The more Tan Dun is rising in new-music circles, the more I am convinced of the validity of my Hans Christian Andersen moment six years ago (http://www.sfcv.org/arts_revs/waterpassion_7_9_02.php). I appreciate Tan Dun's film scores - especially those written for Zhang Yimou, especially the moody-minimalistic "Hero" (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002S945W/classicalnet/) - and some early chamber music, but when it comes to big noise-making and operas, the First Emperor guy is way short of clothes, his popularity reminding one of the rise and rise of Andrew Lloyd Webber, prince of empty musical calories. From Thursday's festival-closer at the otherwise splendid Music@Menlo: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/09/DD3P127N9D.DTL "...For truly overweening emptiness, there was Tan Dun's "Elegy: Snow in June," a pointless 25-minute jumble of sounds for cello and four percussionists. Each of the percussionists (Daniel Kennedy, Florian Conzetti, Christopher Froh and Tom Kolor) had what seemed like several dozen instruments at his disposal - none of which was played for more than five seconds at a time - and cellist Andres Diaz sat in the middle offering driblets of melody and squeaky interjections. The goal seemed to be to use the sheer profusion of incident to distract listeners from the lack of musical ideas." Janos Gereben www.sfcv.org [log in to unmask] *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html