New Music for Piano(s)

various artists compilation - New Music for Piano(s)

all pieces performed by Yuji Takahashi

* not actually the cover, it's a photo of Takahashi; cover wasn't quite fit enough to be photographed

Excerpts from the liner notes:

Herma

"Bond," "foundation," "embryo." This piece is based on logical operations imposed upon classes of pitches; this is why I call this music "symbolic." Starting from the four classes defined in the score, others can be formed outside of time, as a result of the complementary relationship (negation), e.g., class A; the negation of A is written in the score A; also as a result of the operation of union (disjunction) and of intersection (conjunction). Union is shown symbolically by the sign +, and intersection by the juxtaposition of letters. Union corresponds to or and intersection to and. This A+B signifies that class in which the elements belong either to A or B; AB indicates the class in which the elements belong to classes A and B at the same time. The classes in this piece are defined solely within the realm of pitch. (Iannis Xenakis)

Fantasy for Pianist

"Fantasy for Pianist" was written during 1963-64 in Paris. Frankly concerned with sonority and ornament (it was originally based on an analysis of the textural features of four photos - stalks, vines, twigs in the snow) the work maintains a complex and detailed order. Forms of serialization were applied to proportional time structures (at all architectonic levels), pitch, dynamics, and attach characteristics; but all techniques were used primarily as stimulants to invention. The piece, as it evolved, determined its attach characteristics; but all techniques were used primarily as stimulants to invention. The piece, as it evolved, determined its own priorities which took precedence over continued allegiance to any particular technical device. Only the time structure remained firm from conception to completion. (Roger Reynolds)

Metathesis

"Metathesis" - to place differently; transposition; change or reversal of condition; the transposition of letters or sounds in a word; the interchange of atoms or groups of atoms between two molecules, the structure of the molecules being not otherwise altered, double decomposition. The structure is based on the subgroups of a permutation group of degree 6 and order 24, which are applied to the various factors of the tone events for piano, such as the density, the duration, the dynamic form, the tone form (all of them are extratemporal structures). The temporal structures are stochastic. The work was written at Tanglewood in 1968 and is dedicated to Gunther Schuller. (Yuji Takahashi)

Corroboree

"Corroboree" (for 3 pianos) was composed in 1963-64 on commission from Radio Bremen, Germany, and first performed in that city by Aloys, Alfons and Bernhardt Kontarsky in May 1964. The Work is dedicated to them. The title is an Australian native word of which webster says: "a nocturnal festivity with songs and symbolic dances by which the Australian aborigines celebrate events of importance: a noisy festivity: tumult." It will be a little noisy, and although the Kontarsky brothers are not Australian (and actually did not sing or dance) the festivity aspect of any of their activities is legendary and joyous, and thus the title seems quite apt. ...

When Yuji suggested this work for his record I had not considered the possibility of one pianist playing all three of the parts ("through the magic of recording"), but it is of course practical and interesting in this context. The technique was to record the first piano part and then the second while hearing the first and acting and reacting to the structure and the impulsive flexibility potentials within the given form:... then the third part in relation to the first two. The immediacy of "playing together" remains with the added fact of there being a single performance concept, rather than a correlation of three, as it was initally conceived. Although there are three of him here the nature of the piece is less virtuosic than the other works on the record, in which one might think that there were five of him. Yuji to any coefficient, and in all cases, is an astonishing technician and "poet." (Earle Brown)

Tracklisting:

Side A

1. Iannis Xenakis - Herma {6:39}

2. Roger Reynolds - Fantasy for Pianist part 1 {5:18}

3. Roger Reynolds - Fantasy for Pianist part 2 {11:56}

Side B

1. Yuji Takahashi - Metatheses {5:20}

2. Earle Brown - Corroboree {10:43}

NOTE: Fantasy for Pianist was accidentally ripped into two parts; only a few seconds of silence were lost

(1) [maybe reposted soon]