Unusual and Different Tan Dun's 'The Banquet', Music and Vision March 6

Unusual and Different
Tan Dun's 'The Banquet',
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Please update Wikipedia. The free web encyclopedia lists twenty-six operas (from those by Gasparini and Scarlatti in the eighteenth century to those by Searle and Lanzatti at the end of the twentieth century and at the beginning of the 21st) and three tone poems as the musical works based on William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. It forgets the long tone poem by Dmitry Shostakovich, originally music for the 1964 film by Grigory Kozinstev, a venial sin because in the last few years very few people have seen the movie (but it was shown in Parma, during a Verdi Festival, a couple of years ago). More significant is to have omitted The Banquet, a Feng Xiaogang blockbuster not only in China and in the Far East but also in the USA and many other countries, with music by the well-known Chinese-American composer Tan Dun.
The Italian Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia commissioned Tan Dun to draw a tone poem from the music he had prepared for the movie. The world première was in Rome on 27 February 2010 at a concert, conducted by the composer, where two other Tan Dun works were also presented: Internet Symphony and the Crouching Tiger Concerto.

Tan Dun conducts his Internet Symphony 'Eroica' at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome. Photo © 2010 Riccardo Musacchio
This review focuses on The Banquet Concerto, the real novelty because Internet Symphony has been available on YouTube for a few years and has already been performed in several concert halls -- the première was at New York's Carnegie Hall in April 2009. Also the Crouching Tiger Concerto is well-known and widely performed: it started as music for a blockbuster movie, and was premièred ten years ago as a tone poem at London's Barbican Centre.

Tan Dun's 'The Banquet Concerto' in Rome. Photo © 2010 Riccardo Musacchio
The Banquet and the relevant concerto are only broadly based on Hamlet: the prince is actually a princess. The intrigue is mixed with fights, battles and duels in a rich and colorful Renaissance in China. The sky is blue, the forests are green and lush, the castles are full of light. During the world première performance, three screens -- two of normal size and one a truly maxi-screen -- showed parts of the film. The atmosphere is quite different from the Kozinstev-Shostakovich movie where night and fog were the dominant themes.

Giulio Biddau plays the solo piano part with the Orchestra and Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, conducted by Tan Dun, in 'The Banquet Concerto'. Photo © 2010 Riccardo Musacchio
In line with the concept of seeing Hamlet as an epic (with a lot of blood) more than as a tragedy, Tan Dun's eclectic score employs quite a bit of percussion and original Chinese instruments, along with conventional Western winds, harps, brass and a solo piano. It is made of nine short movements -- the whole concerto lasts about forty minutes -- and one of the basic elements is the contrast, at times violent, between harmony and timbre as well as a lot of rhythm. There are also short and effective interventions by a double chorus and a very lyric component in the two final movements based on a 'love theme'. In short, a very different and quite unusual Hamlet, rather distant from Shakespeare, but rather pleasant to listen to, and enthusiastically welcomed by the audience at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia.
Copyright © 8 March 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

SHAKESPEARE
HAMLET
ACCADEMIA NAZIONALE DI SANTA CECILIA
ROME
ITALY
CHINA
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