Fou Ts’ong’s father, Fou Lei, was a distinguished literary scholar and art critic who had spent five years in France studying Western art. An opponent of injustice, he translated French novels and works of philosophy into Chinese, and the environment in which his son grew up was one of a cultivated nature. Fou’s first influences were from listening to recordings whilst his first piano lessons came from Mario Paci, an Italian pianist and conductor living in Shanghai who had been a pupil of Sgambati. The lessons continued until the death of Paci and the outbreak of civil war in 1948. In 1951 Fou made his public debut with a performance of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto Op. 73 with the Shanghai Orchestra. After gaining the third prize at the Bucharest Piano...