Nancarrow: Pieces Nos. 1 & 2; ¿Tango?; String Quartet No. 1

Nancarrow: Pieces Nos. 1 & 2; ¿Tango?; String Quartet No. 1 | Celeste Marie Roy, David Krakauer, ... | A good budget introduction to Nancarrow's "live" music

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Nancarrow: Pieces ...

	Nancarrow: Pieces Nos. 1 & 2; ¿Tango?; String Quartet No. 1 Celeste Marie Roy, David Krakauer, ... Naxos American, 2005 average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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Nancarrow without the player piano: an essential addition to our knowledge of the composer

This is the reissue of a recording made in 1989 and first released in 1991 by Musicmasters. See my lengthy review under the original release (Continuum Performs Nancarrow). It is an essential addition to our knowledge and understanding of Nancarrow, as it documents most of the (very few) pieces he wrote for for "normal" instruments, e.g. live performers, as opposed to the mechanical player piano for which he belatedly became so famous. Other than, perforce, the pieces he composed subsequently to the present recording (such as the Canons for Ursula Oppens or the third String Quartet), absent are the two remaining movements of the early (1942) Trio for Clarinet, Bassoon and Piano whose first movement is featured here: they were considered lost and were rediscovered shortly after the recording was made.

It is also best heard in company of Conlon Nancarrow : Lost Works, Last Works published by Other Minds, which in part documents the transcriptions for Player Piano that Nancarrow made of some of these compositions, just in order to be able to hear them (they were nearly unplayable by human performers, and anyway he lived in Mexico, isolated from the music world): the "Prelude", "Blues", Sonatina, the two outer movements of the String Quartet and, much later, the second part of the Piece for Small Ensemble No. 2 (Study # 50). The difference is not only the obvious one of timbre (especially in the Quartet and Piece for Ensemble), but also, dramatically, of tempo. One understands what Nancarrow had in his "mind's ear" when composing these pieces and hence, why he grew dissatisfied with human performers. The String Quartet played on four strings sounds like, well, just any other string quartet, one that possibly Milhaud (the dynamic bounce, the polytonal impression) or Krenek (the stern canons) and many other 20th century composers of mildly modernist ilk might have written. It its player piano transcription, it sounds like a dazzling, demented study for machine-keyboard. Still, in their version for live performers the pieces are echt-Nancarrow, full of the customary awesome canons and demented boogie-woogies.

Other than original Nancarrow compositions, the disc also features two transcriptions made by Yvar Mikhashoff: the Sonatina, originally for one piano and here played on piano four-hands (a version Nancarrow reportedly came to prefer, even over his own player piano transcription), and player piano Study # 15. And while pianists Cheryl Seltzer and Joël Sachs (who joins her in the four-hand pieces) are no match to the machine in the Prelude, Blues and Sonatina, their fingers are still quite impressive for human appendixes and make a convincing case for the pieces in "live form". It is even a tribute to the two pianists' awesome virtuosity that in Study # 15, they do match the machine. Gary Kasparov is not alone to face Deep Blue.

My only regret have is that each piece individually is so short, as well as the disc overall (44:36). But at Naxos' prices, this is not detrimental.

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A good budget introduction to Nancarrow's "live" music

Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997), one of the greatest of the American musical mavericks, is primarily known for a huge collection of studies for player piano (available on Wergo) which were a significant influence on major later 20th century figures such as Ligeti. This disc (which originally appeared on Musical Heritage Society) is a sensible choice for Naxos to reissue on their American Classics series, as by concentrating on music for live instruments it helps round out the image of the composer, as well as providing an accessible introduction to his work for those who don't want to drop $60 on the player piano studies. Much of the music on this disc is early Nancarrow, but Naxos do score by including two late works, the piano piece Tango? and the Second Piece for Small Orchestra, which was written for Continuum, the ensemble performing on this disc.

The First Piece for Small Orchestra dates from 1943, and is not atypical of the American music of that time. Containing references to jazz--an enduring influence on Nancarrow--as well as occasional neoclassical figurations, it is energetically populist, and appealing if not particularly deep. The Toccata for Violin and Player Piano is a 1980s revision of a 1935 work, with the turbocharged piano line played by player piano to allow for faster performance. Also from 1935 is the Prelude and Blues for piano, with an energetic polyrhythmic Prelude (hinting at the directions Nancarrow's work would take) followed by a rather less individualistic Blues. In this performance, the Prelude has been arranged for piano four hands by the performers--one assumes due to the severe technical difficulties in the original.

Also included on the discs are two transcriptions for piano four hands by the American experimental music specialist Yvar Mikhashoff. The 15th player piano study--a ferociously complex canon--would be unplayable live with two hands, and though while the brief three-movement Piano Sonatina is possible to play, it's understandable that this performance uses Mikhashoff's transcription. Meanwhile, Tango? contrasts quizzical canonic writing and exuberantly populist styles, while the Trio Movement for clarinet, bassoon and piano is an intriguing fragment from 1942 (some more of the trio has since been discovered, and it would be interesting to hear more of the piece).

The two most important works on the disc come at the end of it. The First String Quartet already has minor-classic status, having been taken up by both the Kronos and Arditti Quartets. Written in 1945, it was to be Nancarrow's last work for live performers for nearly 40 years (the difficulty of his music had lead to few performances, mostly unsatisfactory). In a three-movement fast-slow-fast form, this quartet contains much of Nancarrow's mature style, if in only partially-developed form: contrapuntal complexity, simultaneous playing of multiple lines in different meters, and the constant influence of jazz. These preoccupations are summed up in the 1986 Second Piece for Small Orchestra, a vigorous bipartite exploration of virtuoso ensemble playing that will inevitably remind many of a more tonal Ligeti.

It's unfortunate that these 45 minutes of music is all there is on the disc, as there are a number of late Nancarrow works--mostly written after this recording was made in 1989--which are either unrecorded or near-impossible to find. Still, the price is certainly right, and it's hard to see lovers of contemporary music wanting to pass this disc up.

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