During the past fifty years, many Chinese and other Asian composers have combined Western compositional techniques with their own musical heri­tages in their works. The prevalence of non-Western elements in con­temporary music complicates the idea of any one musical canon, since the meaning of such compositions now lies not only in one particular perfor­mance tradition but in diverse musical practices.
This book begins to examine the above by investigating three solo piano works that synthesize various Chinese traditional practices and certain aspects of Western art music. Chapter 1...