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 piano sonatas, the Bach-Busoni Chaconne, Brahms's Intermezzo, Olivier Messiaen's Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jesus, Prokofiev's piano sonatas, Webern's Six Pieces for Large Orchestra, and Schumann's Piano Concerto.

With this collection of analyses, Yang hopes to provide information and commentary to help contemporary pianists recognize the beauty and the challenges of performing different musical styles in appropriate ways.