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Article: Music From Memory; Chinese composers get a warm reception in the West.
- Article from:
- Newsweek International
- Article date:
- August 23, 2004
- Author:
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Byline: Tara Pepper
The militaristic percussion that marches over shivering glissandos in Zhou Long's "The Immortal," which premiered last month at the London Proms, could evoke any number of 20th-century tragedies. Performed right before Strauss's jolly "Alpine Symphony," recounting his boyhood holidays, and Liszt's lush, nostalgic second piano concerto--both written before World War I--"The Immortal" sounded like the creation of a different world, one in which moments of beauty are sharp and brief.
That's no accident. Zhou Long is one of a group of Chinese composers, brought up during the Cultural Revolution and now living in the West, who are ...