Terra Kytaorum (Souvenir des Yuan) was commissioned by Weltblech (World Brass), who premiered an abridged version in Berlin on 9 January 2001.
Ching writes: The last Mongol emperor to reign in Beijing, heir to the Yuan dynasty of Khubilai Khan, was intrigued by the idea of bringing together the religious music of his many subject peoples in one of the great biannual sacrifices to Confucius.
For the climactic ritual before the spirit tablets of Confucius and his four leading disciples, the emperor, who was an enthusiastic clockmaker (like another famous last ruler, Louis XVI of France), hit upon the idea of the five musical styles overlapping, like the co-ordinated mechanism of clock parts moving at different speeds (section 10 below).
The experiment, although opposed by conservative mandarins, had a certain success, and was only spoilt at some points by the screams of the political prisoners being tortured or executed in a nearby suburb—victims of court purges for whom the gentle teachings of Confucius must have seemed an irrelevant hypocrisy.
The two samples of Ming imperial signature were scanned at Ching's request by Mr Peter Lam, Director of the Art Museum, Chinese University of Hong Kong.