I am a Chinese in Hong Kong and I love classical music, of course, and
occasionally listen to what you called "Chinese" music.  I am interesting
in your long discussion in Chinese Music.  The followings are my opinions:

   1. First of all, I have not investigate into either westen or chinese
   classical music. I only base on my experience in listening music.

   2. What types of chinese music, what piece of chinese music have you
   listened to? Some types of chinese music are ancient music which may
   have an age of more than 1500 years. The no of pieces of ancient
   music is limited but they are very popular among Chinese. Most Chinese
   music we heard today were written by modern composers from Ching
   Dynasty (just before 1900 to nowadays).

   3. I don't think western composer can write music that are similar
   to chinese ancient music. (Chinese ancient music usually were written
   for snigle or a couple of musical instruments, not for large orchestra.)

   4. To my listening experience, some chinese music written in 1940s
   to 1960s are very similar to those music written by Tchaikovsky. May
   be due to the influence of USSR to China during these years. (eg The
   Butterfly Lover Violin Concerto, Yellow River Piano Concerto compared
   with Tchaikovsky's violin concerto, for example) I think those Chinese
   composer had learnt from those Russian composers because at that
   time, chinese composers could only learnt and listened to Russian's
   music. Some chinese composers or musicans had studied in USSR at
   around 40s to 60s..

   5. I have heard from a piano teacher that just playing the black
   keys on the piano can produce chinese-like music. (You may try.
   My experience, it is true.) There is possible for western composer
   occasionally write chinese-like music. (Puccini had listened to
   Chinese Opera before writing Tuarandot. He had use the melody of
   Jasmine Flower in this opera. Mahler, I believed he would have research
   on chinese music before writing "The song of the Earth".

   6.  Bach or Handel also wrote music in style of German, French and
   Poland.  Beethoven wrote Turkish music.  Why not others?

   7. It is highly recommended to listen to those CDs labeled Hugo from
   Hong Kong. The performance and recording are rated as premium.

Enjoy listening

Lewis, Hong Kong
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