Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-9q27g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-21T18:15:48.418Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘The Timpani Beats Just Hit on My Heart!’ Music, Memory, and Diplomacy in the Philadelphia Orchestra's 1973 China Tour

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2021

BESS XINTONG LIU
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the underexplored history of the 1973 Philadelphia Orchestra China tour and retheorizes twentieth-century musical diplomacy as a process of ritualization. As a case study, I consult bilingual archives and incorporate interviews with participants in this event, which brings together individual narratives and public opinions. By contextualizing this musical diplomacy in the Cold War détente and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, I argue for the complex set of relations mobilized by Western art music in 1973. This tour first created a sense of co-dependency between musicians and politicians. It also engaged Chinese audiences by revitalizing pre-Cultural Revolution sonic memories. Second, I argue that the significance of the 1973 Orchestra tour lies in the ritualization of Western art music as diplomatic etiquette, based on further contextualization of this event in the historical trajectory of Sino-US relations and within the entrenched Chinese ideology of liyue (ritual and music).

Type
Article
Information
Twentieth-Century Music , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , October 2021 , pp. 395 - 418
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I am grateful for the invaluable feedback provided by the Twentieth-Century Music anonymous reviewers. I would like to thank Dr Van Gosse and Dr Glenda Goodman, who inspired me to conduct original archival research on this topic. I would like to thank Dr Hannah Hyun Kyong Chang and Dr Jairo Moreno, who offered guidance and support throughout the writing process. I would also like to thank my interlocutors including Ambassador Nicholas Platt, Mr Ryan Fleur (current Executive Director at the Philadelphia Orchestra Association), Madam Wang Zhen-Mei, Dr Yu Kwang, Madam Li Lu and Madam Li Yan, who willingly shared and discussed their own experiences and family histories with me.

