Floating Clouds
by Huang Ruo
- Instrumentation
- Cello
- Composed
- 2015
- Publisher
- Huang Ruo Publishing & Recording Company (2015); score offered free by USIMC/CMTANC on its J&V Commissions page
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About this piece
Floating Clouds comes from the J&V commission project of the Chinese Music Teachers Association of Northern California, which since 2012 has asked Asian composers to write new pieces for young musicians at every level, with the aim of introducing Chinese culture through new music and giving students repertoire for its USIMC competition. Huang Ruo, born on Hainan Island in 1976 and trained in Shanghai, at Oberlin and at Juilliard, wrote it in versions for solo violin and solo cello; the cello score is dated 2015. It begins as a slow, bending melody low on the instrument, ornamented with grace notes and slides. Along the way the line breaks into a burst of left-hand pizzicato, measured tremolos and accented chords, and it ends by rising to a long pianissimo note high on the A string.
Technical overview
A slow solo in 4/4 at quarter note = 42, moving to 68 halfway through, in bass clef until the final bars switch to treble clef for a held high B. The melody ranges from the C string to the upper positions on the A string and is full of grace notes, written slides between notes, triplets, quintuplets and dotted rhythms. It also asks for measured tremolo, accented double-stop chords, a passage of left-hand pizzicato, and dynamics from pp to ff with sudden sfz accents.
Technical focus
- C String Notes
- Dotted Rhythms
- Double Stops
- Dynamics
- Glissando
- Grace Notes
- Left-Hand Pizzicato
- Legato
- Shifting
- Tempo Changes
- Treble Clef
- Tremolo
- Triplets