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Piano Circus Current Repertoire Guide

(* denotes Piano Circus Commissions)

 

 

 

Meditative/mesmerising/minimal/cool

Morton Feldman:                            Pianos and Voices 1947

Ivan Wyschnegradsky:                   Arc-en-ciel op. 37 1956 for 6 pianos in twelfth tones

Terry Riley:                                      Keyboard Studies 1 & 2 1965 (arr. Richard Harris and Paul Cassidy)

Steve Reich:                                    Six Pianos 1973

Michael Nyman:                              1-100 1976/1990

Graham Fitkin:                                Line 1990*

David Lang:                                     Face So Pale 1992*

Duncan MacLeod:                           Ellipsis for 6 keyboards and electronics 2009*

Colin Riley:                                      Double Trio 2010* for 2 pianos, 4 keyboards, electronics and projection

Nico Muhly:                                     Flat Earth, Night Sky 2011 (arr. James Young 2015)

John Psathas:                                 Sleeper 2010/2018

 

Euphoric/exhilarating/ecstatic/driving

Graham Fitkin:                               Loud, Log 1989/1991*

John Adams:                                  Hoodoo Zephyr 1992 (arr. Charlie Piper 2015)

Graham Fitkin:                               Totti 1994*

Adrian Sutton:                                Aerobatics over Lake Wanaka 1998/2015*

Patrick Nunn:                                 21st Century Junkie 2000* for 6 keyboards and fixed media

 

Challenging/confrontational/cathartic/intense

Ivan Wyschnegradsky:                   Cosmos op. 28 1940 for 4 pianos in quarter tones

Steve Reich:                                    Four Organs 1970

Louis Andriessen:                          De Staat 1972 for 6 pianos and 4 female voices (arr. James Young 2015)

Julius Eastman:                             Evil N*****, Crazy N*****, Gay Guerrilla 1979

Julia Wolfe:                                     my lips from speaking 1993*

Erkki-Sven Tüür:                            Transmission 1996*

Peter Bengtson:                             Carillon 1996*

Sarunas Nakas:                             Merz Machine 1997*

Shiva Fesharecki:                          Jack of all trades 2011* for 2 pianos 4 keyboards and 4 Kaoss Pads

Dave Maric:                                     In Adversity 2015* for 6 pianos and midi drums

John Psathas:                                Demonic Thesis 2010/2018 for 6 pianos and fixed media

Patrick Brennan:                            Folk Machines 2015* for 6 keyboards and 3 female voices

 

Clangorous/crazy/comic/fun

Charles Ives:                                   Three Quarter-Tone pieces for two pianos 1924

Conlon Nancarrow:                        Study for Player Piano nos. 5 and 26 1962 (arr. David Appleton 1995)

John Cage:                                      The Beatles 1990

Marc-Andre Hamelin:                    Circus Galop 1991 (arr. James Young 2013)

Robert Moran:                                 Three Dances for 6 keyboards 1993*

Kenneth Hesketh:                           Vecherinka for 6 pianos in 5 hands 2005/2010*

 

Microtonal Works (requiring digital pianos)

Charles Ives:                                   Three Quarter-Tone pieces for two pianos 1924

Ivan Wyschnegradsky:                   Cosmos op. 28 1940 for 4 pianos in quarter tones

Ivan Wyschnegradsky:                   Arc-en-ciel op. 37 1956 for 6 pianos in twelfth tones

Peter Bengtson:                              Carillon 1996*

Duncan MacLeod:                           Ellipsis for 6 keyboards and electronics 2009*

Patrick Brennan:                            Folk Machines 2015* for 6 keyboards and 3 female voices

Steven Daverson:                           New Work (proposed)

 

British Music

Graham Fitkin:                                Totti 1994*

Graham Fitkin:                                Log, Line, Loud 1989-1991*

Patrick Nunn:                                  21st Century Junkie 2000* for 6 keyboards and fixed media

