How China made the piano its own
The piano used to be a rare foreign import in China, now four in five are made here. Much of this can be traced back to the tiny Chinese island named Gulangyu.
After the first opium war in 1942, foreign powers forced the emperor to permit their residents to live in several treaty ports. One of those was Xiamen. Gulangyu, which lies just a five-minutes ferry ride offshore, was an international settlement. Expatriates popularized the piano as an everyday amusement. There was soon hardly a family on the island did not host or go to hear an evening recital.
For decades the island has claimed a distinction: the largest number of pianos per person in China. The result was a stream of outstanding musicians. The island's most celebrated musician is YinChengzong. In 1969 he arranged an earlier revolutionary cantata into the "Yellow River Piano Concerto". It remains China's most famous orchestral composition. Of the 50m children learning the instruments worldwide, as many as 40m may be Chinese. The government lavishes money on orchestras, which now number over 80, and new concert halls.
Where once Western classical music flowed into China, pianists and their renditions are pouring out. Fastidious parents and cool young things fill them to hear the latest wunderkind - among whose number , in recent decades, have been Lang Lang, Li YunDi and Yuja Wnag - some beautifully judged Bach or fiendishly hard Rachmaninow.
make sth. its own
treaty post 通商口岸
recital 音乐演奏会，诗歌演奏会
rendition --- translation
pour out 不断涌出
wunder
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