Dance With Wind

It has been more than one hundred years since modern piano was introduced into China with modern western civilization after the Opium War. A large number of outstanding pianists and composers appeared in China after the modern piano was introduced. They created a great many outstanding piano works by combining the quintessence of Chinese folk music with features of western music. These works enriched Chinese music and were played for generations. Yiqiang Sun, who lived in America, was a famous pianist, composer and music educator of modern contemporary China. His works had a romanticism style and also combined it with Chinese folk music features. He produced violin concertos such as "To send the red list","Folk song to the party","Diversion paddy heart happy" and accompaniment of Henan Opera-"Snow--to the tune of Chin Yuan Chun". The song he created for the poetry of Tang Dynasty—"To My Retired Friend Wei" was performed in Shanghai, Beijing and foreign countries such as, the USA and Italy. The most well-known work should be two of his most important piano works-"Spring Dance" and "Grains Flying". Both of the two works have rich folk colors and distinctive artistic infection.This article aims to understand the creation background of Yiqiang Sun’s piano works and folk elements in the works by analyzing his personal experience and the musical environment he was in. I divide this article into three parts to analyze:firstly, research about the introduction of modern piano and preliminarily understand the formation and development of the piano. Secondly, analyze the life of Yiqiang Sun to understand the creation background of his works and the creation tactics and features. The last part is a summary about his works and extension of the topic to the folk characteristic embedded in his piano works."Spring Dance" and "Grains Flying" are taken as examples in the article to discuss his piano works in depth through melody, harmony, texture and musical figures and combining his life experience, works and their influences. And apply the research about the artistic characteristic (folk characteristic) of his piano works into the reality, especially in performing, teaching and creation. Finally,"Spring Dance" is taken as an example to analyze the folk music elements in his piano works.