Xie Sisters Piano Duo

Pagodas and other chinoiseries: Asiatic influences in the age of impressionism. Taking it's lead from the so-called 'chinoiseries' of European rococo architecture with it's artificial pavilions and parks, elegant wallpaper and porcelain figurines, the music of French impressionism found an even more stylized yet still more authentic way to express Asiatic influences in sound. In the wake of the Vienna World Fair of 1873, the Paris world fairs of 1878 and 1889 served as a particular trigger for a veritable Asian craze at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: while Impressionist painters such as Édouard Manet and Claude Monet were inspired by Japanese woodcuts, the composer Claude Debussy was fascinated by the exotic soundscapes generated by the Far Eastern gamelan orchestra - and from this revolutionary listening experience distilled pioneering elements for the development of his own impressionistic musical language.