The Maximum Speed of Raphael’s Madonna

The piece is inspired by one of the surrealistic paintings of Dali – “The Maximum Speed of Raphael’s Madonna”. The music begins with the flute solo where abundances of chromatic materials occur. Soon, the piano part erupts and it announces the four-note motive. These four pitches represent the four spherical objects in the painting. At the middle section, various four-note ostinato patterns emerge, mainly composed by octatonic materials emerge. The music gradually builds up to the climax by transposing and transforming these ostinato patterns at higher registers and, most importantly, chromatic materials blend and fuse with the octatonic materials at the climax. The tempo in the music gradually accelerates by each section until the climax, symbolizing the Madonna rotating towards the maximum speed. After returning to a lower state upon finishing the climax, the flute solo section returns and ends with various energetic musical gestures. Man-Ching Donald Yu