Band of hope and glory: Dresden Philharmonic's ties with Mao

Nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argued that too much history can be harmful and those of his compatriots who are in charge of the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra seem to agree.

On its official website, the orchestra's history since its founding in 1870 - the year before Germany's unification - is told in a little over 300 words, almost half of which are taken up by naming names, including those of guest conductors, notably Johannes Brahms, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Antonin Dvorak. Aside from the year of its founding, this terse biography makes just two specific historical references: one to the ensemble's first concert tour to the United States, in 1909, and - leaping forward more than a century - one to its inaugural concert season under the incumbent music director, Michael Sanderling.

The years in between, including the tumultuous era of Nazi rule and the post-war decades of socialist rule, when the city of Dresden was part of East Germany, are brushed over.

It is no small honour, then, for Hong Kong to make a two-word cameo in this brief narrative. The Dresden Philharmonic's concerts on Wednesday and Thursday - which both sold out in a matter of days after tickets went on sale - will be its first in the city. Guangzhou is included on the 2013 Asian tour, but the mainland has seen the orchestra before.

Fifty-four years ago this month, 95 musicians of the Dresden Philharmonic arrived in Beijing as part of the extravaganza celebrating the 10th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. To appreciate just how long ago that was, consider this: the tour took place eight years before Sanderling was born; triple that for featured violin soloist Julia Fischer.

The cold war was then at its height, and the occasion became the biggest gathering Mao Zedong had hosted for big shots from the global socialist camp; the Soviet Union's Nikita Khrushchev, Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh and North Korea's Kim Il-sung were all present.

Entertainment was also provided by the likes of the Bolshoi Ballet, from Moscow, and the Czech Philharmonic, from Prague, but none did more to demonstrate the superiority of socialist achievement than the German orchestra. The double-bill it performed with the young Beijing-based Central Philharmonic orchestra in 1959 was, the official Peking Review reported, "a fitting tribute to the 10th anniversaries of both New China (October 1) and the German Democratic Republic (October 7)".