Kenneth Hesketh:                           Vecherinka for 6 pianos in 5 hands 2005/2010

Duncan MacLeod:                           Ellipsis for 6 keyboards and electronics 2009*

Colin Riley:                                      Double Trio 2010* for 2 pianos, 4 keyboards, electronics and projection

Adrian Sutton:                                Aerobatics Over Lake Wanaka 2015*

Dave Maric:                                     In Adversity for 6 pianos and midi drums 2015*

Patrick Brennan:                            Folk Machines 2015* for 6 keyboards and 3 female voices

Steven Daverson:                           New Work (proposed)

 

Mixed Media pieces

Patrick Nunn:                                  21st Century Junkie 2000* for 6 keyboards and fixed media

Colin Riley:                                      Double Trio 2010* for 2 pianos, 4 keyboards, electronics and projection

Shiva Fesharecki:                           Jack of all trades 2011* for 2 pianos 4 keyboards and 4 Kaoss Pads

John Psathas:                                 Demonic Thesis 2010/2018 for 6 pianos and fixed media

 

Collaborative Works

Louis Andriessen:                           De Staat 1972 for 6 pianos and 4 female voices arr. JY 2015

Patrick Brennan:                             Folk Machines 2015* for 6 keyboards and 3 female voices

 

Works With Orchestra

Stravinsky:                                      Les Noces for four pianos and orchestra 1923

Gyimah Labi:                                   Concerto for 6 pianos and orchestra 1996

Georg Friedrich Haas:                    Limited Approximations 2010 for 6 microtonally tuned pianos and orchestra

 

 

Concert Programmes

Programme 1: 

Steve Reich: The Complete Works for Multiple Keyboards

 

**Requires 2 acoustic grand pianos and six digital pianos**

 

Music for Two or More Pianos                 (unspecified duration/number of pianos)          

(1964)

(An early, pre-minimalist work in which ‘...the influences of Morton Feldman mingle with those of jazz pianist Bill Evans...’)

 

Piano Phase                        (duration: 20 minutes)                          

(1967)                            (instrumentation: 2 pianos) 

(The first of Reich’s ‘phase’ pieces in which the gradual phase-shifting process is realised entirely by live performers.) 

 

Four Organs                         (duration: 18 minutes)                                              (1970)                             (instrumentation: 4 organs, maracas)

(An attempt to realise, sonically, the concept of ‘slow motion sound’ from Reich’s 1967 essay of the same name.)

 

Phase Patterns                         (duration: 16 minutes)                                                                                          (1970)                             (instrumentation: 4 organs) 

(A transitional work in which the instrumentation is identical (minus maracas) to his previous work Four Organs, but his approach of conceiving keyboard instruments as ‘...extraordinary sets of tuned drums...’ points to his next composition, Drumming.) 

 

Clapping Music                         (duration: 5 minutes)                                                       (1972)                             (instrumentation: 0 pianos, 4 hands)

(Reich’s first piece to feature immediate phase-shifting instead of gradual phase-shifting. In 2012 an authorised arrangement for solo piano was recorded by Simon Rackham, Piano Circus' very first commissionee. Although not in its original form a keyboard work, it is the only other Reich piece available to us and might form a welcome sonic interlude as well as a short and concise introduction to the concept of Phase Shifting)

 

Six Pianos                             (duration: 20 minutes)                                                                                            (1973)                             (instrumentation: 6 pianos)  

(Following on from Clapping Music, this is the first of Reich’s conventionally instrumental pieces to feature immediate phase-shifting instead of gradual phase-shifting. Together, Clapping Music and Six Pianos mark the composer’s transition into his ‘middle period’.) 

 

Finishing the Hat                         (duration: 4 minutes)                                               (2011)                             (instrumentation: 2 pianos)

(Reich’s treatment of the Stephen Sondheim song of the same name which features in Sunday in the Park with George) 

 

At around 90 minutes of music, this is a very substantial concert, but of course Clapping Music could be omitted.  Further research is necessary into how the early piece Music of two or more pianos is to be performed, and indeed whether Reich would give us his blessing to do so.  Information on this work is very scarce.

