Pianos and Politics in China: Middle-Class Ambitions and the Struggle over Western Music

Pianos and Politics in China: Middle-Class Ambitions and the Struggle over Western Music by Kraus, Richard Curt. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780195058369.

In China, a nation where the worlds of politics and art are closely linked, Western classical music was considered during the cultural revolution to be an imperialist intrusion, in direct conflict with the native aesthetic. In this revealing chronicle of the relationship between music and politics in twentieth-century China, Richard Kraus examines the evolution of Chinas ever-changing disposition towards European music and demonstrates the steady westernization of Chinese music. Placing Chinas cultural conflicts in global perspective, he traces the lives of four Chinese musicians and reflects on how their experiences are indicative of Chinas place at the furthest edge of an expanding Western international order.