On the Development History of Modern Piano Music in China

Through the efforts of several generations of composers, the style of China's piano music has been basically established in the formation and development of China's piano music culture in the 20th century. However, the understanding of China's piano music style and its specific connotation are different in different periods, but it shows a trend of continuous development and perfection. The constant pursuit of "China style" of piano music with nationalization as the main line has formed the main line of the evolution of piano music style in China. Due to the lack of a truly "China-style" composition theory system and many other factors, there is still a certain gap between our goal of establishing "China Piano School" and becoming one of the world piano arts. Therefore, it is of great historical value and practical significance to explore the development of China-style piano music in the 20th century and trace the formation of national style and national implication of China's piano music.

The 20th century is an extremely important historical period for the development of China's piano music, and all stages of China's piano music from germination to prosperity were completed in this period. By exploring the development track of China's piano music in the 20th century and the creative theory and practice in different periods, we can find that the evolution of its style is composed of several different development stages. The understanding of China's piano music style is different from the specific connotation embodied in these stages, showing a trend of continuous development and perfection: before 1949, it can be basically divided into the embryonic stage of artistic creation and the embryonic stage, and piano music works show a kind of * * *. The understanding of style in this period is still in the formal stage. 17 From the 1950s to the mid-1960s, China's piano music was the first prosperous period. The main means of pursuing "China style" in piano music is to quote the traditional folk tunes of China and create melodies with national tones. Piano adaptation of traditional music and nationalization of harmony became the mainstream of creation in this period. During the Cultural Revolution, although piano arrangement was the only creative form of piano music, the ideological connotation expressed in piano works changed qualitatively, which was a turning point of piano music style. Nevertheless, in these twenty years, the understanding of style is one-sided and still stays at the formal level. It was not until 1977 that the creation of piano music got rid of the shackles of ideology.