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Studies for Player Piano No. 1 and 36 (1948-1992)
Conlon Nancarrow's groundbreaking Studies for Player Piano explore rhythmic relationships with originality and inventiveness. In each study, there are many musical lines that proceed at different speeds; like planets revolving around the sun, each line advances in its own orbit, at its own speed, yet the voices are all linked together as a unified whole. The Studies are quite varied, but they all share a common sensibility with a preference for extreme speeds and brevity. Despite the mechanical nature of their musical relationships, the Studies are at times charming and clever, at others lyrical and rhapsodic. Some of the earlier Studies feature ostinatos playing simultaneously in different keys and tempos (Study #1 features a tempo ratio of 4:7); there is a distinct influence of blues, ragtime, and jazz in these pieces. Later Studies (including #36 here) are more abstract, showing Nancarrow's increasing interest in 'tempo canons,' or imitative lines moving at different but related speeds.
Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997) is recognized as one of the most innovative composers of the twentieth century. His considerable output of music for the player piano has been well-received since its initial release on 1750 Arch Records in the late 1970's.
Born in Texarkana, Arkansas, Nancarrow received his musical training in Boston from Walter Piston, Nicholas Slonimsky, and Roger Sessions, and associated with such composers as Aaron Copland and Elliott Carter. In 1937 he went to Spain to serve as an ambulance driver in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which fought against Franco's fascist regime in the Spanish Civil War. Nancarrow returned to the United States in 1939 but was refused a US passport because of the Brigade's communist affiliations -- at which point he emigrated to Mexico. Frustrated with the limitations of human performers and living in relative musical isolation, Nancarrow devoted himself to composing for the player piano for the next forty years. Through the laborious and time-intensive process of punching piano rolls, Nancarrow was able to realize his most elaborate compositional ideas, not yet possible with electronics at the time. Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano were released on a Wergo label five-CD set in 1990. Before his death in 1997, Nancarrow participated in music festivals in Austria, Germany, France and the United States.
related websites
http://home.earthlink.net/~kgann/index2.html
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