A Brief Survey Of The Creation Of Chinese Piano Music In The First Half Of The 20th Century

The creation of Chinese piano music was at its initial and developing stage in the first half of the 20th century. Piano music compositions were few in quantity and its technique was not sophisticated. However, the hard-working and witty Chinese musicians created some piano music pieces with Chinese features, with the intent of inheriting and developing Chinese traditional music, absorbing and compromising the essential things of exotic music culture, among which are some internationally well-known pieces, such as: , . Their practice fed piano music creation after the founding of the new China with some valuable theoretical experiences and laid also foundation for the later piano music creation.This paper makes a brief survey of the Chinese piano music creation in the first half of the 20th century by employing the research methods of questionnaire, documentation and comparison. It makes use of the piano music pieces of that period and the related information. This paper makes an initial survey of the different periods of the first half of the 20th century and their distinctive features and also probes into the different styles concerning piano music as well as the accompanying music and ensembling music with a view to unfold the achievements of piano music creation in this historical period and its importance in the development of Chinese music creation so as to give the reader a bird's-eye view of the historical development of Chinese piano music and the history of Chinese music in the 20th century.