Browse by Artist: NANCARROW, CONLON

Artist:	NANCARROW, CONLON
Title:	Player Piano 1 - Studies for Player Piano Vol. 1
Label:	MDG SCENE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.50
Catalog #:	MDG 1401CD

2005 recordings, using Nancarrow's original player piano from 1927. "One of the most fascinating chapters in the history of the piano of the 20th century were Conlon Nancarrow's studies for player piano. After American-born Nancarrow returned from the Spanish Civil War, fighting the fascists in the thirties, he emigrated to Mexico and began to compose for the already out-of-style player piano. Tempos of 200 beats per second are not unusual, or chords made up of dozens of notes, all impossible for a human to play but as a result of his innovative use of player piano rolls he could make the impossible possible. The instrument used was Nancarrow's own Bösendorfer Ampico grand piano."

Artist:	NANCARROW, CONLON
Title:	Player Piano 3 - Studies 13-32 Vol. 2
Label:	MDG SCENE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.50
Catalog #:	MDG 1403CD

2nd volume to be released; 2005 recordings, using Nancarrow's original player piano from 1927."Nancarrow fans have been waiting for the definitive Canonic Studies CDs for quite a while. The wait is officially over. Conlon Nancarrow's player piano studies are famous for their physically un-playable by human hands sounds and counterpoint. All 'written' on a piano roll. Jurgen Hocker was able to find the perfect piano for this project, a Bosendorfer with an Ampico Forsetzer."

Artist:	NANCARROW, CONLON
Title:	Player Piano 5: Studies 33-41c Vol. 3
Label:	MDG SCENE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.50
Catalog #:	MDG 6451405CD

"Canons were Conlon Nancarrow's thing, and the complex temporal courses plotted with the greatest precision in his Studies ('The Well-Tempered Clavier' of the twentieth century) were his trademark. When a second concert grand piano enters the sweepstakes, then we realize why Nancarrow himself was never able to perform the Studies recorded here. Take a four-part canon for two pianos and have the second instrument enter twenty seconds later and play faster than the first, so that the two come together for the shared final chord. The best pianist would be doomed to failure and even piano rolls cannot fulfill to the note the requirements of Nancarrow's Study No. 40. It is thus hardly surprising that 19 years went by between its composition and its premiere. It is only when modern computer technology lends its helping hand to two player pianos that we are able to experience Nancarrow's works exactly as this exceptional American composer imagined them during the mid-1970s. This new recording of the Studies for Player Piano owes its existence to Jürger Hocker. This fanatical Nancarrow fan repeatedly visited the American composer in Mexico and for many years searched for suitable player pianos, had them restored, and prepared copies of the original rolls -- with the result that Nancarrow's works can now be heard on his two Bösendorfer and Fischer grand pianos with especially prepared hammers. And it was also Hocker who tracked down the musical electronics expert Horst Mohr and the engineer Walter Tenten, without whose help the premiere of Nancarrow's Studies would have been unthinkable."

Artist:	NANCARROW, CONLON
Title:	Studies and Solos for Piano
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	WER 6670

Composer: Conlon Nancarrow; Performed by the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo. Features mostly early works: "Studiies for Player Piano (1949-60), "Three Canons for Ursula" (1988), "Tango?" (1984), "Three Two-Part Studies" (1940s), "Prelude" (1935), "Blues" (1935), "Sonatina" (1945). "The Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo -- plays works by Conlon Nancarrow, one of the most unusual and yet most influential American composers in the history of twentieth century music. In addition to works originally written for piano two-hands there are transcriptions for piano four-hands of works written for two hands, as well as eleven 'Studies for Player Piano' transcribed for piano four-hands on this wonderful CD. It turned to be a magical event to listen to these sometimes romantic or jazzy, abrupt or wild, but always deeply original pieces full of wit and surprises. [...] The two ladies understood it perfectly, to bring the mechanical element to light but with incredible charm and a furioso technique."

Artist:	NANCARROW, CONLON
Title:	Quartets and Studies - Arditti Quartet
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	WER 6696CD

Performed by Arditti Quartet, 2005 recordings. "Conlon Nancarrow (b. 1912) is undoubtedly one of the most original figures in American music. In the late 1940s, he turned to the instrument with which his name later became synonymous: the player piano. But Nancarrow also wrote a number of compositions for conventional instruments, which are likewise concerned with the organization of musical time and which in technical terms are among the most difficult works in modern literature. This repertoire is tailor-made for the enterprising Arditti Quartet, heard here in a propulsive reading of the 'String Quartets' Nos. 1 and 3 (1942; 1987). As a further attraction, this is the first recording of the string arrangements of the 'Studies for Player Piano' Nos. 15, 31, 33 and 34 (originally composed between 1955 and 1969) and of the 'Trilogy for Player Piano' dating from 1987."

Artist:	NANCARROW, CONLON
Title:	Studies for Player Piano Vol. 1-5 (complete)
Label:	WERGO (GERMANY)
Format:	5CD
Price:	$66.00
Catalog #:	WER 6907

"This set brings together all five volumes of Nancarrow's prize-winning player piano recordings in one deluxe, slipcase package. With their dazzling acrobatic complexities, well beyond the technique of any human, Nancarrow's works are both amazingly beautiful and strangely unsettling. Wergo's recordings were made in 1988 at Conlon Nancarrow's Mexico City studio, using the composer's own custom-altered Ampico reproducing piano. The 140-page booklet includes numerous unpublished photographs, an essay by producer Charles Amirkhanian and a probing musical analysis by James Tenney." This set replaced the now deleted individuals sets that were previously issued by Wergo (60165, 60166, 6168). Priced as 5 CDs for the cost of 3 (in Wergo terms), so a bit more attractive than the original versions in that sense.

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