 

Programme 2:

Impossible Music/Man vs Machine

 

Unlike our more contemporary programmes this includes work from the last 100 years – post WWI. 

 

Over the last 100 years a steady trend of acoustic music being dwarfed by electronic music and finding it difficult to compete ... the ever-increasing threat of mechanisation ...

This programme reverses that trend and re-interprets ‘impossible’, mechanical music (often for the player piano). 

 

The humans take back the machine. Piano Circus is a machine made of humans.

 

Several works for player piano re-interpreted in arrangements by Piano Circus.

 

  • Contains music from the whole 20th century and not just contemporary works

  • Covers music from the last 100 years (post WWI) – in the aftermath of centenary commemorations of the above it might be refreshing to look at the cultural shake-up/aftermath/freedom of expression which came out after the tragedy… ====> insane 20's music?

  • Black and white to colour – visual images Black and White through to colour – footage of the game (Touhou series) from black midi

  • Mechanisation and re-interpretation of that now through PC… Some philosophical bullshit possible here ...

 

 

Hindemith: Toccata für das Mechanische Klavier (arr. Piano Circus)

Stravinsky: Étude pour Pianola (arr. Piano Circus)

Antheil: Ballet mécanique (arr. Piano Circus)

Nancarrow: New arrangements of various Studies for Player Piano

Ligeti: Etude no.14a “Infinite Column”

Hamelin: Player piano canon –     [Une Grande Sonate Comique pour six pianos]

    Solfeggietto a Cinque (a Sei)

    Pop Music

    Circus Galop

 

Also possible:

 

Black Midi – new commission, Matt Rogers?

Silent movie stuff?

Sarunas Nakas: Merz Machine 6’

(Noisy machine music)

 

As a first “half” we could balance all the relentless fast music, with a look at the other extreme – exceedingly slow, autopilot music, durational works, played in an installation-type environment. The halves are titled “SLOW” and “FAST”.

 

Simeon Ten Holt: Canto Ostinato 1976 (variable duration)

Simon Rackham: Which ever way your nose bends for six keyboards 1989

Eric Satie: Vexations (variable duration, c.14-28 hours)

 

Also, Cage's change-determined works would fit here as an interesting take on machine music, in their quest to take away human agency and choice and produce works determined by random numbers. For instance, Winter Music (four pianos) and Apartment House Harmonies (oft-arranged orchestral hymns with most of the notes subtracted, leaving silence). The silence and inhuman slowness makes a great conceptual foil to the overstimulation and inhuman speed of the player-piano music.

 

Programme 3 – Refining the Gradient:

Microtonal Music for Keyboards

**This concert requires a very refined, differentiated and carefully diffused digital piano sound**

 

Charles Ives: Three Quarter-Tone pieces for two pianos 1924

(Amongst the first quarter-tone keyboard pieces, by an American great)

 

Ivan Wyschnegradsky: Cosmos op. 28 1940

for 4 pianos in quarter tones 

Ivan Wyschnegradsky: Arc-en-ciel op. 37 1956 

for 6 pianos in twelfth tones 

(Two pioneering works by a genuine visionary)

 

Peter Bengtson: Carillon 1996*

(A clangorous, microtonal tolling of bells for electric keyboards which de-tune and re-tune throughout the piece)

 

Duncan MacLeod: Ellipsis for 6 keyboards and electronics 2009*

 

Patrick Brennan: Folk Machines 2015*

for 6 keyboards and 3 female voices

(Lithuanian folk-song meets minimalism and really crap words)

 

Steven Daverson: New Work (proposed)

(Intricate, spectral music inspired by the movements of cosmological objects)

 

 

Programme 4 - Hits:

