Thanh-Tam Le wrote:

>Or move to the East (at least philosophically) and try works by Ton-That
>Tiet.

Please do!  It will be your pleasure.

If you are ready to approach music in a slightly different way, the
music of Ton-That Tiet will prove a rewarding, enriching experience.
He is a French composer of Vietnamese origin and his music is a wonderful
combination of his double culture - Western instruments sometimes sounding
Eastern, Eastern attitudes resurging through a post-Webernian school of
composition, if I might say so.  (And sorry, for the Eastern/Western, I
just don't know how to express it otherwise).  His music can be 'restful',
conveying, perhaps, the meaning James Tobin intended on a related thread,
but it is very exciting, alternating between great tension and meditative
repose.

Unfortunately his music is quite difficult to find on CD, but a new CD was
released in June, and it should now be widely available:

Calliope, CAL 9258: Dialogue avec la Nature (1995), Vo-Vi (1974), Preludes
a un dialogue (1989).  Orch.  Poitou-Charentes (dir.: Rist), Horreaux and
Trehard, guitarists.

I did not know Vo-Vi, and was quite excited to discover it. Electrifying.

Thanh-Tam would probably have quite a lot to say about quarter-tones, the
use of plectrums, percussive pizzicatos, and Eastern instrumental sound, -
even philosophy - but I'd better just refer you to the liner-notes ...

Ton-That Tiet has also composed music for films - brilliantly, discreetly
imaginatively, for the two I saw: "The Scent of the Green Papaya" and
"Cyclo", both Franco-Vietnamese (or vice-versa), directed by Tran-Anh Hung.
Good films.Ton-That Tiet served them well.

Regards,

Christine Labroche