Sound Forms For Piano

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Three important early pioneers of New Music make tremendous splashes on this anthology of works for the piano. Pianist Robert Miller opens the collection with three of Cowell's distinctive, swirling pieces, bowing the piano strings with a fury for sonic expansion. Miller also engages Cowell's unforgettable chord clusters, with their large, slamming intensity and rich resonance. He also takes on several of Cage's early Sonatas and Preludes for prepared piano and Nancarrow's influential, oddly virtuosic Studies for Player Piano, examining alterations in both pianistic tone and execution. Ben Johnston's lively, Cowell-inspired Sonata for Microtonal Piano rounds out this comprehensive overview of avant-garde 20th-century piano music. --Andrew Bartlett

Tracks:

The Banshee
Aeolian Harp
Piano Piece (Paris 1924)
Sonatas And Interludes: Sonata I
Sonatas And Interludes: Sonata V
Sonatas And Interludes: Second Interlude
Sonatas And Interludes: Sonata X
Sonatas And Interludes: Sonata XII
Sonata For Microtonal Piano: Movement I
Sonata For Microtonal Piano: Movement II
Sonata For Microtonal Piano: Movement III
Sonata For Microtonal Piano: Movement IV
Studies For Player Piano: Study No.1
Studies For Player Piano: Study No.27
Studies For Player Piano: Study No.36

Amazon.com

Three important early pioneers of New Music make tremendous splashes on this anthology of works for the piano. Pianist Robert Miller opens the collection with three of Cowell's distinctive, swirling pieces, bowing the piano strings with a fury for sonic expansion. Miller also engages Cowell's unforgettable chord clusters, with their large, slamming intensity and rich resonance. He also takes on several of Cage's early Sonatas and Preludes for prepared piano and Nancarrow's influential, oddly virtuosic Studies for Player Piano, examining alterations in both pianistic tone and execution. Ben Johnston's lively, Cowell-inspired Sonata for Microtonal Piano rounds out this comprehensive overview of avant-garde 20th-century piano music. --Andrew Bartlett

Customer Reviews:

Of Abiding Interest.......2007-04-20

"Experimental" though they may be, the pieces on this CD meet one of the criteria for great music: they not only hold up on repeated listening, but can inspire additional insights. Cowell's work was almost an end in itself - there wasn't anywhere else to go in that direction, but it now seems inevitable that someone would play the piano in that way. The Cage pieces are delightful, enjoyable on the superficial level yet containing enough substance to maintain interest. The Johnston piece suffers in that the composer may have attempted to do too much at once - not only is it written in a highly complex microtonal scale, it dispenses with conventional sonata form. Either of these by themselves would have been enough. The Nancarrow pieces, representing a fraction of his writing for player piano, are astonishing and must be heard to be believed.

The liner notes are unusually extensive, although given the subject matter, a lesser treatment would not have sufficed - the novice is given a complete introduction to these works. Included is an essay on the history of the piano in America, outlines of each composer's life and work, and discussions of the individual pieces (with an additional one by Johnston himself).

The works presented here are not simply ideosyncratic exercises in oddity - they are profoundly approachable on many levels, and served as an inspiration to later composers. For example, the prepared piano is an indispensable component of Arvo Pärt's "Tabula Rasa."

