Four Odes to the Tidings of Flowers 花信四咏

Recently concluded in Brussels and naming Ettore Pagano as its first prize winner, this year’s Queen Elizabeth Competition for Cello featured a new commission by the Chinese-American composer Fang Man. 

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Titled Four Odes to the Tidings of Flowers, Man’s work was premiered by the 12 finalists of the 2026 competition with the Belgian National Orchestra and conductor Antony Hermus. 

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Man’s new work unites poetic traditions spanning the Tang, Song, and Qing dynasties with Western musical lineages from Bach to Messiaen. The concerto, each movement of which is inspired by poems from China’s dynasties, not only sought to bridge cultures, but also to bridge the past and present. 

We sat down with Man to discuss her approach to composing the new work and her inspirations behind it. 

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Tell us about the piece you composed for the 2026 Queen Elisabeth Competition.  

Four Odes to the Tidings of Flowers takes its title from the traditional Chinese concept of huā xìn (“flower tidings”), in which flowers herald the changing seasons while embodying distinct spiritual virtues. Across four movements, the concerto explores spring, summer, autumn, and winter as reflections of inner emotional and poetic landscapes. The order of the movements is left to the solo cellist, allowing each performance to create its own seasonal narrative. 

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The work also reflects the influence of two composers I deeply admire: J.S. Bach, whose rhythmic vitality and idiomatic string writing inform the concerto’s musical language, and Messiaen, whose Modes of Limited Transposition provide luminous harmonic colors suggestive of mysticism and suspended time. Through this meeting of Eastern imagery and Western musical architecture, the concerto invites both performer and listener into a continually reimagined journey through season, memory, and spirit. 

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You based the piece on the concept of hua xin: the message that flowers bring in relation to the unfolding of the seasons in Chinese culture, and the values they represent. Can you tell us more about those? 

The idea of huā xìn (flower tidings) comes from a traditional Chinese view of nature in which flowers announce the changing seasons and carry symbolic meanings beyond their physical beauty. In Chinese poetry and painting, flowers often serve as mirrors of human character and emotion. For this concerto, I was inspired not only by the symbolism of the four plants — orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum, and plum blossom (the names of the movements) — but also by classical poems associated with them. Each movement begins from a poetic image and the values it conveys. The orchid evokes purity, elegance, and spiritual awakening; bamboo represents resilience and integrity, as expressed in Zheng Banqiao’s famous poem about bamboo remaining steadfast against all winds; the chrysanthemum embodies introspection and longing, inspired by Li Qingzhao’s deeply personal autumn verse; and the plum blossom symbolizes perseverance and moral strength, reflected in Lu You’s poem about a solitary flower whose fragrance endures despite hardship. 

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What fascinates me is that these flowers are never simply decorative. They become metaphors for human experience — how we grow, endure, reflect, and renew ourselves. In that sense, the concerto is less about the seasons themselves than about the inner journeys they represent. The poems provided a spiritual and emotional starting point for the music, allowing each movement to explore a different aspect of the human condition through the lens of nature. 

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The four movements can be played in any order. How do you see the role of the musician in shaping your piece? 

One of the most fascinating aspects of this concerto is that the four movements can be performed in any order. Over the past week, hearing different cellists create their own sequences has shown me how profoundly those choices reveal their personalities, artistic priorities, and approaches to storytelling. Although the musical material remains the same, the order in which the movements are heard completely reshapes the listener’s experience. 

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For example, beginning with the plum blossom movement creates a sense of struggle and resilience from the outset, while opening with the orchid invites the audience into a more contemplative and luminous world. A movement that feels like a conclusion in one sequence can become a point of departure in another. The emotional trajectory, the perceived relationships between the seasons, and even the meaning of individual musical gestures change depending on what comes before and after them. 

