History of the CPO

History of the CPO by Oliver Chou Joint Publishing HK$269

China's first state-level Western symphony orchestra survived four decades of revolution, including the anti-rightist campaign, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and performed Beethoven for Nikita Khruschev, Henry Kissinger, kings and presidents.

When conductor Seiji Ozawa conducted the Central Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) in 1978, he called it a 'miracle' - able to play classical music of an excellent quality despite years of political struggle.

Its dramatic story is told in History of the CPO written by Oliver Chou and published in Chinese by the Joint Publishing Company of Hong Kong. It is a gripping and meticulous account of the life and death of an orchestra during an extraordinary period in Chinese history.

The CPO was born in July 1956 thanks to the liberal environment created by Mao Zedong 's 'Hundred Flowers' campaign in the spring of that year. It was decided China needed a national symphony orchestra to perform at state ceremonies, broadcast on the radio, promote the music of national composers and go on foreign tours as musical ambassadors.

It made its debut on July 3, 1956, when the orchestra and chorus performed a concert to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Mozart. Its first conductor was Werner Gosling, from Halle, East Germany, who came with four other experts in wind and brass instruments from the Eastern bloc. Gosling held intensive rehearsals from morning until night and banned tea drinking and chatting.

But Mao's anti-rightist campaign in the spring of 1958 was too much for Gosling and the other four and they left. Rehearsals and concerts were suspended and gave way to endless debates and struggles among factions.