Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Satie and Chopin. So many masters listed here with so many masterworks. What’s the meaning of life? Some say: the meaning of life is to express so that the next generation will take in your thoughts and live on and on. Live long and prosper, isn’t it? In this point of view, composers do are the luckiest man. For they work for themselves. Writers and directors express thoughts by stories. And in stories, there are so many other factors: social background, name of characters and so on. But in music, the only distraction is the instruments. Thoughts and spirits live there alone and undisturbed.

I took a course named The Enjoyment of Music this term. And the final exam is to analysis La Valse by Ravel. I have to say that impressionism is really hard to follow. Boléro played at Summer Night Concert Schönbrunn 2016 is well known as a giant raise up. But in La Valse, there is just simply nothing to capture. The lecturer of The Enjoyment of Music, Prof. Bi Minghui once said “La Valse is the best dance music ever. It concentrates all the essence of three-beat music.” But I can really not appreciate La Valse for now. And maybe I never will. 

Brahms once embedded “AGADHE”, the name of one of his girlfriends, into his String Sextet No. 2. How lucky he is to master the ability to express. How lucky is Tian Yimiao to actually feel the most of great passion passed by those masterpieces.