References

Apple, R. W. Jr. ‘U.S. and China Will Soon Set Up Offices in Capitals for Liaison; Peking to Free Two Americans’. New York Times, 22 February 1973.Google Scholar
Arno, Andrew and Dissanayake, Wimal, eds. The News Media in National and International Conflict. Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Barber, Sue E. ‘Music and Politics: The Philadelphia Orchestra in the People's Republic of China’. Master of Arts thesis, University of Michigan, 1977.Google Scholar
Barnouin, Barbara and Changgen, Yu. Chinese Foreign Policy During the Cultural Revolution. Geneva: Graduate Institute of International Studies, 1997.Google Scholar
Barry, Andrew and Bonn, Georgina. ‘Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the Social and Natural Sciences’, in Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the Social and Natural Sciences, ed. Barry, Andrew and Bonn, Georgina. London: Routledge, 2013. 1–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bi, Yixin 毕乙鑫. ‘Music, Diplomacy, and Mentality: Studies on Music in Official Diplomacy in Qing Dynasty’ (音乐⋅外交⋅心态—清朝官方外交中的音乐研究). Doctoral diss., Central Conservatory of Music (Beijing), 2020.Google Scholar
Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). ‘The History of the BSO’. https://www.bso.org/brands/bso/about-us/historyarchives/the-history-of-the-bso.aspx (accessed 30 September 2020).Google Scholar
‘The BSO, China, and the 1979 Musical Marathon’, in Boston Symphony Orchestra, February 22–24, 1979 (Boston: BSO, 1979).Google Scholar
Brady, Anne-Marie. ‘Review: The Political Meaning of Friendship: Reviewing the Life and Times of Two of China's American Friends’. China Review International 9/2 (2002), 307–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brindley, Erica Fox. Music, Cosmology, and the Politics of Harmony in Early China. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Bryant, Lei Ouyang. ‘Flowers on the Battlefield are More Fragrant’. Asian Music 38/1 (2007), 88–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Dunde 陈敦德. Mao Zedong and Nixon in 1972 (毛泽东尼克松在1972). Beijing: Jiefangjun Wenyi Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Chen, Xing 晨星. ‘Wonderful Friendship, Fantastic Performance’ (美好的情谊, 精彩的演奏). People's Daily, 19 September 1973.Google Scholar
Chin, Annping. The Authentic Confucius: A Life of Thought and Politics. New York: Scribner, 2007.Google Scholar
Clark, Paul, Laikwan, Pang, and Tsan-Huang, Tsai, ‘Introduction’, in Listening to China's Cultural Revolution, ed. Laikwan, Pang, Clark, Paul, and Tsan-Huang, Tsai. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 1–10.Google Scholar
Cliff, Nigel. Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story—How One Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold War. New York: HarperCollins, 2016.Google Scholar
Confucius, . The Analects, trans. Leys, Simon, ed. Nylan, Michael. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014.Google Scholar
DeLanda, Manuel. Assemblage Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.Google Scholar
DeNora, Tia. Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durrant, Stephen, Li, Wai-yee, and Schaberg, David, trans. Zuo Tradition/Zuo Zhuan 左传: Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016.Google Scholar
Dunn, Sue, E. Brotherly Love and the Land of Mao: The Story of the Philadelphia Orchestra's Visit to the Peoples’ Republic of China, A Report Presented to the Committee on U.S.-China Relations, September 1976. Eugene Ormandy Papers, Kislak Center, University of Pennsylvania, Ms-Coll-91, Folder 1991.Google Scholar
Fabian, Johannes. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Objects. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feng, Wenci 冯文慈. A History of Sino-Foreign Musical Exchange: Pre-Qin–Late Qing (中外音乐交流史: 先秦–晚清). Beijing: Renmin yinyue Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Fosler-Lussier, Danielle. Music in America's Cold War Diplomacy. Oakland: University of California Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gao, Wenqian, Rand, Peter, and Sullivan, Lawrance R.. Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary. New York: Public Affairs, 2008.Google Scholar
Garrison, James. ‘The Social Value of Ritual and Music in Chinese Classical Thought’. teorema 31/3 (2012), 209–22.Google Scholar
Gienow-Hecht, Jessica C. E. ‘The World is Ready to Listen: Symphony Orchestras and the Global Performance of America’. Diplomatic History 36 (2012), 17–28.Google Scholar
Gong, Li. ‘The Difficult Path to Diplomatic Relations: China's U.S. Policy, 1972–1988’, in Normalization of U.S.-China Relations: An International History, ed. Kirby, William C., Ross, Robert S., and Li, Gong (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005). 116–46.Google Scholar
Grady, Sandy. ‘Chinese Hail Orchestra at Final Concert’. 17 September 1973.Google Scholar
Grady, Sandy. ‘Chinese Pull Out All Stops to Praise Ormandy's Music’. Philadelphia Bulletin, 17 September 1973.Google Scholar
Grady, Sandy. ‘Never Has My Orchestra Been This Happy. Nothing Would Have Stopped Me From This. Nothing!’ Sunday Bulletin, 4 November 1973.Google Scholar
Grady, Sandy. ‘Ormandy Ignites the Chinese’. Philadelphia Bulletin, 16 September 1973.Google Scholar
Grady, Sandy. ‘Shanghai Rolls Out Carpet for Orchestra’. Philadelphia Bulletin, 14 September 1973. Hanehan, Dona. ‘U.S. Pianists Give China Taste of Rock (and Bach)’. New York Times, 8 November 1972.Google Scholar
Hart, Philip. Orpheus in the New World: The Symphony Orchestra as an American Cultural Institution. New York: W. W. Norton, 1973.Google Scholar
Hood, Louis. China Diary. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Orchestra Association, 1973.Google Scholar
Hooper, Beverly. Foreigners under Mao: Western Lives in China, 1949–1976. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, Rujing. ‘“Sound of Elegance”: Court Music Revival, Ritual, and the Politics of Nationhood in China Today’. Doctoral diss., Harvard University, 2019.Google Scholar
