Erhu Concerto No.3 The Soul of A Poet is a piece composed by the composer Naizhong Guan when he was invited to Brahms’s former residence in Germany in 2006. And it was orchestrated in 2007. It drew on various materials, such as Brahms : Symphony No.4, chinese classical music composed by Jiang BaiShi, Dunhuang pipa music, and the guqin music A Song of An Autumn Midnight, etc. He blended different style of music together in one piece.

With the whole piece based on Li Bai, he composed three movements: Poem, Women, and Wine. Three movements are respectively about three important elements of the poet’s life. Through these three figures, he created different music characteristics and atmosphere, also projecting the emotion of the composer himself into it. The Soul of A Poet was composed differently from Naizhong Guan’s previous two Erhu Concertos. He applied the concept of Symphonic Poem to this concerto. With his music background, he put his inner feelings on his work. It not only made good use of erhu’s original characteristic of its performance, but also required high-level performing skills. The emotion every movement needs to be depicted and the way he used the materials are the motivation for studying this concerto.

Through deep investigation by literature collation, musical analysis and interpretation, this thesis studies the composer Naizhong Guan’s detailed learning process and his creating concept. And I systematically build the construction of the background, creating approach, music elements and the motivation of The Soul of A Poet. Moreover, based on the original intention of the composition of this piece, I refer to limited online video resources and give my opinions and performance tips. By this paper’s analysis and interpretation, I hope it could offer to other performers playing Erhu Concerto No.3 The Soul of A Poet as a reference.