Long March Symphony

Ding Shande's five-movement symphony, completed in 1962 and premiered at the Shanghai Spring festival that year, was a pioneering large-scale symphonic treatment of the Long March in Chinese music. The movements follow the campaign's arc — setting out, encounters with the peoples along the route, the crossing of snow mountains and grasslands, and the final triumphant reunion — drawing on folk melodies from the regions the Red Army traversed.