Impressionistic Music Features in Chinese Piano Works

The creation and development of Chinese piano music are based on learning the western composing techniques. The oriental culture ethos and colorful harmony in Debussy’s music seems to have innate relationship with Chinese piano music. This paper analyzes and studies Chinese piano music and impressionistic music represented by Debussy from the perspective of theme, harmony, musical structure, tonality and timbre. Hoping to get some inspirations in playing Chinese piano works, it discusses the similarity and mixture of these two kinds of music.