Notes from a solitary pianist

When pianist Ju Xiaofu speaks about his new album Mist Without, he does not begin with the piano. He begins with a question: how do you capture something that is deeply felt but can never be fully explained?

The Chinese title plays on a homophone. It borrows the familiar idiom shen wai zhi wu (things outside oneself). Still, it replaces the word "thing" with the identically pronounced word "mist", turning a commonplace expression into a meditation on the elusive boundary between the self and the world.

For Ju, that ambiguity is essential.

"The idea emerged naturally from the music," he says. "It wasn't something I deliberately constructed. It became a reflection of a very long period of my life."

Mist Without, released by Deutsche Grammophon China as Ju's first album after joining the label this April, is both a recording project and an artistic self-portrait. It reflects the experiences of a musician who has spent his life moving between practice rooms, international stages, competitions, festivals, and moments of solitude — collecting both recognition and uncertainty.

"It is like a compressed essence of many years," Ju says. "The joys, the struggles, the encouragement, the disappointments, the successes, and the loneliness."

For a classical musician, the public image is often defined by the moment of performance: the spotlight, the applause and the fleeting moment when a single person commands the stage. But Ju's album is equally concerned with everything that surrounds that moment — the unseen hours, the isolation and the constant inner dialogue that shapes an artistic life.

"Although it is lonely, it is also something I enjoy," he says. "The price you pay is enormous, but the process itself brings happiness."

That paradox — exhaustion and fulfillment existing together — became one of the emotional foundations of Mist Without. The album was recorded in Beijing over three intense days in March 2026. Ju had just returned from Europe, entered the studio almost immediately, and performed again shortly after the recording finished.