MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Tan Dun - Tea, A Mirror of Soul (complete opera recorded in 2002)

"Tea's real accomplishment, however, comes in the music. Compared with Marco Polo, the vocal writing is in another league entirely, relying on neither Peking Opera references nor extended Western techniques but instead harking back to almost bel canto-like lyricism. The orchestral language, on the other hand, fits entirely within Tan's expanding palette of elemental sounds: water is dripped, poured and splashed; paper crumpled, torn and malleted (on floor-to-ceiling sheets); ceramic tinkling falls somewhere between ancient Chinese bells and Indonesian gamelan without disrupting Western tuning.

Without constant vigilance all this can easily descend into parody, but under the NHK Symphony Orchestra - and most notably percussionists Haruka Fujii, Tamao Inano and Yumi Fukushima - the ritual remains confidently effective. " Gramophone