Muller / Chien - Tea for Two Cellos - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

What a beautiful task to translate the scent and character of tea into music - into sound, rhythm and harmony - but what a great challenge! Because the big question is, how does tea sound? Well-known in the West is the so-called coffee house music, a music in the background to all the clatter of dishes and the conversations of the visitors, which has the purpose to beautify the stay in the cafe but also to avoid a possible silence. Quite different is the tea music on this album! It is music to listen, that tries to transcend the fragrance and character of the tea into sound. When composing this music, I let myself be inspired from the feeling that the enjoyment of the tea triggers in me, but also from the poetic words with which Menglin Chou describes the different teas. Menglin Chou, a sociologist and tea master, came to Switzerland many years ago. She had the idea that I could try to set in music the character of some especially valuable teas. The project took shape, and I began to translate into music the mood that these selected teas arouse in me, as well as the inspiration from the texts in which Menglin uses to describe the character of teas poetically. Stylistically, the resulting sounds are difficult to classify, yet they are very familiar to people from Asia and the West, as if they wanted to build a bridge between cultures. The result was a combination of musical cultures, in the service of capturing the special character of these wonderful teas and making them sound. And so we hope that the enjoyment of a cup of tea by listening to this music will be an additional enrichment. (Fabian Müller)