Work Information
Tan Dun : Circle with Four Trios, Conductor and Audience
|
Programme Note
I imagine this piece as a ritual in which musicians, conductor and audience all take part. It exists as sound, as space, and as silence. There is a circle which includes the entire hall, and the conductor as high priest.
I think that there are also dynamics of silence. This idea is similar to the Taoist concept that the greatest sound, the deepest meaning, might be in silence, that nothingness might be all. I feel this strongly as I design the rests in much of my music.
The chanting which serves as a pattern in this piece is from the Epitaph of Seikilos, a first century AD fragment of Greek music. When I first heard it, I felt captured by the remoteness. I cannot explain what affected me so deeply, but the result is that I wrote this piece.
— Tan Dun
Reviews
-
CIRCLE WITH FOUR TRIOS, CONDUCTOR, AND AUDIENCE [showed] the composer's penchant for the theatrical, and for his appreciation of sound and silence, throughout whatever space he's afforded. Tan describes this work as creating a sacred circle of sound, space and silence, and indeed he conducted whole bars of silence into alternately chilling and tranquil being. He also led the audience into the piece with orchestrated entries of their own vocalizations. The audience was spellbound [and] left buzzing with excitement after performing under his hypnotic leadership.
Judith White, The Saratogian
|
|
|
|