dance, and Fantasy for cello and orchestra (2003). The entire published score can be found here. I have added an editorial marking—a flat over the G in m. 5, as this would be more consistent with mm. 8 and 11—and a performance suggestion in mm. 4-5 and in subsequent parallel measures marked simile.

The first five notes in m. 1 can be transformed into the first five notes in m. 5 through the process laid out below. First, the notes are retrograded and inverted around C2/G2. Second, since the intervals between adjacent notes are all either one or two steps within the chromatic scale, these sizes can be exchanged with one another. Lastly, the scalar context for the succession of step sizes is changed from the chromatic scale to a pentatonic scale. Just as moving from C2 to D2 in my example skips over exactly one note in the chromatic scale (hence, +2 or up two steps), moving from Eb2 to Ab2 in my example skips over exactly one note in a pentatonic scale. As Dr. Yi's music is billed as blending "Chinese and Western traditions, transcending cultural and musical boundaries," this last transformation seems especially apropos.

But perhaps this connection is a coincidence: too far to go transformationally for too indistinctive of a design. However, as shown below, if one applies the same series of transformations to the first nine notes of the cello part, then the resulting nine notes appear in mm. 4-5, albeit not all immediately adjacent. A cellist could adumbrate this connection by bringing out these notes, as I have suggested with my added articulations.

While echoing interests in R and I from earlier this year, this post also kicks off a three-post series featuring music written by women.

Thanks to Xiaolai Zhou for introducing me to this music.

And that's five years of monthly posts.