The end of Hong Kong as British colony, and its reunification with China is already part of the contemporary History, with its magnificent public ceremonies accompanied of all type of sports and cultural acts; it is with this excuse, and commissioned by the "Association for the Celebration of the Reunification of Hong Kong with China", where emerges the Symphony 1997 of the young Chinese composer Tan Dun. Preceded of a very modal Prelude (Song of Peace), each one of the three parts (Sky - Earth - Humanity) in which is divided the symphony use a different structure, though all they may have been imbued of the mixed-culture spirit of the music of Tan Dun, something unavoidable given his musical career (from violin performer in the Chinese Opera of Beijing, to composer/resident conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra), and the historical essence, social and cultural of the new Chinese city. Thus, Dun it uses three musical components to identify and join together this musical reality: a children Choir, that personifies the thrilled new future of the city; the bianzhong (65 ritual bronze bells), uncovereded in 1978 after more than two thousand years, as representation of China's past; and a western speaker in the tones of a soloist cello performed by the very known Yo-Yo Ma, probably one of the international renown soloists more committed with the contemporary music, such is demonstrated with his numerous assignments and participations in new scores (see, as an example, the splendid Yo-Yo Ma Premieres or the very interesting King Gesar). These three vertices also appear in the mentioned three parts of the work: Heaven, split into a prologue and four movements, presents the most amiable and jubilous side of the score, from the rhythmic and harmonic exhuberance of Dragon Dance to the curious sound experiment of Opera in Temple Street; Earth is in reality a concerto for cello, bianzhong and orchestra, also structured in three parts -Water, Fire, Metal- preceded of an introduction, that makes use of a much more contemporary and experimental language; finally Mankind uses, as base, a recent cinematographic score of the same composer, and its pacifist and integrative message closes, cyclically, the symphony with a new presentation of the Song of Peace that was opening the work. To outline, the second-to-none presentation of the disk, that includes a double picture, an external of carton gilded in relief that reproduces one of the bronze bells bianzhong, and other inside very colourful, with a retouched aerial photograph of the spectacular and very modern Hong Kong.A work especially recomendable and different.
