Nocturne

Winner of Pacific Rim International Music Festival’s Composition Competition

      "Nocturne" generally refers to a 19th-century character piece that is primarily inspired by or evocative of the serenity of the night. However, my piano piece, Nocturne, distances itself from the traditional meaning. The principle behind the night's creation is the Earth's rotation from west to east, causing a change in the surface illuminated by sunlight. In other words, night is the time of shadows created by the blocking of light due to rotation.

      Paul Cézanne’s series of paintings, Montagne Sainte-Victoire, demonstrates the artist's methodology of observing shadows created by the changing position of sunlight at various times on a fixed landscape due to rotation. The variation in the location of light sources and the resulting diverse shadows give each painting a different feel. Nocturne was composed through a similar process. Drawing inspiration from J.S. Bach's BWV 857 (Well-Tempered Clavier Book I, Prelude in F minor), the piece explores various forms of shadows generated when viewed from different angles. Although the original form may be challenging to recognize due to significant transformations, calculating the angles of shadows and light sources mathematically can reveal the original object.

      In Nocturne, Bach's emphasized motifs, especially prominent in fugues, such as the diminished seventh motif and the augmented fourth interval (pitch class 1 and 6), were considered. The sustained F, particularly pronounced in the prelude, also serves as the central pitch of Nocturne. The independent counterpoint characteristic of Bach's music plays a crucial role in the compositional process of "Nocturne." While considering the mentioned compositional techniques and the pianist's interpretation, imagining the original form of Nocturne created by the composer as a shadow can be a tool to understand the piece. However, just as we appreciate Cezanne’s Montagne Sainte-Victoire as a standalone work of art, the composer encourages experiencing Nocturne as an independent piece.