Not enough.......2006-06-25

I fail to see how Messiaen had anything to do with this music, the American innovators/composers had their own language,a world apart from Europe,in gesture, in content, in source, in development/ Messiaen developed his own sense of rhythm from the East and the seriality of it. With impressive pieces as his "Chronochromie for orchestra" and his piano music was innovative with another content to pursue/ and here the only disappointment is that it is all excerpts except for the Johnston "Suite" a self-contained piece.
The prepared piano,is/was/ where you place nuts, bolts, wood-screws, erasers and pencils inbetween on the internal strings of a piano. It for the record was invented.suggested by Cowell, Cage merely perfected the instrument, and curious how there really is no literature for the instrument after Cage. The Sonatas and Interludes of Cage was a kind of summit for expression,an un-romanticized way, Cage was also interested in proportions,structure that had no dramatic telos somewhat anti-serial,third person, how durations come to inhabit spaces in a live situation. This music is traditionally very gorgeous,spacious and focused and the most beautiful music Cage ever wrote. Much of the prepared piano music had a dramatic purpose and was written for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company largely ignored in the early years of their existence by the "savy?" New York critics.(They also found painter Cy Twombly to be uninteresting) It was not until the Company and Cage was recognized elsewhere(Europe) is when the New York illiterate critics finely saw something innovative.
The Cowell pieces herein, as well are two small examples embark of the utilization of the extended piano, playing with the flesh of the hand on the inner strings of the piano,sometimes the pianist depresses the tones on the keyboard silently then harp like running fingers or plucking the strings, Clusters and percussive like gestures as well were utilized by Cowell. He played all this music also in Europe in the Twenties. I wish there was more that Johnston wrote for the piano, microtonal or otherwise, for the language of just intonation of different tuning systems ,utilizations of different scales all had incredible potential. Johnston also saw the creative paradigm of finding usable musical forms as "containers" for the timbres of just intonation unlike some other practicioners who merely "pour" it into well-known moribund forms as Harry Partch.It still reamins a problem for just intonation music to find equally innovative forms to equal the transfomration of timbre,and how we come to listen. Nancarrow is/was another neglected creator,only in his last years was his music known at all, and here you get small excerpts from the larger "Studies",the first to use musical automata the innovativeness is in rhythm only for tone manipulations and pitches are at a minimum,I really don't know if he could have gone atonal with this rhythmic discoveries.

Highly recommended.......2003-05-16

This is, without doubt, one of the finest recordings of American experimental music ever issued, performed with loving care by the late, great Robert Miller except for Nancarrow's studies. The excellent notes by Charles Hamm should prepare listeners unfamiliar with this musical universe for what they are going to hear.

Although there is a logical connection between the works that imaginative juxtaposition on the disc enhances, Cowell, Cage, Johnston, and Nancarrow arrive at their musical conclusions from completely different directions. This disc is a tribute to the nonuniformity of American experimental music.

Listeners should spend some time at their local music libraries familiarizing themselves with the scores, just to see how the composers get these startling results.

Personal response is not always judgment.......2003-04-29

I have my reservations concerning pure sonority, or intellectual game, or a combination of both as a basis for composition. But I also have reservations about what so many composers have done "on the keys" with sonority and intellectual game - or is it just plain "thinking" or "intuition" or "composition lessions"? Most of it, in any era, is either dismissed or lost, or never comes to light at all (never more true than now).

If one does not share Messiaen's religious viewpoint, his wonderful music can get (let's be gentle) tedious; it certainly borders on the pretentious at times (I know he wasn't that way personally); some might say blasphemous. But what is really his most accessible music besides the romantic and programmatic Quartet for the End.... (with those intellectualized rhythms based on a very personal reading of Indian tala)? All those bird (and bird as the spirit) pieces! Talk about (wonderful) gimmicks!

I guess the reviewer above shares Messiaen's heart/soul and therefore responds fully to the "Vingt Regards." (I like it, too.) But I assume that "new music" for him has to have a postromantic sensibility or surface attraction; has he read criticism/reviews, back to the 18th century, and not seen the pattern of nonacceptance of the new, whether it be sonic, intellectual or both? (Beethoven was "a madman," Berlioz a ringmaster at a noisy circus, et al.)

It's okay if the above reviewer doesn't like the music. The Cowell pieces are novelties, to be sure, but pretty darn important ones - and fun. Cage is in a non-Western place, so take it or leave it (or leave it and listen). Nancarrow's studies are a case of doing one thing, but doing it very well and for most of a lifetime. Those pieces are rhythmically shattering, defying all dance-rhythm expectations - not bad for a player piano. And, finally, my friend Ben Johnston's Sonata; about as radical a microtonal piece as he ever wrote (what is it, 77 nonidentical pitches?) with its interchangeable movements. In its original ordering, I wonder if an openminded ear can hear this without experiencing an expressionistic personal crisis unfolding. Just plain postwar beautiful!
There's room for all of it in this great big CD world....

