In Hong Kong the hall was full, because they'd learnt to trust us." But there's still some basic training to be done. A few years ago we did the Faure Requiem and Gorecki's Third before it had become famous. If we'd put that programme on in the West, anywhere outside the big culturally-aware cities like London or New York, people would have stayed away in droves. The vast majority of people who come to listen to the Hong Kong Phil have a mainland Chinese background and, therefore, no prior experience of Western music "But this means that they come with no prejudices. The diversity of their background does bring problems: a Chinese person won't approach Mozart in the same way as a person from New York - but then neither will a player trained in Israel.

The challenge is to impose a style to which they can all relate, and which makes sense musically."It was five years before he felt confident enough to take them into the recording studios, and then he was careful to steer off repertoire which might have evoked uncomfortable comparisons with the Berlin Phil. Their recordings of lesser-known Stravinsky are good by any standards.The other challenge was to build an audience. Each year he auditions in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and London, as well as on both sides of America, where mainland Chinese graduates of the Curtis and Juilliard schools see the Hong Kong Philharmonic as their way back home.

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"These Chinese players may not have much musical experience," says Atherton, "but they have tremendous technical ability. Now the players who are there are there on merit, and for no other reason. Though half the players were Western, I decided to use nobody's Christian name, so that the Chinese wouldn't feel I was giving preferential treatment. I also stopped the Westerners running off to do extramural work to top up their salaries."They comprise 13 different nationalities, with half coming from the West and half from the East: Atherton has not (yet?) come under pressure to increase the ratio of Chinese. I felt things could only get better." He took the plunge and swung into action."My duty was to improve the orchestra, so some very unpleasant decisions had to be taken.

This means that he can plan with a confidence which seems contagious: he's never lost so few players through natural wastage, and never had so many good ones queuing to join. "We can't specifically reassure people about the future - all we can say is that our indications are positive. But that seems more than enough." Strange: it's as if the Tiananmen massacre never happened.Atherton's first encounter with his future band - in 1989 - was not auspicious. "They'd told me they wanted an international-standard orchestra, so I listened, and to be honest was appalled at what I heard. The arts are a low priority, as they are almost everywhere else." That said, he's still in a better position than any music director in the West, since 75 per cent of his funding comes from local government. The big companies have seen which side their bread is buttered on, and started doing business with Beijing.