I choose to play some works from the Romanticism period because they arecolorful, passionate, and extremely hard to play. They will pose a gravechallenge to me but will be enjoyable for the audience.

By kicking off the concert with Alexander Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 14in F Sharp Major, Op. 30, I pay tribute to the wall painting Nessun Dorma byMr. Chen Yifei in the atrium of Winland International Finance Center, which isbased on the opera Turandot. The painting ismysterious, while the first movement of this sonata is also mysterious, brimmedwith curiosity and the desire to explore an unknown world. The piece contains alot of fourths and fifths, which are a hallmark of Scriabin’s compositions, expressingto the fullest his unique emotions. Thus, we can find some common groundbetween the music and the painting as both represents mankind’s profoundthoughts about and desire to explore the vast universe. The three pieces thatfollow are dances. Among them, both the one by Maurice Ravel and the one byClaude Debussy are called “waltz”, yet they bring sharply different experienceto the audience. 

La Valse “transcribed by the composer” by Maurice Ravel is one of thehardest pieces for piano, dazzlingly beautiful but extremely demanding forfinger dexterity all the way along. It is full of restlessness and temptation.Claude Debussy’s La Plu que Lente, L.121, is unique in that the music soundslike a trotting creek until it takes an abrupt turn into what feels like arippling pond in an ink-and-wash painting. For this, I put on my acousticpalette what is the most intense, the simplest, the gloomiest, and the mostdelicate and let them clash so that the sharp contrasts and utmost diversity ofRomanticism will show itself to the best effect possible.

Before these two, I put in Eastern European composer NikolaiKapustin’s Variation,Op. 41, a very vibrant jazz piece.

Jazz was born between the 19^th and 20^th centuries in New Orleans, a portcity in the south of the United States, where the African culture collided withthe European culture. It makes great dancing music. I put there between twowaltzes for a kind of contrast—to reveal how vastly different dances can be andhow sharp the contrast is between American culture in the eyes of an EasternEuropean composer and the typical Western European culture. 

The final piece of the concert is Franz Liszt’s Piano Sonata in b Minor,S.178, a hallmark piece in the Romanticism period and the composer is widelyknown as the “king of piano”. It is the ultimate summary of all theintellectual sufferings the composer had gone through and, more importantly, asublimation in the spiritual realm. It echoes the theme of the opening piece byScriabin—the way ahead is long and tortuous, and I’ll seek truth in the heavenand on the earth.

In sum, at this concert, I will present three heavyweights it is sochallenging both physically and intellectually that is seems really unwise todo so. However, this is who I am: young and brave to embrace challenges and doall I can to offer my audience a rich, diverse, challenging and brilliantconcert.