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Programme Note

I called this piece In Distance because it was a kind of questioning of myself. On the simplest level, there is a wide distance between each of the instruments in register, timbre, and dynamics. Then, even though I used three western instruments, the music is often very far from the way these instruments might usually sound. The piccolo is treated more like the Chinese bamboo flute, the harp is treated like the koto, and the bass drum is made to sound like Indian drums, played only with palms and fingers. A third meaning can be heard in the texture of the music, which is very open with lots of space, as I began to use rests as a kind of musical language. Finally, I explored the distance, even the conflict between atonal writing and folk materials. Written just after I arrived in New York, I began to see myself within the clarity of distance.

—Tan Dun