The German writer on music and composer, Walter Niemann, was a pupil of his father, Rudolph (Friedrich) Niemann, and of Engelbert Humperdinck (1897). From 1898 to 1901, studied at the Leipzig Conservatory with Reinecke and von Bose, and at the University of Leipzig with Riemann and Hermann Kretzschmar (musicology). He received a Ph.D. in 1901 with the dissertation Über die abweichende Bedeutung der Ligaturen in der Mensuraltheorie der Zeit vor johannes de Garlandia (published in Leipzig, 1902).
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He wrote The Garden of Orchid, which contains ten piano miniatures with oriental overtones. The eighth of which, In der Chinesenstadt, is the composer’s interpretation of elements of Chinese music. The piece uses repetition and displacement of melodic motives to present a fragmented melodic line and to create a tense acoustic effect. The chromatic structure of the progressions is present in abundance and the syncopated rhythm of the second half beat of the eighth note sets the melody apart from the traditional colours. There is not much of a pentatonic composition to be seen in Niemann’s piece, nor are there any other obvious Chinese musical elements. Niemann uses the title as a contextual guide to present his innermost understanding of the Chinese elements in the piece. Perhaps, in Nyman’s mind, these are the Chinese elements that he perceives.
In 1919, Niemann published another work, Alt-Chinese (Op. 62). On the title page of the publication Niemann wrote: “What is described here is in no way a portrayal of China through the intentional use of unguided pentatonic and whole-tone scales, as well as rare rhythms and other primitive devices in exotic music; the Chineseness here is only partly reflected in the fine, strange and exotic fairy-tale atmosphere from the far East and in the simple simplicity of the musical elements that may form the charm.” There is still not much Chinese musical material such as pentatonic tuning to be seen in this repertoire. Niemann tries to guide the performer and the listener through a mood to experience the Chinese elements, or rather to understand this so-called Chinese style of Western piano works.