On the playlist 25/MAY/2018...

Today wanted to listen to some classical music for a change so on the playlist today is The Butterfly Lovers - Violin Concerto played by Sheng Zhong Guo on Violin. Yes, it is a Chinese piece based on one of the four classic chinese legends. The piece was composed in 1958 which is an interesting time in Chinese history as this is the time of the great leap forward and the subsequent great famine and also the let a 100 flowers blossom campaign which was a trap set by Chairman Mao to catch intellectuals that were outspoken against him. The composer came out of the Shanghai music conservatory which was under very hard crackdowns during this time. So, while this piece is unmistakenly a classical piece of music it does have a lot of traditional Chinese themes to it in order to ensure that it would not be taken as a Western piece but rather a truly Chinese inspired piece or music. It was not popular until later in the 1970s as China opened up as playing such music would have been considered risky prior to then.