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In this sense, the soloist becomes more than an interpreter of the score; they become a co-creator of the work’s narrative. The choice of order allows each performer to construct a personal journey through the seasons and the values they represent — resilience, integrity, introspection, renewal, and transcendence. I see this flexibility as a reflection of life itself. Our experiences rarely unfold in a fixed or linear way, and neither do memory and emotion. By inviting the cellist to shape the architecture of the piece, the concerto becomes a living work that can continually reinvent itself. Each performance reveals a different perspective, and with it, a new set of “tidings” from the flowers. 

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The other influences you integrated in the piece come from J. S. Bach and Messiaen. How did you combine those different inspirations? 

Bach and Messiaen entered the concerto in very different ways. I actually composed the Winter movement first, and by the time it was finished it had already grown to more than nine minutes in length and considerable technical difficulty. Because the Queen Elisabeth finalists have only a short time to learn the piece, I wanted to offer them something familiar and intuitive in the remaining movements. Since every cellist grows up with Bach’s Cello Suites, I began drawing inspiration from Bach’s melodic contours and the natural physicality of his writing for the instrument. 

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At the same time, I did not want to imitate Bach’s harmonic language. Instead, I reimagined some of those melodic gestures through Messiaen’s Modes of Limited Transposition, especially Modes 2 and 7. As a result, the Spring, Summer, and Autumn movements occasionally evoke the spirit of Bach, while their harmonic colors belong more to Messiaen’s world. Winter, however, stands somewhat apart, since it was conceived before those references entered the piece. 

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I often think of Bach as helping to shape the architecture and physical gestures of the music, while Messiaen colors its light. The Chinese poems and floral symbolism then provide its emotional and spiritual heart. Together, these different inspirations allowed me to create a work in which Eastern and Western traditions are not contrasted, but brought into dialogue with one another. 

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You said that the concerto blooms differently with each performance. So far with the competition, are you satisfied with the bouquet that is being created? 

Yes, very much. One of the most rewarding aspects of this competition has been hearing how differently each finalist approaches the piece. Because the movements can be arranged in different orders and because each cellist brings their own sound, temperament, and imagination, every performance has revealed something new to me. The concerto was designed to be flexible, and it has been fascinating to watch each performer create a distinct emotional journey through the flowers and seasons. 

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At the same time, hearing the work performed repeatedly in a large hall has been an invaluable learning experience as a composer. I have taken notes on certain aspects of the orchestration that I would like to refine so the solo cello can project more clearly and expressively in particular passages. These are not changes to the musical ideas themselves, but rather adjustments that can help the dialogue between soloist and orchestra speak with greater clarity. 

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What has pleased me most is that the core character of the piece remains recognizable while each performance feels unique. Much like a bouquet made from the same flowers but arranged by different hands, every interpretation has its own shape, color, and fragrance. That diversity of expression is exactly what I hoped the work would invite. 

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Every composer has a different concept of what music should be (and is) to us. Correct me if I’m wrong but it seems to me that you have an introspective and symbolical approach to what music represents? 

Yes, I think that's a good observation. For me, music is much more than an arrangement of sounds or an intellectual exercise. It is a way of exploring what it means to be human — our emotions, our relationships, our struggles, and our hopes. I am naturally drawn to symbols, poetry, and stories because they allow us to connect personal experiences with something larger and more universal. 

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At its core, I hope my music can inspire, move, and bring people closer to qualities such as love, compassion, resilience, and empathy. We live in a world that often feels fragmented and fast-paced, and I believe music has a unique ability to create moments of reflection and connection. It can help us listen more deeply — not only to sound, but also to ourselves and to one another. 

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That is one reason I am attracted to subjects such as flowers, seasons, myths, and spiritual traditions. These are symbols that transcend specific cultures and speak to experiences we all share. In Four Odes to the Tidings of Flowers, the flowers are not simply images from nature; they represent human virtues and inner states of being. Through music, I hope those symbols can become living experiences rather than abstract ideas. 

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Ultimately, I see music not as a way of explaining life, but as a way of deepening our experience of it. If a listener leaves a performance feeling more connected — to themselves, to others, or to the world around them — then I feel the music has fulfilled its purpose. 

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