How Beethoven inspired 50 years of cultural exchange between the US and China
A new book tells how classical music, played to the Chinese by the Philadelphia Orchestra, ushered in decades of valuable interchanges now under threat
It was a big year for Tan Dun, the Oscar-winning Chinese musician who would go on to compose the soundtrack for the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In the autumn of 1973, Tan, then a teenager, was sent to a rural commune in Hunan province to plant rice. China was at the height of the Cultural Revolution. One day, Tan heard a sound from a loudspeaker in the field.
“Do you want to hear some interesting music? This is called ‘symphony’. The Philadelphia Orchestra is in China,” a friend said to Tan. It was the first time he had heard about a “symphony orchestra”, and it was striking. “I think it was something by Beethoven – the Sixth or the Fifth symphony.”
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