《绝对有机2007音乐会》海报

　　“有机音乐不光以我们生活中的自然物质为基础，更体现了外自然与内心灵的共通。我相信，任何物质都可以互相对话，纸同小提琴、水同树、月亮同鸟

……总之，宇宙万物中任何一个微小的物质都有自己的生命和灵魂。正如我们祖先所曰：‘天地与我为一’。” ——谭盾

　　谭盾的“有机音乐”观念，萌生于80年代末。1989年，他的陶乐《声音造型》和他的歌剧《九歌》由纽约古根汉姆博物馆委约诞生。在这二部作品中，谭盾使用了70多件的造型不同的自然乐器，构成了他最初的“金木水火土”有机分类。

　　1991年，谭盾为纽约前卫“辣妈妈”小剧场创作了行为艺术《纸祭：金瓶梅》，并通过对九种不同的纸进行吹、摇、揉、撕、打、挥、拍、唱，来表现人性中强烈的渴望、痛苦和爱。

　　1994年，应著名四重奏Kronos委约创作的《鬼戏》融合了水、金属、石头和纸的元素，并把中国皮影戏和中国巫文化的傩戏表演传统引入西方的室内乐。

　　1998年，谭盾受纽约爱乐委约创作了《水乐》，成功地将这些“有机之声”带入西方交响乐队中。

　　2000年，德国国际巴赫协会为纪念巴赫逝世250周年委约谭盾创作了有机音乐剧《复活之旅》。在这部作品中，谭盾以水和石为音乐主音色，隐喻生命的初始，引领观众走进一场生命和灵魂的复活之旅。进入21世纪，谭盾以鲜明的东方音乐观念，与西方音乐之父巴赫对话“世界之未来”。

　　2003年，为庆祝世界建筑奇迹洛杉矶迪斯尼音乐厅的落成，洛山矶交响乐团委约谭盾创作了《纸乐》，谭盾又成功地将纸乐观念带进了交响音乐厅。谭盾曾在《纸乐》首演式上说：“宇宙万物中的所有物质（包括人）都有一种相互依赖的生存之道。而我的有机音乐从第一步去大自然寻找自然之声，到第二步用心去排练、对话自然之灵，到第三步面对观众和大自然在人文、人性、人道层面上的沟通，都是对当今环境污染与心灵污染的疾呼。这些音乐是大自然的眼泪。”

　　Organic Music Series (1989 to Present)

　　"Organic music concerns both matters of everyday life and matters of the heart. These ideas find their origin in the animistic notion that material objects have spirits residing in them, an idea ever-present in the old village where I grew up in China. Paper can talk to the violin, the violin to water. Water can communicate with trees, and trees with the moon, and so on. In other words, every little thing in the totality of things, the entire universe, has a life and a soul.” --Tan Dun

　　In the late 1980’s, Tan Dun began developing his Organic Music Series which incorporates sounds and instruments from the natural world - including water, wind, ceramics, and paper–in order to create a new way of defining and experiencing music.

　　Commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum in 1989, Soundshape, Tan’s first work in this vein, is written for an ensemble of more than 70 ceramic instruments which are classified into the five categories of skin, wood, bamboo, metal and earth, and played by blowing, striking, plucking and bowing.

　　Tan Dun followed this ceramic music with a composition of paper music, which was created as part of a dance work called The Pink (1991) at LaMaMa Theatre in New York. This paper music was composed for 9 different types of paper and the performance techniques include blowing, shaking, crumpling, tearing, hitting, waving, slapping and singing through the paper materials - thus revealing how ordinary paper objects from daily life can create sounds of longing and suffering as well as love.

　　Taking his organic music concept to the next level, Tan Dun soon began weaving these natural elements into his works for the traditional concert hall. Commissioned by Kronos Quartet, Ghost Opera (1994), a five-movement work for string quartet and pipa, with water, metal, stone and paper, employs elements from Chinese, Tibetan, British and American cultures, combines performance traditions of the European classical concert, Chinese shadow puppet theater, visual art installations, folk music, dramatic theater and shamanistic ritual.

　　Water Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra (1998), commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, uses water as a musical instrument; this innovative technique was blended with the visually striking aspects of the performance of these unique instruments, resulting in a new and transformed concert experience.

　　Water Passion After St. Matthew (2000) was commissioned by the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the death of J.S. Bach with a setting of the“Passion”story that inspired Bach. The work is composed for a unique instrumental ensemble, including 17 transparent illuminated water basins, an extensive array of percussion, electronically processed sounds of ancient stringed instruments alongside the more familiar violin and cello, and a chorus and narrative vocalist. It endeavors to revisit the Passion form and bravely suggests a 21st century interpretation of the work through different cultures, religions, and media.

　　Tan Dun then brought his paper instrument concept to the concert hall with Paper Concerto for Paper Percussion and Orchestra (2003), commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in celebration of the opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. At the premiere of Paper Concerto, Tan Dun spoke about his work saying,”Every living thing, including human beings, have their own way of living and depending on each other. Organic Music, for me, begins with a pursuit of nature’s purest sounds, it then enters into a dialogue with these sounds; rehearsing them into being. In performance, I evoke Nature’s spirit and begin to communicate with it. My Organic Music is an awakening of human minds to the horrors of societal corruption and environmental pollution. These pieces are the tears of nature.“