How did dunhuang murals turn into music?
After six years of creation, more than ten times of in-depth Dunhuang style collection, and global pursuit of Dunhuang musical scores, Tan Dun did it.
In 2019, international music master Tan Dun took the "Dunhuang Ode to Mercy" based on dunhuang murals on a national tour, turning the murals into music and letting people hear Dunhuang.
Today at 18:00, Hunan International Channel broadcast the world's first documentary showing how murals become music - "Hearing Dunhuang", recording how the remains of Dunhuang have traveled through thousands of years and reappeared in the world.
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The documentary "Hearing Dunhuang" is produced by Hunan Radio, Film and Television Group, Hunan Radio and Television Media, produced by Yunhong Communication, and the general director Liu Shabai is the winner of many awards such as the China Television Award, the China Television Starlight Award, and the China Television Golden Eagle Award.
With Tan Dun touring seven cities in China as the main clue, the film records the origin and performance of "Dunhuang Ode to Mercy", revealing the process of transforming Dunhuang murals into a musical work with world-wide significance.
1
The story begins in Dunhuang
In 2013, Fan Jinshi, then president of the Dunhuang Research Institute, invited Tan Dun to Dunhuang.
Dean Fan took Tan Dun into the Dunhuang Caves. Surrounded by more than 4,000 musical instruments, more than 3,000 musical tricks, and more than 500 ancient bands recorded in the Dunhuang murals, Tan Dun was deeply moved.
It was as if he heard voices from the paintings. Under the sturdy posture of the nine-colored deer, he heard the sound of horses' hooves clicking; among the blue-gold paints, he heard the sanskrit sounds of the ages. Here he looks at the sound and listens to the colors.
Dean Fan half-jokingly made an invitation to him, Dunhuang murals can not be taken away, can you turn these murals into sound, use music to tell the story of Dunhuang?
This gave Tan Dun an impulse of the soul: he wanted to write the murals into music, play them with a symphony orchestra, and bring them to the world, so that people who had never been to Dunhuang could also feel Dunhuang.
"I started to read a lot of things, but the more I wrote, the more I couldn't write because it was so big, and the process of thinking and belief in Chinese culture for thousands of years, plus Confucianism and Taoism, were all kneaded together." The art system of Dunhuang murals is ancient and huge, how should he start?
Dean Fan Jinshi presented him with a complete set of "Dunhuang Mural Stories" and many other reference books, suggesting that the most important story be selected from them, Tan Dun Mao Sai Kai.
In the end, the work "Dunhuang Ode to Mercy" tells Dunhuang in a musical way through six stories. The six acts of "Under the Bodhi Tree", "Nine Colored Deer", "Thousand Hands and Thousand Eyes", "Zen Garden", "Heart Sutra" and "Nirvana" are not symphonies, musicals, nor operas, but "mural dramas" that tell the story of Dunhuang.
In this place where stories are told with color, he gives life to music with murals that travel through thousands of years, and colors become musical notes.
2
The voice of Dunhuang, the voice of the world
Dunhuang's voice is like a string that has not been broken. These stories, these arts, these musics, are everyone's perception. In the history books of Dunhuang, there are not only Chinese, but also Hebrew, Sanskrit, Uighur, and Sogdian. Dunhuang, let the world participate.
The sound of Dunhuang is jointly displayed by artists from all over the world. During his tour in China, Tan Dun led more than 200 artists from more than 20 countries to travel 9,000 kilometers from Xi'an through Dunhuang, Changsha, Qingdao, Shanghai, Haikou and Beijing.
In Xi'an, they listened to the Chinese Qin cavity; in Dunhuang, they discovered the sound of murals; in Changsha, they experienced the flower drum play and the Changsha bullet words... It can be said that this is not only a sightseeing performance trip for international artists, but also a creative retrospective journey of composer Tan Dun.
The sound of Dunhuang resonates with the world. Previously, "Dunhuang Ode to Mercy" has been performed in Germany, Australia, the United States and other places with great success. After Tan Dun and his team performed in Germany, more than 1,800 spectators stood up, and the applause lasted for fifteen minutes, and foreign audiences were moved by the Chinese story.
3
Record the sound and tell the story well
Some may ask, how do ancient sheet music resonate with today's symphony orchestras? How do choirs from more than 20 countries sing Chinese? How can philosophical ideas be presented in music? The documentary "Hearing Dunhuang" records these stories in a plain style.
General director Liu Shabai showed a different Tan Dun in the documentary. In the film, Tan Dun is not only a conductor in the concert hall, but also a happy and humorous traveler, a narrator and seeker of Dunhuang stories and Chinese culture. At the same time, as Tan Dun's hair is small, in this close-knit documentary, Liu Shabai has brought us a lot of unique perspectives.
In Tan Dun's view, music is a bridge that can bring the distant to you: from Dunhuang to Europe, from ancient times to the future. The Bridge of Music not only shortens time, space and distance, but also allows us to hear ancient beliefs and stories. These stories make us in the new era like the walkers on the Silk Road a thousand years ago, constantly telling them in new ways and telling them to the world...
Camel bells burst, the Silk Road flourished.
The Story of China, the Expression of the World.
Once, Chinese civilization was integrated with the world here; now, The voice of China will once again spread to the world from here.
For more exciting content, please lock in today's 18:00 "Hear Dunhuang".
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