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‘There is nothing vague or sentimental about the music in this sinewy, often frenetic and complex score, structured in six parts. The first section, “Humanity,” which explores Confucian thinking, begins with an orchestral prelude. Eerie sustained tones on the organ and pungent, soft cluster chords provide a backdrop to repetitive rhythms and twittering riffs for the large battery of percussion instruments. A speaker (here the actor Samuel West) then delivers Mr. Küng’s narrative about Confucius while the orchestra responds with restless bursts, piercing harmonies and grumbling ostinatos… the subsequent five sections maintain the overall structure of the first enhances the ritualistic power of the piece… those present seemed moved and let silence linger for half a minute at the end before breaking into a long, ardent ovation.’

‘Harvey’s most ambitious choral work to date… Harvey allows his mastery as a composer of electronic sounds to carry over into his manipulation of orchestra and choral textures, coloured by a huge range of percussion and the unmistakable tang of a cimbalom. The performances were exemplary, with superb choral singing in writing that ranges from whispered Sprechgesang, to fiercely dissonant clusters and close-packed tonal triads.’

‘sounds of glistening, almost electronic strangeness… echoes of the ram’s horn in the Jewish movement, or the tender string radiance surrounding the Christian choruses, or the dancing, almost angry choruses of the Buddhist movement. Harvey is a shrewd composer, who knows that music for human ears needs some bodily vigour. At the end, everything was gathered into a radiant affirmation over a deep pedal note.’

‘[the CBSO] snarled, shivered, tinkled and sighed through the most extraordinary, often radiant, textures … we could certainly salute Harvey’s vivid ear for colour, his musical ecumenism and that rapturous final chorus, shaped to the natural rhythms of the human breath.’