| Walter Piston (1894—1976) was an outstanding American composer, music theorist and educator in the 20th century, and one of the representatives of American neo-classic music. As a music theorist, Piston has long been famous in China. In 1951, the Chinese version of Harmonics had been published, and later the revised edition (Shanghai New Literature and Art Press 1951 version and People's Music Publishing House 1978 version, translated by Wei Chenbao). The book has great influences in Chinese music colleges in the late 20th century. It is very useful to the composition majors studying the western traditional harmonics system, and greatly promotes our professional music development. However, as a composer, Piston is not familiar to most Chinese armature music lovers. His works is not widespread in China, but this does not conceal his music achievements. He composed a large number of music works during his life, including large-scale musical genre, such as symphony, concerto, and chamber music, etc. His composition owns both the trace of traditional classical music and the rich characteristics of local music. Using modern music composition techniques, he formed his own music style, greatly enhancing the development of American professional music composition.Ballet suite The Incredible Flutist, as the most typical representative of his style, is performed the most and is the most popular among Piston's composition. In 1940, when it was first performed, it caused great sensation in America, and henceforth it has become one of the immortal American modern music works. Although this work was composed in his earlier period, it fully reflected his composition concept of integration of both tradition and modern. It is his milestone works. Setting The Incredible Flutist as the subject to study, the thesis analyzes its musical figures of structure, harmony, musical form, melody, and orchestration, etc. to illustrate and discover the composition concepts of Piston.The thesis is composed of the introduction, three chapters and the conclusion.The introduction concerns about the academic value, the current research background home and abroad, the research idea and methodology of this topic. It also points out the purpose and significance of this subject and summarizes the existing researching results home and abroad and inadequate aspects.Chapter one is about Piston's life and the basic survey of Ballet suite. It first introduces Piston's life experience and his great musical achievements. Then it illustrates the basic survey of Ballet suite from two aspects of composition background and story skeleton.Chapter two analyzes the music of his Ballet suite The Incredible Flutist. This early composition of Piston is a nonesuch with title, tonality, and clear-cut musical images, which is the most representative works of the interpretation of Piston's "Neo-classicalism"music concept and becomes the musical carrier of understanding his"Neo-classicalism"music concept. This chapter discusses the characteristics such as the musical structure, orchestration, harmony, tune and rhythm, etc, summarizing the composition techniques of this works.Chapter three is a macroscopical analysis of the neo-classical music concept connotation in Piston's The Incredible Flutist. Based on the panoramic analyses of this music in Chapter two, this chapter makes a thorough and detailed illustration of the neo-classical music concept in The Incredible Flutist from three perspectives of return of classical traditions, application of modern music language and the origin of musical concepts.The conclusion illustrates the influence of Piston's"Neo-classicalism"music concept and his historical position inheriting the past and ushering in the future. It points out the influence of his neo-classical music concept on the music development in the US and even the world. It affirms his historical position inheriting the past and ushering in the future and gives a more comprehensive and deeper theoretical understanding of Piston.
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