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Les Concerts en Chine

1982 live album by Jean-Michel Jarre

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ1077744
Source-derived summary

Les Concerts en Chine (pronounced [le kɔ̃sɛʁ ɑ̃ ʃin], English title: The Concerts in China) is a live album by Jean-Michel Jarre, recorded in 1981 and released in 1982 on Disques Dreyfus. It was recorded during Jarre's Concerts in China tour of Autumn 1981, which consisted of five Beijing and Shanghai concerts in China; this was the first time a Western pop artist performed in China after the Cultural Revolution.

The album is a balance of previously released tracks by Jarre, new compositions inspired by Chinese culture, and one rearranged traditional Chinese track, "Fishing Junks at Sunset" ("Jonques de pêcheurs au crépuscule").

The album consists mainly of live material, plus ambient sound recordings and one new studio track "Souvenir of China". Other new compositions recorded live include "Nuit à Shanghai", "Harpe Laser", "Arpégiateur" and "Orient Express". "Jonques de pêcheurs au crépuscule" ("Fishing Junks at Sunset") is a new arrangement of a very old traditional Chinese song known as the "Fisherman's Chant at Dusk", which was performed and recorded with The Peking Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra and is often wrongly attributed as being composed by Jean-Michel Jarre, misled by the album inlay.

Several of the tracks are misleadingly titled. The track labelled as "Magnetic Fields Part 1" is merely 30 seconds of table tennis sound effects and has no similarity with the studio track of the same name; in a 2018 interview with The Domino Elf, Jarre stated that he included the track as a joke. Meanwhile, "Band in the Rain" is actually part 8 of Equinoxe, "The Last Rhumba" is part 5 of Magnetic Fields, and "The Overture" is part 1 of Magnetic Fields slowed down.

The album was originally released as a double-disc LP, then as a double-disc CD. There was also a CD release in two separate volumes, with the cover color changed to blue (Vol.

Editorial summary

“Les Concerts en Chine” enters the record as 1982 live album by Jean-Michel Jarre. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Concerts, Chine and live can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1981, 1982, 2018—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1982. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Concerts, Chine and live.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Les Concerts en Chine” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Concerts, Chine and live provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1077744. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981, 1982 and 2018.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Les Concerts en Chine”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Les Concerts en Chine primary sources, Les Concerts en Chine archive and Concerts research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Les Concerts en Chine”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Les Concerts en Chine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.