“Each of the four movements of Topos uses a different musical symbol: shadowy "night music" made famous by Bartók; Sturm und Drang of early Romantic literature, used in Topos as allusions to water, the sea, and storm music; "love music" in rhapsodic variations; and hunting music for the last movement. Cheung has borrowed liberally from existing music throughout Topos. The E flat opening music of Wagner's Das Rheingold appears in the second movement; Berg's Lyric Suite and the orchestrational style of Lulu appear fleetingly in the movement about love; and, most prominently, passages from Beethoven symphonies pile on each other in the last movement. Quotations from pre-existing materials are, of course, not new, but Cheung's allusions are often sly and disguised within his own music, which itself evokes and extends the topics he symbolizes. The allusions seem almost as Pavlovian triggers, prompting the listener to hear other signals of the "topos" embedded in Cheung's original music. The work requires a vast orchestra, used with great skill.”
Timothy Robson, Bachtrack