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The larvae of cicadas live underground for years, creeping about slowly and peacefully in the dark, while they wait for a beautiful, brief moment when they suddenly, on a warm, damp summer’s night, become transformed into an animated, highly mobile form of life. They fly gaily in the sunshine and sing ardently to the trees in all their greenery, but after only a short while disappear again, the same cycle being repeated year after year.
This composition has a "life cycle" similar to that of cicadas: two small cells initially remain hidden inside dense, gloomy note-clusters; over time, they slowly become buds, grow and blossom. They appear for the first time in their "adult form" in the fast middle section, where they assume the shape of two very popular Chinese folk melodies, "Jasmine" and "Old Six Blows", in wholly chromaticized and defamiliarized variants. After their grand efflorescence, these gradually dissolve again into transparent sounds.
Ming Wang
Vienna, April 2018
Translation: Michael Talbot
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Music example
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