Output details

Piece for Tape. Arrangement of work by Conlon Nancarrow for solo percussionist. Commissioned by Joby Burgess and the Cheltenham Festival. Premiere: Cheltenham Festival, July 10th, 2010. Subsequent performance at Southbank Centre, April 21st, 2012. Score and CD Recording (Track 7). URL and hard copy evidence Southbank performance.

This is one of two primary outputs from a three-year research project into the lost tape music of Conlon Nancarrow. The original work consisted of an incomplete recording and unpublished score from the early 1950s. I have produced the first analysis of this piece which has uncovered a technique that Nancarrow has not used in any of his other works: that of superimposition of two phrases of irregular lengths, one of which lengthens while the other shortens over time, to create a single monophonic line, using a hierarchy formula to decide which notes to omit if two or more occur simultaneously. This arrangement returns to Nancarrow's sound source of percussion instruments, reduces the number of instruments and rebars the work to bring this phenomenally difficult piece within the realms of performance practicality. In doing so it becomes the only solo Nancarrow work for percussion and suggests how his work might have sounded if he had access to highly skilled performers at this period in his life. The result is suggestive of percussion pieces such as Xenakis' Rebonds written many years later. My written research into the work, to be published in 2013/14, argues that it is not only one of the earliest tape compositions but it is completely unlike any other from that era, as the medium is not used as a means of timbral manipulation but as a tool for realising complex rhythmic ideas, thus advancing Nancarrow's position as being a precursor of computer music.The piece has been recorded by Powerplant for the Album '24 Lies Per Second' on the Signum Label, and has to date received over 15 performances in the UK, US and Europe.