''Dabo River Caprice'' ''( 达勃河随想曲 )'' is a work for Chinese Orchestra, composed by

He Xuntian He Xuntian ( zh, s= 何训田, t= 何訓田, p=Hé Xùntián; born in 1952 in Suining, Sichuan) is a composer and professor of music composition at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Biography In 1982, he graduated from the Compositio ...

in 1982.

Introduction

This piece consists of two movement, the first being adagio and the second, allegretto. It depicts the exotic beauty of Dabo River and the joyful scene of Baima Tibetans living there. For the first time, grand chorus was included in folk

orchestral music An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, a ...

.
This piece was composed in 1982. It has won a number of

prizes A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements.

, including the 1st Prize in the Third National Musical Compositions Competition. It has been performed in more than ten countries around the

world The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that Existence, exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk ...

Instrumentation

''Dabo River Caprice'' is scored for the following orchestra:

Woodwinds Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and re ...

:''Bangdi'' (梆笛) I, II :''Qudi'' (曲笛) I, II :''Hengxiao'' (横箫) I, II :''Gaoyin sheng'' (soprano ''sheng''; 高音笙) :''Zhongyin sheng'' (alto ''sheng''; 中音笙) :''Zhongyin

guan Guan may refer to: * Guan (bird), any of a number of bird species of the family Cracidae, of South and Central America * Guan (surname), several similar Chinese surnames ** Guān, Chinese surname * Guan (state), ancient Chinese city-state * Guan ( ...

'' (alto ''guan''; 中音管) :''Diyin guan'' (bass ''guan''; 低音管) I, II Plucked strings :''

Pipa The pipa, pípá, or p'i-p'a () is a traditional Chinese musical instrument belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets rangi ...

'' (琵琶) I, II :''

Yangqin The trapezoidal yangqin () is a Chinese hammered dulcimer, likely derived from the Iranian santur or the European dulcimer. It used to be written with the characters 洋琴 (lit. "foreign zither"), but over time the first character changed to ...

'' (扬琴) :''

Zhongruan The ''zhongruan'' () is a Chinese plucked string instrument. The ''zhongruan'' has a straight neck with 24 frets on the fingerboard and 4 strings. It is usually played with a plectrum (guitar pick). It can also be played with fingers (index fi ...

'' (中阮) :'' Daruan'' (大阮) :''

Konghou The () is a Chinese plucked string instrument. In ancient China, the term came to refer to three different musical instruments: a zither and two different types of harp. Today, usually refers the modern '' concert harp'', which was invente ...

'' (箜篌)

Percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

Timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...

(定音鼓) :

Vibraphone The vibraphone (also called the vibraharp) is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using Percussion mallet, mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone ...

(颤音琴) :

Xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Each bar is an idiophone tuned to a pitch of a musical scale, whether pentatonic or heptatonic in the case of many African ...

(木琴) :

Tubular bells Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the Percussion instrument, percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillons, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the soun ...

(管钟) :

Suspended cymbal Classical suspended cymbal A suspended cymbal is any single cymbal played with a stick or beater rather than struck against another cymbal. Common abbreviations used are "sus. cym.," or "sus. cymb." (with or without the period). Most drum ki ...

(吊镲) :

Maraca A maraca ( , , ), sometimes called shaker or chac-chac, is a rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music. It is shaken by a handle and usually played as part of a pair. Maracas, also known as tamaracas, were rattles of d ...

s (沙锤) :

Tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, thoug ...

(铃鼓) :

Temple block Temple blocks are a type of percussion instrument consisting of a set of woodblocks. It is descended from the muyu or wooden bell, an instrument originating from eastern Asia, where it is commonly used in religious ceremonies. Description It ...

(大木鱼) :''Pengling'' (碰铃) :''

Paigu The Chinese ''paigu'' (排鼓; pinyin: páigǔ; also spelled ''pai gu'') is a set of three to seven tuned drums (in most instances five are used), traditionally made of wood Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems ...

'' (排鼓) :''

Yunluo The ''yunluo'' (simplified: 云锣; traditional: 雲鑼 pinyin: yúnluó, ; literally "cloud gongs" or "cloud of gongs"), is a traditional Chinese musical instrument. It is made up of a set of gongs of varying sizes held within a frame. It was a ...

'' (云锣) Voices :Folk

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hertz, Hz to A5 in Choir, choral ...

(民风女高音) :Folk

tenor A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below m ...

(民风男高音) Bowed strings :''

Gaohu The ''gaohu'' ( 高胡; pinyin: ''gāohú'', ; Cantonese: gou1 wu4; also called ''yuehu'' 粤胡) is a Chinese bowed string instrument developed from the ''erhu'' in the 1920s by the musician and composer Lü Wencheng (1898–1981) and u ...

'' (高胡) :''

Erhu The (; ) is a Chinese two-stringed bowed musical instrument, more specifically a spike fiddle, that is sometimes known in the Western world as the ''Chinese violin'' or a ''Chinese two-stringed fiddle''. It is used as a solo instrument as ...

'' (二胡) :''

Zhonghu The ''zhonghu'' (), short for ''zhongyin erhu'' () is a low-pitched Chinese bowed string instrument. Together with the erhu and gaohu, it is a member of the huqin family. It was developed in the 1940s as the alto member of the huqin family (si ...

'' (中胡) :''

Gehu The ''gehu'' ( 革胡; pinyin: géhú) is a Chinese instrument developed in the 20th century by the Chinese musician Yang Yusen (杨雨森, 1926–1980). It is a fusion of the Chinese huqin family and the cello, essentially an ''erhu cello'' or ...

'' (革胡) :''

Diyingehu The bass ''gehu'' (低音革胡; pinyin: ''dīyīngéhú'', ; also called ''digehu'' or ''beigehu'' 倍革胡, literally "bass '' gehu''") is a Chinese bowed string instrument in the '' huqin'' family. It was developed by Yang Yusen along with ...

'' (bass ''gehu''; 低音革胡) Notably missing from the instrumentation are the ''

suona The ''suona,'' also called ''dida,'' laba or ''haidi'', is a traditional double-reeded Chinese musical instrument. The ''suona's'' basic design originated in ancient Iran, then called " Sorna". It appeared in China around the 3rd century and ...

'' family of instruments, the ''diyin sheng'' (bass ''sheng'') and ''

liuqin The ''liuqin'' ( Chinese: , pinyin: ) is a three, four or five-stringed Chinese mandolin with a pear-shaped body. The range of its voice is much higher than other Chinese plucked string instrument, and it is used in both orchestral ...

''. Due to the limited adoption of ''gehu'' and ''diyingehu'', many Chinese orchestras use the

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

and

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

as substitutes for these parts.

Performance

''Dabo

River A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...

Caprice''
8 February 2003,

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, commonly known as the Kennedy Center, is the national cultural center of the United States, located on the eastern bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Opened on September 8, ...

China Broadcasting Chinese Orchestra
''Dabo

Caprice''
6 February 2003,

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 ...

China Broadcasting Chinese Orchestra

References

External links

Dabo River Caprice
published by People's Music Publishing House 2008 {{He Xuntian Compositions by He Xuntian 1982 compositions