Piano Circus Classics

 

Graham Fitkin: Totti 7’

(A blast of Fitkin funk)

 

David Lang: Face So Pale 11’

(15th century chanson reinvented with tremulous tremolos)

 

Adrian Sutton: Aerobatics Over Lake Wanaka 8’

(A phantasmagorical ride combining Dies Irae with All Things Bright and Beautiful)

 

Steve Reich: Six Pianos 15’

(The original six piano piece, and iconic musical landmark)

 

Marc-Andre Hamelin: Circus Galop 6' (arr. J Young)

(A crazy and impossible player-piano black-midi trip)

 

--interval--

Graham Fitkin: Log Line Loud 42’

(The grand symphony for six pianos, with complex textures and polymetres creating an overwhelming euphoric soundworld)

 

 

 

 

 

Programme 6 - Covers:

Radical new takes

 

David Lang: Face So Pale 11’

(15th century chanson reinvented with tremulous tremolos)

 

Terry Riley: Keyboard Study no. 2 10' (arr. R Harris)

(An early minimalist experiment multiplied by six)

 

Conlon Nancarrow: Studies 5 and 26 5' (arr. D Appleton)

(The infamous unplayable player-piano pieces, played)

 

Julia Wolfe: My Lips From Speaking (1994) 17’

(An epic clangorous riot based on an Aretha Franklin riff)

 

--interval--

 

JS Bach: Triple Keyboard Concerto 13' (arr. N Georgeson)

(An exploded, expanded Piano Circus version of Bach's masterly concerto)

 

Thomas Ades: Darknesse Visible 7' (arr. R Harris)

(Dowland's dark lute song beautifully deconstructed)

 

John Cage: The Beatles 1962-1970 8’

(A typically-conceptual Cagian take on the Beatles, akin to listening to six radios tuned to pop stations)

 

Dream Theatre: Dance of Eternity 7' (arr. J Young)

(One of the prog-rock icons' most visceral epics)

 

Marc-Andre Hamelin: Circus Galop 6' (arr. J Young)

(A crazy and impossible player-piano black-midi trip)

 

 

 

Programme 5 - B-Sides:

The Alt-Circus

 

Erkki-Sven Tuür: Transmission 15’

(Conceptual canon)

 

Peter Bengston: Carillon 9’

(A clangorous, microtonal tolling of bells for electric keyboards which de-tune and re-tune throughout the piece)

 

Sarunas Nakas: Merz Machine 6’

(Noisy machine music)

 

Nikki Yeoh: Six as One 10’

(Funky alternative groove)

 

Dave Maric: In Adversity for 6 pianos and midi drums 5'

(Dark and uncompromising club music)

 

--interval--

 

Patrick Nunn: 21st Century Junkie for 6 keyboards and fixed media 8'

(A snapshot of the state of the world; sounds of the zeitgeist)

 

Robert Moran: Three Dances for 6 keyboards 9'

(Unhinged, intricate music exploring the alternative electronic sounds of six keyboards)

 

Ivan Wyschnegradsky: Arc-en-ciel for 6 pianos in twelfth tones op. 37 9'

(A bracing, pioneering work by a genuine visionary)

 

Steve Reich: Four Organs 15’

(An attempt to realise, sonically, the concept of ‘slow motion sound’ from Reich’s 1967 essay of the same name)

 

 

 

 

Single-Work Concerts/Installations

 

Simeon Ten Holt: Canto Ostinato 1976 (variable duration)

(Durational minimalism with considerable freedom given to the performers)

 

Simon Rackham: Which ever way your nose bends for six keyboards 1989

(Piano Circus' first-ever commission, a slow-motion companion to Reich's Six Pianos)

 

Eric Satie: Vexations (variable duration, c.14-28 hours)

(Bloody-minded repetition of a mysterious and idionsyncratic chord sequence which has an intensely meditative effect. As Satie writes, "In order to play the theme 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities.”)

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