Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T09:45:41.819Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Experimental Actions, the Outcomes of Which Are Foreseen: Experiment and Tradition in Conlon Nancarrow's Studies nos 21 and 36 for Player Piano

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2010

AARON BERKOWITZ
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Conlon Nancarrow is often classified as an ‘experimental’ composer. Definitions of experimentalism in twentieth-century music, however, vary widely, from general ones simply requiring the invention of new compositional techniques to some of John Cage's more specific definitions, which advocate indeterminacy. Nancarrow's music, pioneering in its use of the player piano and its exploration of rhythm and tempo, easily fulfils the criteria for experimentalism in a general sense, yet is by no means indeterminate. Nancarrow does not set up experiments and let them take their course, but rather carefully crafts his compositions, drawing on more traditional techniques of motivic development, counterpoint, and formal planning. Through analyses of Nancarrow's Studies nos 21 and 36 for player piano, I shall suggest that it is through the interaction of experiment and tradition that Nancarrow highlights the perceptibility of what is most experimental in his music: the highly novel approaches to the structuring of musical time.

Type
Articles
Information
Twentieth-Century Music , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , September 2008 , pp. 195 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amirkhanian, Charles. ‘Conlon Nancarrow’, on Ode to Gravity [incl. interviews recorded in 1977]. KPFA Radio, 30 April 1987. <http://www.archive.org/details/ConlonNancarrowOdeToGravity> (accessed 15 June 2006).+(accessed+15+June+2006).>Google Scholar
Cage, John. Silence: Lectures and Writings (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1961).Google Scholar
Cage, John. ‘The Future of Music: Credo’, in Silence, 3–6.Google Scholar
Cage, John. ‘Experimental Music’, in Silence, 7–12.Google Scholar
Cage, John. ‘Experimental Music: Doctrine’, in Silence, 13–17.Google Scholar
Cage, John. ‘History of Experimental Music in the United States’, in Silence, 67–75.Google Scholar
Cage, John. ‘A Long Letter’, in Nancarrow, Selected Studies for Player Piano, 25.Google Scholar
Callender, Clifton. ‘Formalized Accelerando: an Extension of Rhythmic Techniques in Nancarrow's Acceleration Canons’. Perspectives of New Music 39/1 (2001), 188–210.Google Scholar
Carlsen, Philip. The Player-Piano Music of Conlon Nancarrow: an Analysis of Selected Studies. Brooklyn, NY: Institute for Studies in American Music, 1998.Google Scholar
Cope, David. New Directions in Music, 7th edn. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Cott, Jonathan. ‘Interview with Steve Reich’, in booklet notes to Steve Reich 1965–1995. CD, Nonesuch 79451-2. 1997. 26–40.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. New Musical Resources (1930), with notes and an accompanying essay by David Nicholls. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Cowell, Henry. American Composers on American Music. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1962.Google Scholar
Drott, Eric. ‘Conlon Nancarrow and the Technological Sublime’. American Music 20/4 (2004), 533–563.Google Scholar
Duckworth, William. Talking Music: Conversations with John Cage, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and Five Generations of American Experimental Composers. New York: Schirmer, 1995.Google Scholar
Gann, Kyle. The Music of Conlon Nancarrow. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Gann, Kyle. American Music in the Twentieth Century. New York: Schirmer Books, 1997.Google Scholar
Miller, Leta. ‘Cultural Intersections: John Cage in Seattle (1938–1940)’, in John Cage: Music, Philosophy, and Intention, 1933–1950, ed. Patterson, David W.. New York: Routledge, 2002. 47–82.Google Scholar
Nancarrow, Conlon. Selected Studies for Player Piano, Soundings 4, ed. Garland, Peter. Berkeley: Soundings Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Nancarrow, Conlon. Collected Studies for Player Piano, Vol. 5. Santa Fe: Soundings Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Nancarrow, Conlon. Collected Studies for Player Piano, Vol. 3. CD, Wergo WER 60166-50. 1990.Google Scholar
Nancarrow, Conlon. Collected Studies for Player Piano, Vol. 4. CD, Wergo WER 60167-50. 1990.Google Scholar
Nicholls, David. American Experimental Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Nicholls, David. ‘Avant-Garde and Experimental Music’, in The Cambridge History of American Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 517–534.Google Scholar
Nyman, Michael. Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Pritchett, James. The Music of John Cage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Roger. ‘Conlon Nancarrow: Interviews in Mexico City and San Francisco’. American Music 2/2 (1984), 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schoenberg, Arnold. ‘Composition with Twelve Tones (2)’, in Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, ed. Stein, Leonard. London: Faber and Faber, 1975. 245–248.Google Scholar
Taylor, Stephen. ‘Chopin, Pygmies, and Tempo Fugue: Ligeti's “Automne à Varsovie”’. Music Theory Online 3/3 (1997). <http://www.societymusictheory.org/mto/issues/mto.97.3.3/mto.97.3.3.taylor_frames.html> (accessed 20 April 2005).Google Scholar
Tenney, James. ‘Conlon Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano’, in Nancarrow, Selected Studies for Player Piano, 41–64.Google Scholar
Thomas, Margaret. ‘Nancarrow's Canons: Projections of Temporal and Formal Structures’. Perspectives of New Music 38/2 (2000), 106–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tick, Judith. Ruth Crawford Seeger: a Composer's Search for American Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Yates, Peter. Twentieth Century Music: its Evolution from the End of the Harmonic Era into the Present Era of Sound. New York: Pantheon Books, 1967.Google Scholar