PBS Traces the Philadelphia Orchestra's 1973 Visit to China

Original Tom Arnstein theBeijinger

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When British pop duo Wham! played at Beijing’s Workers’ Gymnasium in 1985 to a select crowd of 15,000, it was an implicit sign that China and the West’s relations were normalizing and that the former was open for business, careless whispers and all.

Yet a lesser-known but no less symbolic musical event had occurred 13 years prior, when then US president Richard Nixon, fresh from his own visit to the sequestered country, sent the Philadelphia Orchestra to play for Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and other guests of honor.

Tasked with being the US’s cultural ambassadors, the orchestra was to serenade the Chinese Communist Party – who at the time were dealing with the ongoing fallout of the Cultural Revolution – and further warm them to the idea of the US being a friend, not foe.

The Philadelphia Orchestra's Maestro Eugene Ormandy meets with his Chinese counterpart in 1973

Among the elite circles that they were to play for, it seemed to have partially worked, with one Chinese composer later recalling that he was "seduced" by the sound of the Philadelphians performing the forbidden music of the hugely influential 18th-century German composer Ludwig van Beethoven.

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That groundbreaking two-week trip is captured in a documentary released last year titled Great Performances: Beethoven in Beijing. It will now be shown for a month via PBS’s website starting Apr 16.

Eugene Ormandy poses alongside Jiang Qing, wife of Mao Zedong

The documentary is divided into three sections, with the first calling upon American and Chinese composers to contextualize this historic moment in classical music diplomacy.

The second part then looks at the broader effect classical music had on generations of Chinese as the country gradually opened up following the death of Mao in 1976. For that, the produces call up homegrown virtuosic talents such as Oscar-winning composer Tan Dun, pianist Lang Lang, and composer Peng-Peng Gong.

World-renowned Chinese pianist Lang Lang

Finally, the documentary closes how the tables have seemingly turned over the past 50 years, with classical music struggling to stay both relevant and solvent in the US – the Philadelphia Orchestra filed for bankruptcy in 2011 – while in China it continues to boom (as anyone who lives in a poorly-insulated high-rise in Beijing is likely to attest). Now, the opening of New York’s prestigious Juilliard School in Tianjin late last year is poised to give the form a new lease of life among China’s youngest generation.

It’s for these reasons, as well as the sentiments at the time, that the Philadelphia Orchestra’s brief stint in China was considered a success. That feeling is neatly encapsulated by the comment Maestro Eugene Ormandy made at the airport just prior to his return to the States: "Through great music, many people became friends, who were hated enemies.”

Beethoven in Beijing will be shown for a month via PBS's website from Apr 16 onwards.