Beethoven's role in China's Cultural Revolution

During the early years of Cultural Revolution in China, all European music was banned. Even enjoying traditional Chinese music and art was illegal. Anyone found with old instruments or recordings could be imprisoned. But that didn’t stop some musicians and enthusiasts from playing or listening to the music they loved, sometimes as an act of rebellion. A favourite during those times in China was the German composer – Ludwig Van Beethoven. Conductor, Jindong Cai tells Rebecca Kesby how he decided to become a musician after listening to an illegal recording of one of his symphonies.(Portrait of German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) by German painter Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820. (Photo by Kean Collection/Getty Images)

Om Podcasten

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest, the disastrous D-Day rehearsal, and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.