It was only in early twentieth-century Shanghai that the business and intellectual classes could begin to learn Western music, thanks to the arrival of exiled Russian and Jewish musicians. It was also at this period that the first composers, in the Western sense, appeared. Hitherto, the idea of individual musical creation had been nonexistent in China. When the Chinese Republic replaced the court in 1919, the government introduced the composition of European-style music.

The piano became a highly prized possession for both the bourgeoisie and the intellectual class. But after 1949 Mao Zedong's government felt that it represented the capitalist spirit and thus was a bourgeois artefact worthy of condemnation. Despite the fact that it was prohibited, however, interest in the piano did not die out. Ultimately, in fact, it proved to be very useful to the government. From the beginning of the twentieth century, Chinese rulers had considered music, especially choral music, to be an excellent way of rallying the masses--an idea based on one of the principles of Confucius. If the revolutionary government hoped to assemble people from the many ethnic communities existing in China, a national music would have to have a universal structure. The policy had far-reaching consequences, such as the adoption of the equally tempered Western scale. The melodies collected by civil servants working for the ministry of music were rewritten based on "the piano." Almost all traditional instruments belonging to various ethnic groups were therefore modified to accommodate this scale and its chords, particularly after the 1950s. As an example, the manufacturing methods of the zheng (a table zither) and the pipa (a form of lute) have been changed in order to compete with the intensity of sound produced by Western instruments.

Western style orchestras also appeared on the scene. Until the early 1980s, composers had to bow to revolutionary directives and take part in the creation of national music. Similarly, typical pentatonic melodies accompanied by a nineteenth-century European orchestration could be heard in Taiwan.

The Cultural Revolution led by Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, constitutes one of the great upheavals in recent Chinese history. Jiang Qing's aim was to create model works for theatrical music and arts. She enumerated eight, although in fact there were eighteen. All national music had to conform to these hybrid models, which were strongly influenced by Western music.

It was at the end of this so-called revolution in 1976 that Western music blossomed in China. Surprisingly, the model works were not put aside. They still influence many composers, even those who write popular music and rock.

Starting in the early 1980s, many of China's composers and musicians, including traditional musicians, were heard outside their country. Many of them emigrated to the West (to the U.S. in particular), including musicians like the marvellous pipa player, Liu Fang, who now lives in Montreal. Among the best-known composers is Tan Dun (see article on the next page). The writing style of most contemporary Chinese composers can be described as hybrid, a fusion of traditional and Western music. Some, like Tan Dun, "recontextualize" these forms; others simply rearrange them. All work toward "modernization," a term that hides what is in fact the Westernization of modern Chinese music.

The development of contemporary music in Taiwan can be divided into three major periods, although the line between them is rather blurred. Following World War II, composers mainly looked for a way to redefine traditional Chinese and Taiwanese music without establishing a distinct musical language. Composers of the 1960s and 1970s demonstrated a greater knowledge of Western music, and they have remained the most avant-garde to this day. The third period began in the 1970s and continues up to the present. Composers who emerged in this period have a better knowledge of Western music but are very limited as to traditional music. However, because of an economic policy focused, for practical reasons, on the American model, we find that pop and rock receives more popular and government support. In order to survive, composers tend to write in a style based on nineteenth-century European orchestration. Avant-garde music is practically nonexistent.

In both Taiwan and mainland China, composing has been and is still being largely influenced by government cultural and economic policies. In Taiwan the business class and national leaders don't seem to understand the "need" to encourage the creation of new music.