Pianola: Raven

Music

Composer

Conlon Nancarrow

Composition

Studies for Player Piano, nos. 6, 11, 12, 18, 21, 27

Notes

Music Realized by Trimpin.

The American composer Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997) moved to Mexico and settled in a suburb of Mexico City in 1940, where for the next 50 plus years he composed his revolutionary “Studies for Player Piano”.

James Tenney (composer/teacher/pianist) says “Nancarrow’s decision to concentrate all of his efforts in the one medium was made after several years of frustration in trying to get his earlier instrumental pieces played accurately.  Nancarrow’s choice of player piano permitted his investigation of countless new possibilities in the areas of rhythm, tempo, texture, polyphonic perception and form.  I predict that 21st century historians will rank Conlon Nancarrow’s “Studies for Player Piano” with the most innovative works of Ives, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Webern, Varese, Partch, Cage, Xenakis – and perhaps a very few others – as the most significant works composed since 1900.”

Composer/Sculptor Trimpin has a long history with Nancarrow’s music.  Nancarrow permitted Trimpin to make MIDI transcriptions of all of the “Studies for Player Piano” from the original piano rolls.  Trimpin then created a device – the vorsetzer – that fits over the keyboard of a standard piano and plays these MIDI transcriptions.  The vorsetzer is essentially an electro-mechanical pianola, which replicates exactly the music on the original rolls.

Premiere

Date

Location

Company

Premiere Cast

• Andrea Emmons
• Jeannine Lowery
• Patricia Tuthill
• Ha-Chi Yu