Between the Earth and Forever

Year Composed:	2019
Instrumentation:	erhu solo + 2.2.2.2/2.2.1.0/timp+perc/strings
Duration	15 minutes

Sheet Music

Score & parts available for rental here.

Program Notes

When I was approached by ROCO to come up with a theme for a potential new commission, my first thought was: space. I was in Houston (for the first time) and I had just come back from visiting the Johnson Space Center. The experience had ignited in me a spark of nostalgia -- for a time in my youth when I was passionate about all things space-related -- as well as a renewed admiration for the intrepid explorers who continue to venture beyond the boundaries of our planet, wading into the mystery of the cosmos on behalf of all humankind.

Exploring this youthful passion through the lens of the erhu -- a traditional Chinese, two-stringed instrument -- was not an intuitive choice at first. I was familiar with the sound of the erhu, mostly through arrangements (of Western classical pieces or traditional folk tunes) and the occasional film score, but I knew little about it beyond that and had certainly no experience in writing for it. Nevertheless, the erhu has a history in my family: my grandfather, who I never met, was an amateur musician who played the erhu. This tenuous but personal connection provided an invisible thread which kept me tethered during the most challenging parts of composing this work. The voice of the erhu seemed to convey an immense solitude that was appropriate for this work, as was its ability to project both intensely human and otherworldly qualities.

The concerto begins with a theme on solo French horn, which recalls the primordial opening of Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra -- so familiar to us through 2001: A Space Odyssey. What follows is a through-composed tone poem of sorts, where a web of recurring motives -- fragments from the opening fanfare, a yearning, long-arched theme introduced to us on the erhu, and later, a melody that morphs from a playful, folk-tinged idiom into something more Copland-esque -- develops across a landscape of shifting emotions and stylistic contrasts: wonder, exhilaration, danger, a touch of melancholy. The relationship between the soloist and the orchestra embraces several conventions of the concerto tradition -- including a virtuosic dance between the erhu and orchestra that culminates in a vertiginous climax -- until the final few minutes, when the sound of the erhu glides farther and farther above the ensemble, as if in an ever-widening orbit.

Finally, I drew most of my musical inspiration from the title itself, between the earth and forever, which comes from the caption of a photo showing the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield performing his first spacewalk. The caption, penned by Hadfield himself, is a poetic evocation of the space (literally!) between our home and the universe. But it also spoke to me of other, less tangible spaces: the space between the familiar and the unknown, between the earthly and the transcendent, between the preciousness of nature and the abyss of environmental disaster. It is these ideas that inform the spirit of this work above all.

I am immensely grateful to ROCO for commissioning me to write this work, and for erhu player Andy Lin for performing the solo part for the world premiere; his guidance made this undertaking a little less daunting.

Performances

February 8, 2020 - Andy Lin, erhu; River Oaks Chamber Orchestra. The Church of St. John the Divine, Houston, Texas; USA.
November 5, 2022 - Snow Bai, erhu; Peterborough Symphony Orchestra. Snowplace Performance Centre, Peterborough, ON
January 28, 2023 - Snow Bai, erhu; Niagara Symphony Orchestra. FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, St. Catharines, ON

Reviews

"As the single-movement, 15-minute concerto unfolds, the orchestra adds its own hints of the extraterrestrial with strings sliding between pitches. Surges of orchestral agitation bring a more turbulent episode, and the erhu -- boosted by amplification -- gets caught up in the clangor. But the return of the horn's theme helps return the music to its moorings, and the concerto ends on yet another otherworldly note -- dying out with a quiet, long-held chord that the orchestral musicians hum.... In the hands of soloist Lin, the erhu proved a compelling musical protagonist Saturday. Lin spun out the solo line with nimbleness, lyrical poise and dramatic flair; sometimes he ratcheted up the urgency through a more intense vibrato... Led by Rountree, the orchestra brought Lau's score a richness and glow that suggested a larger group than three dozen players." - Steven Brown, Texas Classical Review

Articles

February 7, 2020 - The Houston Chronicle - "ROCO Concerto Inspired by NASA, ancient Chinese instrument"

February 7, 2020 - ROCOInsider - "Of Two Worlds: A ROCOInsider Q&A with composer Kevin Lau"

Commissions and Awards

Commissioned by the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra.