Fishes’ Tears for Saxophone Quartet (2020/21)

Fishes’ Tears for Saxophone Quartet (2020/21)
Composer: Mao Zhu
Performance Director: Gai Qun
Performers: Golden Melody Saxophone Quartet (Han Zeping, Li Zhuolin, Yang Xi, Xiao Lirong)
《白鲟之泪--萨克斯管四重奏》（2020/21）
作曲：毛竹
音乐指导：盖群
演奏：金旋律萨克斯管四重奏（韩泽平，李卓霖，杨惜，肖立嵘）
Fishes’ Tears, I wrote this saxophone quartet as a lament for an ancient creature that has become extinct in recent decades: Chinese paddlefish (Psephurus gladius). At the beginning of 2020, Chinese scientists announced that one of the world’s largest freshwater fish, Chinese paddlefish, the unique species in China, had become extinct. The giant ancient fish, which lived for more than 150 million years, survived the Cretaceous extinction of dinosaurs, its name appearing in the Classic of Poetry 2,000 years ago, in songs handed down from generation to generation. For nearly a century, Human's ability and speed to transform nature is growing stronger, and paddlefish, which migrate and spawn in the Yangtze River, have been blocked by high dams and caught in increasingly fine fishing nets with holes in them, people have been saving and protecting this ancient fish, but they still can't keep it from passing away. It was last seen in 2003, an injured paddlefish swimming against the flow in the Yangtze River. The ship that tracked it accidentally hit the reef and the sonar signal was lost. Since then, there has been no sign of the Chinese paddlefish.
In this piece, music starting from the continuous moving upward glissando, layer upon layer, creating a sense of tension, like Shepard tone. The rapid overtone gliding of the baritone saxophone is like the whistling of some ancient creature. Then, a melody with an elegiac temperament appeared, and the high-pitched saxophone played short and sharp high notes. It is the sonar signal that humans send to the underwater world repeatedly without response, which symbolizes all the efforts made by humans to save the ancient species.
Some people say that to hear is to say goodbye forever, but I would like to believe that the ancient big fish just hides quietly and still alive in places invisible to human beings.