ABSTRACT
Everybody knows that China is a very, very old country, her civilization one of the oldest in the world. China's old tradition of music did not hasten the arrival of the facilities of music learning. Though the land of ancient music is shrouded in mystery and lost in the haze of historical past, the terrain of our modern music is rather clear and easily traceable. Consequently, in 1927, the noteworthy scholar Cai Yuan-pei founded and became the first director of the first music school in China, Shanghai Special School for Music. In 1949, four years after World War II, mainland China was liberated by the Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army under the leadership of Mao Zedong. In 1956, after the "Hungarian Incident" and the Soviet Union's turn to revisionism following Kruschev's visit to the United States, Mao sensed social and political unrest in China.
