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The Life of the Machines Vladimir Stoupel, Piano 1

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The Life of the Machines Vladimir Stoupel, Piano 1 Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997): Sonatina for Piano (1941) the life of the machines vladimir stoupel, piano 1. Presto 1: 38 2. Moderato / Più allegro 3: 40 3. Allegro molto 1: 50 ANTHEIL / MOSSOLOV / NANCARROW / ROSLAVETS / SZPILMAN Nikolai Roslavets (1881-1944): Sonata No. 2 (1916) 4. Moderato con moto 16: 50 Władisław Szpilman (1911-2000): Suite “The Life of Machines” (1933) 5. Begin slowly 3: 19 6. “Machine at rest” 2: 48 7. Toccatina 1: 47 Alexander Mossolov (1900-1973): Sonata No. 4 (1925) 8. Presto 10: 40 George Antheil (1900-1959): Sonatina “Death of the Machines” (1922) 9. Moderato 0: 33 10. Accelerando 0: 20 11. Accelerando 0: 23 12. Accelerando 0: 55 Sonata No. 4 (1948) 13. Allegro Giocoso – Ironico 6: 09 14. Andante cantabile sostenuto 10: 58 15. Allegro (Presto) 3: 34 More than by war and religious and political upheavals, his reputation as the iconoclastic “Bad Boy of Music”: Szpilman’s piano suite The Life of the Machines: “In it, have picked up Nancarrow’s gauntlet, have measured the experience of life in the modern age has been ten years after Stravinsky’s Sacre, the musical world the musical transfer of that which perpetuates itself their technique against the piano transcriptions of his radically changed by industrialization. The intrusion needed a new scandal. mechanically is not informed by power and threat; works for pianola – and have thus provided the proof of machines into the world of man, the increasing rather these are good-humoredly humming, cheeky, that, a century after Scriabin, Godowsky, Leschetitzki, dominance of machines in industrial processes are The topos of machine music exerted – also less sometimes sardonic machines, like come-to-life Medtner, Hoffmann, and Paderewski, the Gradus ad already reflected in paintings and the literature of ostensibly – a substantial influence on the generation clockwork mechanisms: they attain their own individual Parnassum has yet to be surmounted. the nineteenth century. However, in music – the most of the post-Romantics to whose intellectual inventory characteristic life, they interact.” (Günter Herzfeld) The Frank Harders-Wuthenow romantic of all the arts – a consideration of the social as it belonged, as did jazz, the archaic rhythms of suite was composed in 1933 after Szpilman interrupted well as the material and intellectual implications of this Stravinsky’s folkloristic works, atonality, and his piano studies with Artur Schnabel in Berlin as a result change took place only much later, after the First World dodecophony. However, from a later point of view, the of the political situation, in the year of the National Mechanical pianos originally served only for the War. In the 1920s – that “marvelously masculine epoch,” fascination of this generation of composers for the cold Socialist seizure of power with which the countdown reproduction of actual piano music – with results that as the machine fetishist Fernand Léger referred to them life of the machines often seems to be interpreted too began for the new world war foreseen by Antheil. For were far superior to the first acoustical recordings. – the mechanical era found its way with vehemence into one-sidedly and too positively from the perspective of Szpilman, the brilliant pianist and composer of Jewish It was therefore logical that important pianists (for the concert and opera houses. An opera like Machinist Russian Futurism and Suprematism. The compilation descent, it led into the purgatory of his fight for survival example, Ferrucio Busoni, Josef Hofmann, and Sergei Hopkins by Schreker-pupil Max Brand took the opera of important works of the piano repertoire primarily in the Warsaw ghetto – brilliantly and touchingly filmed Rachmaninoff) recorded their playing on piano rolls houses by storm at the end of the 1920s and boasted from the first half of the twentieth century that is by Roman Polanski in The Pianist. (that were played back on mechanical pianos). For the performance statistics equaled only by Krenek’s Johnny planned here therefore desires to direct attention to American Conlon Nancarrow this resulted in the just as spielt auf (“Johnny Strikes Up”); Honegger’s locomotive the extremely eclectic, often ambivalent attitude of the That what Antheil asserted about the modern piano unconventional as revolutionary decision to exploit the piece Pacific 213 (1923) and Alexander Mossolov’s The artists toward the pulse-setters of the new rhythm of literature after Chopin and Liszt – it “is essentially mechanical piano as a novel medium of composition. Iron Foundry (1926-28) caused sensations around the life, as the machines were understood to be. virtuoso, exploring the limits of the modern keyboard, as With the aid of a special punching tool, he developed world. George Antheil’s Ballet mécanique (1924) is well as the limits of the composer’s invention in the purely a process that allowed him to compose directly on to considered