Sui Li-Jun is an active composer in China, and his composition for liuqin Rhapsody of the Great Northern Wilderness is a program music with four movements based on characters of the Vast North Wilds area. Sui deals with materials of work songs and two-people rotation of Northeast China on the ground of the fusion of Chinese and Western musical form, building a strong northeastern style, which encourages the author to explore this topic.

The study consists of five chapters: Chapter one is an introduction of research motive, objective and methods, including literature review on Sui Li-Jun and his compositions; chapter two is about the composer and composing background, based on data collecting and compaction from literature review and interview to sort out a biographical note, composing idea, and composing background of Rhapsody of the Great Northern Wilderness; chapter three emphasizes on musical analysis from the aspects of musical structure, motive and application of melodies; chapter four is focus on musical interpretation, elaborating on performing aspects such as the control of speed handling of left-hand glides, the arrangement of fingering, the touching angle of the right-hand pick, and the relationship between playing position and timbre, on the ground of an interview with liuqin performer Liu Pao-Hsiu and the author’s interpreting concept; chapter five is a conclusion, including a comprehensive discussion on the applications of different materials in each movement and a compilation of all the performing techniques used in the piece.

Sui Li-Jun is good at composing with musical elements of the Northeast China, and the research result reveals that he properly applies local materials into his music to get closer to the images of character he wants to depict. The author, through this research, has concluded Sui Li-Jun’s composing methods, thoughts and methods of applications concerning local materials, and expects to provide future researchers with a reference to Sui Li-Jun’s works.