The solo piano music of Ma Shui-Long: A performance guide

The study begins with a biographical sketch of Ma Shui-Long, followed by an extensive examination of Ma's overall compositional style. The opening chapter includes a discussion of Ma's various compositions and his personal and musical philosophy. Following this is an overview of his complete published music for solo piano.;The second chapter introduces the method of Jan LaRue's approach to style analysis. These guidelines for style analysis are applied as a formalistic method for analyzing Ma's complete published solo piano works. Five elements--sound, harmony, rhythm, melody and growth--are discussed in the first part of this analysis. The second part contains the "Timeline" of each movement.;Lawrence Ferrara's phenomenological method is introduced and opens the fourth chapter. "Sketch of the Rainy Harbor" was chosen through the selection process in the third chapter based on qualitative and quantitative criteria. Ferrara's phenomenological methods are applied to present a detailed analysis of this work.;In the fifth chapter, the analysis prepared and conclusions drawn from previous chapters is integrated in the form of a performance guide to the "Sketch of the Rainy Harbor." This chapter demonstrates how the application of the LaRue analysis within phenomenology generates solidly based interpretive and pianistic principles for the inquiring performer.