the high point of the musical occupation Antheil’s machine-inspired piano sonatas and chamber musical sense” – points directly to Conlon Nancarrow, piano rolls (comparable to punching holes into the paper with the world of the machines. The exploration of the music works of the early 1920s were written under the the great and for many years unrecognized pioneer of strips or cards used on older computers). In this manner, possibilities of the quasi-mechanical organization of impression of two dreams from 1922 in which the horrors mechanical piano music, who after being discovered it was possible to realize textures with extremely fast musical parameters (ostinato repetition and a block- of the machinery of destruction of the First World War in the 1970s had a lasting influence on America’s and tempos, unusual tonal density, and complex rhythms like stringing together of rhythmically dominated were projected on to the apocalyptical scenery of a Europe’s avant-garde. With his punchcard-controlled that went far beyond the customary playing techniques elements), which Antheil tried out in his previous piano new, global twilight of mankind: “Vast amounts of dead pianolas, he defied the “natural” borders of the living (of the piano). With his Studies for “player piano” (i.e., and chamber music works of the early 1920s, were and dying machines of some tremendous future war performer, and explored the field of pianistic illusionism electronic and mechanical piano), he created a unique realized in it on a large scale. With the use of propeller on a battlefield of a final cataclysmic struggle, ruined, with ultra-virtuoso, polyrhythmic, and polymetric repertoire for this “instrument.” sounds and alarm bells, Antheil did his best to live up to overturned, blown to bits.” In contrast to this, Władysław cascades of sound. Few contemporary piano virtuosos 2 3 Conlon Nancarrow was born on 27 October 1912 reworked for “normal” piano, both in a two-hand as well Among the pioneers of new music in Russia, Nikolai was active as a conductor and composer at the Uzbek at Texarkana, Arkansas. In the 1930s he studied as a four-hand version. The utmost is demanded of the Roslavets is one of the most captivating figures. National Theater. In 1933 he was allowed to return to composition in Boston with Walter Piston, Roger performer, especially in the outer movements: difficult Born on 4 January 1881 to a family of peasants in the Moscow, and kept his head above water with various Sessions, and Nicolas Slonimsky, consequently receiving to realize canonic voice leading, asynchronous motion Chernigov region of the Ukraine, he learned to play teaching jobs and sporadic work for the radio. He died in a solid classical training. He subsequently sought to sequences, and breakneck leaps. It is no wonder that violin early on from an uncle. He later received lessons Moscow in 1944, completely forgotten. expand his artistic horizon in Europe, but then went, the composer, as we are told, preferred the rendition on from a Jewish “wedding fiddler,” and learned theory owing to his strong political convictions, to Spain as a the mechanical piano – consequently: an even greater and harmony on his own. From 1902 to 1912 he studied Roslavets was the creator of a constructivist system soldier in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, fighting there challenge for a “real” pianist. The nervously forward- at the Moscow Conservatory, earning diplomas in violin of composition that transcended traditional major- in the civil war on the side of the Republicans. After urging first movement (Presto) takes the tone C as its and composition. His early work was initially in late- minor tonality. About this system, the composer their defeat, he returned – wounded – to the USA. As point of departure, around which clear-cut, concise tonal Romantic style and influenced by French impressionism. remarked: “My musical thinking at that time [1913] was a former Brigade member, however, he was faced there structures are formed. With that, a process of tonal A distinctly personal style developed starting in 1913 concerned with independently feeling out complete with considerable political repressions, which prompted densification is initiated which above all makes use of the when Roslavets pushed forward into atonality in his musical complexes, a sort of ‘synthetic chord,’ out of him to emigrate to Mexico. Already in 1939, Henry Cowell high register. The high point is reached with forceful chords, First Violin Sonata – inspired by the daring harmonic which which the harmonic plan of the work was then called Nancarrow’s attention to the possibilities of the after which the texture again loosens up to subsequently innovations of Alexander Scriabin. After the revolution, to develop itself. Within the complete plan of the player piano. In 1947 he purchased one and from then present the seemingly scattered material. The end point Roslavets made a name for himself as a champion composition, these ‘synthetic chords,’ which contained on dedicated himself to the composition of pieces for is C.
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