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''Horologia sinica'' (渾天昏君) is a composition by the contemporary Chinese-British composer Jeffrey Ching. It was commissioned by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, who premiered it under Yan Huichang on 6 March 2012 during the 40th Hong Kong Arts Festival at a concert marking the fiftieth anniversary of Hong Kong City Hall. The soprano soloist was Andión Fernández. The piece lasts about twenty minutes. ==Title and Analytical Description== "Horologia sinica" means "Chinese clocks" in Latin. The Chinese title ''Huntian hunjun''「渾天昏君」 is an untranslatable pun on ''huntian'' (渾天) meaning "astronomical clock", and ''hunjun'' (昏君) meaning "foolish ruler". The composer writes of this work: "The first 'clock' is the water-powered astronomical clock-tower built by the court official Su Song (蘇頌) in Kaifeng during the Northern Song dynasty. An ensemble of water sounds, woodblocks, and other unpitched percussion accurately mark the seconds, minutes, quarters, and night-watch (更籌) between 03:57:36 and 04:16:48 at the start of the solar period ''jingzhe'' (驚蟄) (ca. 6 March—the date of the world premiere in 2012). As the seconds start ticking, an offstage voice sings verses chanted by the 'human cockcrow' (雞人) above the Song palace gates before daybreak. "A second ensemble of high voice, panpipes, ocarinas, membrane flutes, mouth organs, zithers, bells, chimes, and other percussion, play the festive odes 'Yü li' (魚麗) and 'Nan you jia yü' (南有嘉魚) from the ancient ''Book of Songs'' (詩經), using melodies, ornaments, orchestration, instrumental ranges, seating plan, accompaniment, and tuning systems documented in Song and later sources. The odes are sung in Late Middle Chinese pronunciation, and conceal a second 'clock' in broad 4/2 superimposed on the rapid 3/4 of the first. "The third ensemble executes a series of quarter-tone glissandi that are geometrically exact musical transcriptions of seven characters from the Song Emperor Huizong’s (宋徽宗) 'Slender Gold' calligraphy (瘦金體), chosen to form seven of the eight words of a Tang emperor’s verse in praise of a clock: 「制器垂象，永鑒無惑」.〔"The instrument made, the images suspended: an eternal mirror without blur." The Tang emperor in question was Tang Xuanzong (r. 712-756 CE), ironically also a ruler blamed by history for dynastic breakdown. The scientific background to the creation of the verse is explained in: 〕 The missing eighth character is replaced by Huizong's imperial cipher, 'First Man Under Heaven' (天下一人).〔At any length, this is the usual reading of the cipher: See 〕 These glissandi are metrically aligned with the first 'clock' in 3/4, but to all intents and purposes come across as completely ametrical. "The 'clocks' start in steady time, gradually accelerate as if mounting in panic, then slowly unwind, a breakdown which finally drags odes, clocks, and signature into silence with it. Emperor Huizong was a great artist, but traditionally denigrated as an incompetent ruler (昏君) responsible for the destruction of his dynasty. The great astronomical clock (渾天) of Kaifeng was dismantled and looted when the city fell to Tartar invaders in 1127." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Horologia sinica」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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