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Digital download
- Tan Dun
Seven Desires for Guitar (2002)
- G Schirmer Inc (World)
Programme Note
Seven Desires for Guitar grew out of passages from Guitar Concerto (Yi2). Tan Dun explores the marriage of Western and Chinese music through blended elements of both Spanish flamenco and the Chinese pipa, an instrument as popular in China as the style of flamenco is in Southern Spain. The pipa is a four-string lute whose history stretches over two thousand years. Its melodies center around tremelando and various techniques of semi-tone production. Flamenco is known for rhythmic stamping of feet or tapping the soundboard of the guitar. Seven Desires includes several examples of these two techniques. Tan Dun's approach to music is based on the ideas of balance and counterpoint which he hopes will allow him to bring Western and Eastern music closer together.
Scores
Reviews
And few new works are as adventurous as “Seven Desires for Guitar,” written for Isbin by the Chinese composer Tan Dun. Combining flamenco-style foot-stomping with the bent notes of the ancient Chinese pipa, it’s a freewheeling work with a kind of elemental energy and anything-goes, postmodern lack of inhibition.
17th March 2013
