Puccini has two operas with oriental themes, one is "Turandot" and the other is the famous "Madame Butterfly", a tragedy that happened in Japan after chaos and abandonment. The legendary story of "Turandot" takes place in Beijing, so Puccini chose Chinese folk songs. However, there does not seem to be a particularly convincing record in historical materials about how he obtained the tune of "Jasmine". In short, a simple and popular ditty, in Puccini's hands, turned out to be so full, one has to admire the composer's superb skills and the expressive power of Western classical music.

Works related to China in Western classical music can be roughly divided into three categories. The first category is those that express Chinese themes, such as "Turandot", Mahler's "Song of the Earth" and Bartok's "The Magic Mandarin". The second category is based on Chinese musical works. In addition to Puccini's opera "Turandot", the early German romantic composer Weber also had a drama soundtrack of the same name, which also directly quoted a Chinese tune. The third category is those that express Chinese style, such as the "Chinese Tea Dance" in the ballet "The Nutcracker" (Tchaikovsky) and the orchestral piece "Chinese Temple Garden" by British composer Kettleby.

From the perspective of cultural exchange between the East and the West, it is very interesting to look at the "Chinese phenomenon" in Western classical music.

Webber's "Turandot" was created in 1809. The great German poet Schiller translated the play "Turandot" written by Italian Gautz, and Weber composed the music for it. It can be seen that the story of Turandot, a ruthless Chinese princess, was widely circulated in Europe at that time. In order to create a "Chinese" atmosphere, Weber used Chinese melodies in the overture, the funeral march and the march of the second act. The overture uses a Chinese tune, which is adapted from the ancient Chinese overture in the "Music Dictionary" edited by Rousseau. The pentatonic melody is cleverly combined with the foreign tune inserted later.

In 1943, Hindemith wrote "Transformations on a Theme of Karl Maria von Weber" in the United States. The scherzo in the second movement is based on the above tune. Heinz completely transformed Weber's theme into his own style, thus creating a humorous 20th-century orchestral sketch. His "Turandot Scherzo" is more imaginative, using bells and oriental percussion to create a pentatonic Chinese minor tune, and using a playful jazz-style fugue in the central insert to make the piece more develop freely.

To be honest, apart from hearing that Hindemith’s Metamorphoses originated from Weber, I haven’t tasted much “Chinese flavor” from the so-called Chinese tunes. I don’t know whether it is appropriate to use the phrase “similar in form but not similar in spirit” to conclude this.

But that’s okay. It is even harder to hear the "Chinese flavor" in Mahler's "Liede der Erde".

"Song of the Earth" is a large-scale symphony with human voices, and its connection with China lies in the human voice. The German poet Hans Beckett translated some ancient Chinese poems from the eighth century AD and published a collection called "The Flute of China". Mahler was deeply moved by the farewell sentiments in ancient Chinese poems. He "used Chinese elements for Western purposes" and further rewrote several of the poems signed by Li Bai, Meng Haoran, Wang Wei, etc., and composed music based on this, creating six movements respectively. . The title of Mahler's rewritten poem is: Life's sad drinking song, Solitary visitor in autumn, Youth, beauty, Drunkard in spring, Farewell. He strengthened the elements of nostalgia, pessimism and world-weariness, and even the vibrant images of youth, love, and spring were infused with the sentimentality of "farewell". Mahler's orchestral skills are superb, and except for the lyrics, there are not many traces of China in the sound part.

I like Albert W. Kettleby, a little-known Englishman who is famous for his orchestral pieces with national characteristics. It has been suggested that his music "belongs to the vanished class of elegant light music that was once played in grand hotels and luxury hotels by countless small bands who found a vast repertoire in arrangements of famous works of classical music", Keitel Bey is praised by the world for "writing light classical music specifically for the audience of his time."

In 1912, the nearly forty-year-old Kettleby began to compose emotional light classical music, leaving behind a large number of unforgettable pieces. One of his masterpieces is "Chinese Temple Garden", whose subtitle is "Oriental Fantasia" : In the Chinese temple garden under the sun, flowers are in bloom, bees and butterflies are flying, accompanied by the clear sound of wooden fish and the chanting of monks. If the peaceful garden scenery makes people calm, then the rhythmic wooden fish and Chanting sutras and choruses can make people fall into trance.

Every time I hear these works, I will think of the almost universally known lyrics: There is a dragon in the far east. I'm afraid there are no great Western composers who have actually been to China. As far as I know, only Shimoni, one of the scriptwriters of "Turandot", has set foot in this distant eastern country. I think the inspiration of composers should come from the mystery of legends and the romance of fantasy.