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Making Mozart's favorite musical sound more widely heard in China

In China, the fortepiano is not as widely known as the piano. Wang Yuehan, who was awarded a performer's certificate by the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, has been devoting her time to the promotion of the historical instrument in China for years. By performing on a replica of an 1805 Walter fortepiano, Wang aims to present Mozart's favorite sound to a much wider audience.To get more news about fortepiano, you can visit shine news official website.

At the ancient Zhizhu Temple in Beijing, Wang Yuehan presented how the Western instrument was performed some two hundred years ago. "Mozart would never have known that so many years later, his work would be played in such a venue. What makes it all the more magical is that the instrument I use recreates the sound that Mozart loved most, " explains Wang.

The sound that cheered Mozart also thrilled the audience members at Wang's concert. "I had seen fortepianos in museums when I traveled abroad, but this is the first time I have heard it played," says one audience member. "I think it makes a more restrained sound than modern pianos."

"I think Wang Yuehan is the first Chinese musician to play Mozart's music on the fortepiano. It seems that she brought Mozart to us, which is very exciting," says another audience member.
And the ancient temple also added to the glamor of Wang's performance. "I have always wanted to play the fortepiano at a small venue. The composers of the music I play also performed in venues as small as this one, in a room measuring just one or two hundred square meters, for a small group of people. Today's venue is especially reminiscent of that time," says Wang.

Wang Yuehan graduated from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and received a master's degree in both piano and early music. She is currently just one of a handful of musicians in China who have studied fortepiano and regularly perform on the instrument.
With a profound love for what she has learned, Wang has traveled to many Chinese cities with her fortepiano to share the instrument with music lovers. "Most of the time, when I coordinate with people, even those working in different concert halls, the first thing I have to do is explain what fortepianos are," Wang says.

What are fortepianos? Wang explains: "When the piano was first invented, it was very different from what it is today. In the process of development, it appeared in different forms, with different looks and different mechanical designs. We call those pianos in history fortepianos."
Born in the 1990s, Wang Yuehan started learning to play the piano at the age of four, soon revealing her talent. She was admitted to the middle school attached to her hometown's Wuhan Conservatory of Music at the age of 12. Since then, she has devoted her time to becoming a pianist. "After college, I applied to Indiana University in the United States, and enrolled as a modern piano major," says Wang.

She chose fortepiano as an elective course, and made it her major before too long. In 2015, a performer's certificate was awarded to Wang in recognition of her outstanding musical ability on the fortepiano.

Back in China, when she's not practicing the fortepiano, Wang is usually at her desk researching music history. She says the market for fortepiano in China is relatively small at the moment, with few people taking up the instrument. But she is still doing her best to promote the fortepiano.