FORBIDDEN SYMPHONY

for Orchestra, Chorus & Soloists 1990-1992

David Hellewell

The Forbidden Symphony was a direct outcome of my highly successful visit to Peking for concerts of my music, together with lectures, workshops, TV and radio appearances in September 1990.

I have a long-standing and deep-seated interest in Chinese culture, art and aesthetics, and particularly in Chinese garden art, and my visit and warm reception there further enhanced this interest. The symphony, commissioned by Mr Liu Jun, Vice Director of the China Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra, is for large orchestra, chorus and instrumental soloists. The chorus is used as an instrument, singing, not words, but phonetic articulations. The main soloist parts were written for Yang Min (violin), Liu Qi (bassoon) and Yang Zheng (piano) together with special parts for zheng, temple bells and Chinese percussion.

The inspiration for the work was triggered by visits to the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace, and although the symphony is not a musical portrait, there are, nevertheless, certain outstanding qualities to which I was immediately attracted, and which would form the basis of my composition. These are: Monumentality; Spatiality; Exquisiteness of detail; the interpenetration of Nature (rocks, trees, plants and landscape) and Unity within Diversity. The Forbidden City encloses an area of 250 acres. Along the south-north meridian line are the main palaces, halls and gates, flanked by halls, pavilions and galleries of different sizes and functions. At the centre are the most important state buildings: the Halls of Supreme, Central, and Preserved Harmony. These make up the Outer Court of the complex; the Inner Court is the residential area. The symphony, completed in February 1992, consists of three movements, lasting 30 minutes in all.