Abstract:

Salt is a musical work written for orchestra with a total duration of 12 minutes. The idea of this piece is transforming a single chord without losing its fundamentals. Just as salt preserves its taste no matter what it is mixed with, the essence of the original chord of the piece is not lost throughout the entire work. In order to enhance the metaphor, the electronics used in the piece--built on the resonance model of the main chord with spectral transformation--employ the actual sound of dropping, spreading and touching salt. The title Salt also reflects my Christian faith and my musing on the words "Ye are the salt of the earth." Thus the piece has the touch, taste and also the meaning of salt. Salt is divided in two movements. The first movement forms a prelude to the second movement. It begins with a fully developed orchestral exposition, an explosive outburst of intense brightness of the chord. In the second movement, the strings plays the chord and other instruments ornament the chord with appoggiaturas, short chromatic scales, and trills. The chord goes through a journey of harmonic transformation and gradually gets distorted. At the end of the distortion, which is the climactic point of the piece, the ornaments burst into multiple solo lines, which nevertheless retrain traces of the chord.