Humes, Paul. ‘Using “River” as a Bridge’. Washington Post, 27 August 1973.Google Scholar
Keith, Ronald C. The Diplomacy of Zhou Enlai. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kissinger, Henry. On China. New York: Penguin Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Kraus, Richard Curt. Piano and Politics in China: Middle-Class Ambitions and Struggles over Western Music. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Lai, Karyn L. An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Lau, Frederick. Music in China: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Legge, James, trans. The Sacred Books of China, The Texts of Confucianism, Part III, The Li Ki (Li Ji), I–X, in The Sacred Books of the East Vol. XXVII, ed. Müller, F. Max. London: Clarendon Press, 1885.Google Scholar
Lesaffre, Micheline, Maes, Pieter-Jan, and Leman, Marc, eds. The Routledge Companion to Embodied Music Interaction. London: Routledge, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Jing. China's America: The Chinese View the United States, 1900–2000. New York: SUNY Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Lindorff, Joyce. ‘Missionaries, Keyboards, and Musical Exchange in the Ming and Qing Courts’. Early Music 32–3 (2004), 403, 405–414.Google Scholar
Liu, Yinmeng. ‘Nixon's Historic 1972 Trip to China was “Ice-breaking”’. China Daily USA, 15 January 2019. https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201901/15/WS5c3dfc26a3106c65c34e4a0a.html. (accessed 13 July 2021).Google Scholar
Ludden, Yawen. ‘The Transformation of Beijing Opera: Jiang Qing, Yu Huiyong, and Yangbanxi’. Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 4/2–3 (2017), 143–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luo, Yunyun. Biography of Li Delun. Beijing: Zuojia Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Melvin, Sheila and Cai, Jindong. Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese. New York: Algora, 2004.Google Scholar
Mittler, Barbara. A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2012.Google Scholar
Ormandy, Eugene. Transcript of Speech, June 1973. Eugene Ormandy Papers, Kislak Center, University of Pennsylvania, Ms-Coll-91, Folder 1991.Google Scholar
Platt, Nicholas. China Boys: How U.S. Relations with the PRC Began and Grew: A Personal Memoir. Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing/VELLUM Books, 2010.Google Scholar
Platt, Nicholas. Interview with author. 23 March 2018.Google Scholar
Prévost-Thomas, Cécile and Ramel, Frédéric. ‘Introduction: Understanding Musical Diplomacies—Movements on the Scenes’, in International Relations, Music and Diplomacy: Sounds and Voices on the International Stage, ed. Ramel, Frédéric and Prévost-Thomas, Cécile. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 2–13.Google Scholar
Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. ‘Sonic Imaginary after the Cultural Revolution’, in Listening to China's Cultural Revolution: Music, Politics, and Cultural Continuities, ed. Pang, Laikwan, Clark, Paul and Tsan-Huang, Tsai (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 213–38.Google Scholar
Ross, Robert S. and Changbin, Jiang, eds. Re-examining the Cold War: U.S.-China Diplomacy, 1954–1973. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Said, Edward. Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Schonberg, Harold C. ‘China Won't Get the Globetrotters, We Won't Get Yin’. New York Times, 14 April 1974.Google Scholar
Schonberg, Harold C. ‘Ormandy Unexpectedly Leads Peking Orchestra’, New York Times, 16 September 1973.Google Scholar
Schonberg, Harold C. ‘Peking Hails the Philadelphia, 1st U.S. Orchestra Seen in China’, New York Times, 16 September 1973.Google Scholar
Schonberg, Harold C. ‘Philadelphians Score 2 Hits in Shanghai’. New York Times, 21 September 1973.Google Scholar
Schonberg, Harold C. ‘Yin Speaks only Chinese, Ormandy only English’. New York Times, 14 October 1973.Google Scholar
Shang, Ying尚鹰. ‘Friendship Conveyed Through Symphonic Music—Welcoming the Visiting Philadelphia Orchestra to Perform in Shanghai’ (交响乐中传友情—欢迎美国交响乐团访沪演出). Wenhui Daily, 23 September 1973.Google Scholar
‘Silly Symphony’. Newsweek, 28 January 1974.Google Scholar
Sutter, Robert G. ‘Dialogues and Their Implications in Sino-American Relations’, in Conflict and Cooperation in Sino-US Relations: Change and Continuity, Causes and Cure, ed. Blanchard, Jean-Marc F. and Shen, Simon. New York: Routledge, 2015.181–203.Google Scholar
Townsend, Dorothy. ‘Philadelphia Orchestra's Eugene Ormandy, 85, Dies’. Los Angeles Times, 13 March 1985.Google Scholar
Tucker, Nancy Bernkopf, ed. China Confidential: American Diplomats and Sino-American Relations, 1945–1996. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Wang, Zhen-Mei and Kwang, Yu. Interview with author. 30 March 2018.Google Scholar
Webster, Daniel. ‘The Often Contradictory Life of Chinese Music’. Philadelphia Inquirer, 23 September 1973.Google Scholar
Wills, Thomas. ‘Philadelphia Salutes its Orchestra’. Chicago Tribune, 29 September 1973.Google Scholar
Wilson, Dick. Zhou Enlai: A Biography. New York: Viking, 1984.Google Scholar
Wilson, Thomas A., ed. On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002.Google Scholar
Winger, Amelia. ‘The Philadelphia Orchestra Travels to China for their 12th Tour’. Global Philadelphia, 22 May 2019. http://globalphiladelphia.org/news/philadelphia-orchestra-travels-china-their-12th-tour (accessed 30 September 2020).Google Scholar
Xu, Fangfang. Galloping Horses: Artist Xu Beihong and his Family in Mao's China. Saint Louis: Beihong Arts, 2016.Google Scholar
Zhu, Xiao-Mei. The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations, trans. Hinsey, Ellen. Las Vegas: AmazonCrossing, 2012.Google Scholar