Conlon Nancarrow Player Piano Vol. 2: Studies 13-32 cd

cd
2007/2005
new
Inhuman compositions that Nancarrow was able to realize by souping up old player pianos instead of having real people play them. One of those incredibly stubborn people (think Partch, Herzog) who decided to go live in Mexico because the US government was so anti-commie. Up until the end of WWII when a mechanism became available for sale, he even punched his compositions into player piano rolls by hand. In the late 70s when the Wergo batch of his compositions were recorded, the compositions for 2 player pianos were still so complicated that they had to use a few layers of overdubbing to get them to match up. Apparently, someone finally figured out how to get out an oilcan, and now you can hear them as they were originally envisioned. Nancarrow had an amazing idea about tempo- that it stretched out to infinity just like pitch- many of his pieces are so difficult to play because he likes to slide the general tempo around, while keeping the inner tempo relationships steady. In other words, this Bosendorfer boogies like a mofo.