Western Composers Who Try To Write Chinese Music

Cafe Society
1

I have been listening to Debssy’s “Pagodes”-it is an interesting piece of music. It sounds a little like Chinese music.
Are there more pieces out there that actually sound like they came from China?
I’d be interested to hear more of this style of music.

2

The biggest single thing to do would be to just use a pentatonic scale. You can get a similar effect by playing only the black keys on a piano.

Doubtless there are many other things that distinguish Eastern and Western music, but that’s the most obvious one to a Western ear.

3

Ravel: Ma Mère l’Oye - Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodes Casadesus plays Ravel: Ma Mère l'Oye - Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodes - YouTube

That’s the original piano duo version. He later orchestrated the entire suite and arranged it into a ballet.

I don’t know of any others that are so explicitly and clearly Western interpretations of the East. Various works are set in the East (such as Puccini’s operas “Turandot” and “Madame Butterfly”) and you can identify that influence in them here and there, but little more than that.

4

There are certainly elements in “Turandot” and “Madame Butterfly” that have a nice Asian flair- partly because they were “borrowed” from traditional folk songs (Chinese and Japanese, respectively).

You can check out the children’s chorus in “Turandot”, which is my favorite motif in the whole opera, and was taken from a traditional Chinese song:

“'Ola Pang! 'Ola Pong!” also sounds pretty Chinese-y to me, but I’m not sure if it’s based on any authentic Chinese pieces or not:

Otherwise, I’d check out soundtracks to Western movies set in Asian countries, like “The Last Emperor”.

5

I don’t think just pentatonic cuts it, I recall from my music theory dicking-around days that I found it doesn’t sound quite right unless you select your pentatonic scale from a specific mode, I want to say it was a pentatonic-lydian, but it could have easily been something very boring.

6

Gustav Mahler: Von der Jugend

Paul Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis, 2nd movement: “Turandot”

7

There’s a great Chinese restaurant at which I occasionally eat. They always are playing Chinese music - or at least I think that’s what it is. Could also be of cats being tortured to death. Can’t tell the difference.