In this collection of academic essays, award-winning pianist and music professor Yaokun Yang shares her carefully compiled analyses of classical music and aesthetics during several different periods, focusing particularly on the aspect of piano performance practice.

Yang, who devoted six years to her research, offers extensive commentary, historical background, and comparisons of varied composers and their music. The pieces she studies include Beethoven's piano sonatas, an advanced piano teaching series, the development of opera in different areas, Bach's Brandenburg concertos, Haydn's...