The volume of 15 Choral Pieces was composed between the autumn of 2013 and the spring of 2014 while my mum made an operation in hospital and had a treatment in home. The composition has been feeling in frangibility of human's body, so broad of God's space and also thanksgiving unlimited love of FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD, feedback parents' formidable Journey for training and education, from what I have touched the heart and have been writing coherently. I used to study composition in England for 6 years and went to the local churches every Sunday morning during that time before becoming a Christian. I had been always touched when listened to some high quality performance of choir music and repeatedly aftertaste many times for some choir performance, so as to realized that only be touched by the singing sound during the church activities we can more deeply understand God's Decree. The season why we can be touched should come from the composing and performing quality and also the deductive level. All the observation and reflections from myself which forms a necessary recognize to hymns music and lay a hint for composing hymns choral pieces. In the beginning of the writing, I selected some periods from the Bible and felt that somewhere is not so rhyme, so to change some words and sentences, my mum corrected it timely, She said that the word and sentence from Bible should not been changed, so as to keep the charm and meaning originally. Therefore, the texts of these fifteen choral pieces was totally comply with the original meaning and based on it, I designed choral structure in the whole and partial details. According to the themes and expressive need, I arranged three sorts of performing forms, three voices for mixed three-voices chorus, female three-voices chorus and mixed four-voices chorus. About the tentative idea to musical style, I think style and the contemporary feeling should be considered first of all. The first, the church music originated in the Western world, Chinese people sing the church music should respect original style and should not deliberate pursuit eastern modal style, in principle, the chorus sound should be agreed with church music style and surroundings, so that all of the selection of musical materials should be carefully considered, such as, the nature major scale, harmonic minor-scale, melodic minor-scale, Jewish scale and partial medieval modes, etc ...... The second, the music composed in 21th century which should have the features from the time. Among this pieces, all the use of chromatic harmony were to express inner realm and emotional expression, all the canon imitation and contrapuntal treatments were also to strengthen artistic charm, the need of deeply understand the meaning of holy bible, even the quantity of voices, is considered by expression too.
About the Author: Prof. YAO Heng-lu, the composer, male, born in Beijing, China. He graduated in Music Composition from Shanxi University in 1976. As a composer and music editor, he worked at Beijing Broadcasting Station between 1980 and 1989. He used to study in England in 1989 and afterward respectively acquired the degrees of Master of Music (M.Mus.) in 1990 and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in 1994, both in Music Composition at music department of Leeds University, in England. He has been awarded a research fellowship from National Education Ministry entitled TRANS-CENTURY TRAMING PROGRAM FOUNDATION FOR THE TALENTS OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCE BY THE NATIONAL EDUCATION MINISTRY IN 1999. He has published over 80 academic papers since 1993, one of them called THE COMBINATORIAL COMPOSING PRINCIPLE OF TRICHORD SET-ANALYSIS TO BABBITTS SEMI-SIMPLE VARIATION, had been awarded a Certificate of Achievement in selection in world wide web of internet by Colby Information Centre of Science & Culture, USA, in 2000. In recent 10 years, he has been cooperating with Korea composers' and their music organization to hold varies concerts for new compositions in each year, many composer- members of Asian countries and areas have been taken part in. Prof. Yao has been in charge of vice president in Music Analytics Association of China since 2009.