Time to Reconsider.......2002-01-26

This may not be the place to take on the dominant themes of classical music in the 20th Century, but it is available. These works are imaginative (at least in conception if not execution), radical, and were undeniably shocking to the less-jaded audiences at the times of their first performances. But their limitations are profound. They are all short, mostly under 5 minutes, although some form parts of larger works. Their emotional ranges are narrow, or I would go so far as to say, nonexistent. In the most positive light, they are mere exercises in heretofore unheard sonorities, awaiting future composers who will employ their ideas in the production of new masterpieces. But they are presented as if they are already those masterpieces themselves. This is a grave misconception, and reveals a total misunderstanding of what music, and not just "classical" music, is about. Great music, as all great art, has the power to change our conception of the world. On the emotional plane, it has the power to move us without necessarily resorting to manipulation. The pieces recorded here, for the most part, lack "soul," they are "square" (in spite of their originality) because their challenge to us is purely on the intellectual level. They abandon melody, harmony, rhythm, consonance, and conventional methods of playing merely to showcase clever ideas.

Should one be interested in hearing a truly radical approach to the piano, Messiaen's "Vingt Regards Sur l'Enfant Jesus" may be of value. This is a cohesive whole comprising over two hours of music, with vast emotional range and variety. It develops and explores disparate themes within a unified totality. The astonishing sound effects (all produced in the mundane manner of striking the piano keys with the fingers) exist as necessary expressions of larger ideas, not as ends in themselves. If Messiaen abandons any of the previous conventions of classical composition, it is not as a clever gimmick, but because that was the best way to express the work's themes. The result is that the music is freed of convention, rather than simply lashing out against it. The Austbo performance on Naxos is highly recommended.

Dancing with Henry: New Discoveries in the Music of Henry Cowell
Average customer rating:
Dancing with Henry: New Discoveries in the Music of Henry Cowell

Manufacturer: Mode
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Ballets | Ballets & Dances | Classical | Styles | Music
Dances | Ballets & Dances | Classical | Styles | Music
Quintets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
Trios | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
Chamber Music | Forms & Genres | Classical (c.1770-1830) | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music
Ballets & Dances | Modern, 20th, & 21st Century | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Keyboard | Instruments | Classical | Styles | Music
Percussion | Instruments | Classical | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
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ASIN: B00005QK1F
Release Date: 2001-10-23

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Suite For Small Orchestra: Largo
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Two Ritournelles From 'Marriage At The Eiffel Tower': Allegretto
Suite For Woodwind Quintet: Allegretto - Henry Cowell, The Cowell Quintet
Suite For Woodwind Quintet: Allegro - Henry Cowell, The Cowell Quintet
Suite For Woodwind Quintet: Adagio Cantabile - Henry Cowell, The Cowell Quintet
Suite For Woodwind Quintet: Allegretto Con Moto - Henry Cowell, The Cowell Quintet
Four Combinations For Three Instruments: Allegretto - Henry Cowell, Picasso Ensemble
Four Combinations For Three Instruments: Largo - Henry Cowell, Picasso Ensemble
Four Combinations For Three Instruments: Allegro - Henry Cowell, Picasso Ensemble
Four Combinations For Three Instruments: Largo - Henry Cowell, Picasso Ensemble
Ritournelle
Atlantis: Introduction
Atlantis: The Shooting Of The Moon Arrows
Atlantis: The Weeping Of The Arsete Of The Moon
Atlantis: Birth Of The Sea Soul
Atlantis: Temptation Of The Sea Soul By Monster
Atlantis: Pleasure Dance Of The Sea Soul
Atlantis: Withdrawal Of The Sea Soul To The Sea
Atlantis: Combat Between Sea And Earth Monsters
Atlantis: The Triumph Of The Sea Monster

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