Concerto for String Orchestra and Pipa (1999)

In Tan Dun's recent PIPA CONCERTO, a giddy merging of traditions and a leapfrogging through music history, cultural integration is effortless. The pipa may be exotic in Western music, but it is no longer alien. No single work exemplifies Tan's range, which extends from uncompromising experimentalism to populism. The PIPA CONCERTO adapts some of the music he wrote for the experimental GHOST OPERA into a more traditional concerto format. The concerto with its theatrically virtuosic solo part is winning. At its heart is a slow movement in which Bach and Chinese melody seem to make elegant love to each other, and who could resist that?