Music corrupts, say Chinese

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33493, 26 March 1974, Page 8

Music corrupts, say Chinese

A leading Chinese newspaper has said that Western classical music can exert a harmful influence on China’s cultural development. But, at the same time, the intellectual “Guangming” daily expressed qualified approval for the works of Beethoven. The paper took a more moderate line than previous attacks on Western classical music in the Chinese press—which included a claim that Mozart was inferior to modern ballet music.

While the article maintained the ideological viewpoint .of previous criticism that Western music generally reflects the “bourgeois” nature of its composers, servers believe it might indicate a desire to correct the I impression that anti-foreign I

feelings are emerging in China.

The paper praised Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as “a reflection of the spirit of resistance of the newly emerging bourgeoisie seeking liberation from feudalism.”

It added: "We always give sufficient approval to Beethoven and to the progressive significance of his musical creations in history.” Bach was cited as proof that all music reflects the social conditions of a given time through the minds of a composer from a certain clhss.

It said the prominence of religious themes in Bach’s work reflected his own religious outlook and the imiportance of religion in '“backward and feudal eigh-Iteenth-century Germany.”