The Yellow River Piano Concerto () is a piano concerto arranged by a collaboration between Chinese composers, including Yin Chengzong and Chu Wanghua, and based on the Yellow River Cantata by composer Xian Xinghai. It was originally directed by Jiang Qing, wife of Chairman Mao, and since its highly acclaimed premiere in 1970 during the Cultural Revolution the Concerto has become popular in China and around the globe. It is noted for its revolutionary theme that integrates a classic post-romantic music structure with passion, beauty and power, along with highly skilled solo phases. The piano concerto is meant to represent the very fighting spirit of Chinese people and the determination of a new-born nation, in the context of a long, vividly struggling history of the Yellow River. Background Xian Xinghai wrote the Yellow River Cantata at Yan'an in 1939, allegedly in a cave in just six days, during the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). It is an eight-movement piece in which he used traditional folk-melodies and evoked the image of the Yellow River as a symbol of Chinese defiance against the Japanese invaders. During his stay in Russia, he edited and re-orchestrated the work, which was later modified by Li Huanzhi, Qu Wei, and Yan Liangkun. This edition aimed at furthering the energy and momentum of the music, and in this light the rearrangement of the Yellow River Piano Concerto thirty years later is merely a continuation of that same practice. Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Xian Xinghai together with Nie Er (who wrote the Chinese national anthem, the "March of the Volunteers") were regarded by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai as "the people's musicians" and were the most prestigious composers of the PRC. Yet, even the Yellow River Cantata was banned from performance during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976); the Central Philharmonic Orchestra was forbidden to perform any Western orchestral pieces and its professional musicians were left with nothing to do. Under such circumstances, the pianist Yin Chengzong loaded his piano onto a truck and drove it to Tiananmen Square to accompany revolutionary songs that were sung at the time. He caught the eye of Jiang Qing (better known in the West as Madame Mao), which resulted in the work The Legend of the Red Lantern to be accompanied by the piano. Under orders of Madame Mao, a collective of musicians from the Central Philharmonic Society including Yin