Hans Bakker

Because I have made a few textual improvements to 從遠處看佛山 - Cóng yuǎn chù kàn fó shān, "Foshan from afar" for quintet: flute, pipa, erhu, viola and violoncello, I am also adding the following interesting facts:                           The city of Foshan (佛山) is literally called "Buddha Mountain" because of a historical event in the year 628 AD.During the Tang Dynasty (618-907), local residents unearthed three bronze Buddha statues from a hill in the center of the city. The discovery was considered a miracle, which led to the construction of a Buddhist temple on that site. The hill was subsequently named 'Fo (fú) shan', which means "Buddha Mountain".                             

The beauty of the character fú 佛 as the name for the Buddha is: the human being, 人 rén, who learns to connect two disparate things 弗 fú (the vertical lines: e.g., life and suffering, the heavenly and the earthly).                     Note 佛 fú also sounds like fó.

From that perspective, the title of the quintet piece "Foshan from afar" aims to connect two musical worlds.