Bloodroot - Kelly Moran (2017)

Highly Recommended

Bloodroot isn't a prepared piano record per se - the prepared piano sounds are sampled and loaded into MIDI controllers so Moran has access to them through her synthesizer - but unlike, say, Conlon Nancarrow, who wrote player piano rolls to execute piano compositions that humans couldn't play, Moran uses the samples to have her prepared piano vocabulary at her fingertips, and to extend that vocabulary (but always within the context of the composition!) by mixing the prepared piano sounds with straight piano sounds. It also allows her to do things that would require a second set of hands, like using an ebow whilst playing prepared/straight piano on some of the same notes.*

tl:dr; All of this is a way of saying that this is a prepared piano record, even if not technically a prepared piano record. As such, it is most obviously compared to John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano . . . and while that may seem too easy, it also happens to be fair & useful. Given the stature of Sonatas and Interludes, it is a tribute to Moran that she is produce an album that stands up to Cage's masterwork.

Circa 2017, prepared piano is not the novelty it was when Cage first started toying with it in the late 1930s, even if it is not exactly commonplace. The thing that makes Sonatas and Interludes transcendent is that, once you get past the technical innovation, it is composition itself that really makes it immortal. In the same way, above and beyond Moran's technical vision, the composition is what carries Bloodroot. 

The thing that really makes Sonatas and Interludes shine is the way that pianist Maro Ajemian (to whom Cage dedicates the work) finds the Satie at the core of Cage's compositions**: the archness, the asceticism, the playfulness, the obstinance, the longing . . . the soul, if you will indulge the cliché. In Moran's work to you can hear echoes of Satie - I also hear Messiaen, Cowell, and Ligeti, just off the top of my head - but manages to create a work that is informed by her predecessors, not dependent upon them. And while the simple fact that it is a prepared piano work links it closely to Sonatas and Interludes, that too informs it, but does not define it. The compositions are, after the first blush of sound wears off, beautiful, varied, and unique. While Bloodroot will perhaps never fully escape the orbit of Sonatas and Interludes, it will stand up as part of the canon.

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*  Something has been made of the hybrid nature of the technology, linking it to electronic music as well as prepared piano. I think this is misleading: while electronics do show up on the treatments of some sounds, the effect is subtle and not at all like what we understand as electronic music in the avant garde classical sense.  

** I've heard other versions; Ajemian's debut of the work on Dial Records is the best version of the work by far.

The Western Lands Mixtapes Part III: Klavier!

Next up in the Western Lands mixtape series: piano! Keyboards are perhaps the heart of western music, the site where composition often occurs. Its maestros are at the front of the orchestras, the rock stars of concert hall (Lisztomania!). Piano music is capable of the most delicate intricacies, the most overwhelming fiery explosions, and everything in between.

A side note: there are two African-American jazz composers/pianists included on these mixtapes. Cecil Taylor is up front about looking at the European tradition as much as the history of jazz; Monk, not as much. A purist would argue about their inclusion, but it is well known that 20th century composers by and large were eager to celebrate the contributions of jazz . . . Stravinsky, for instance, wrote pieces for "jazz orchestra" and is said to have championed Duke Ellington as the greatest composer as the 20th century. And though Monk may not display the chops of a Glenn Gould (okay, that's not fair, because who does?), the parallels between his brand of eccentricity and someone like Satie seems fairly clear.

So, enjoy this playlist as some of the all time greats tickle the ivories! As always, Spotify playlist tracks mixtapes as closely as reasonably possible.

Tape 5: Piano

Side 1

Ludwig Van Beethoven – Piano Sonata No.2: II Adagio cantabile (Glenn Gould)

Erik Satie – Trios Nocturnes (Aldo Ciccolini)

John Cage – Music of Changes III (David Tudor)

Cecil Taylor – Erzulie Maketh Scent: Part II (Cecil Taylor)

Side 2

Frédéric Chopin – Waltz Op. 34 No. 3 (Agustín Anievas)

Alexander Scriabin – Quatre Morceaux Op. 56 (Vladimir Ashkenazy)

Charles Ives – Piano Sonata No. 2: II Hawthorne (Gilbert Kalish)

Claude Debussy – Suite bergamasque (Walter Gieseking)

Sergei Prokofiev – Sonata No. 6: I Allegro moderato (Van Cliburn)

György Ligeti – Capriccio No. 1 (Irina Kataeva)

Tape 6: Piano Too

Side 1

Modest Mussorgsky – Pictures at an Exhibition (Sviatoslav Richter)

Charles Ives – Three Quarter-tone Pieces for Two Pianos (Herbert Henck, Deborah Richards)

John Cage – Third Interlude (for Prepared Piano) (Maro Ajemian)

Side 2

Conlon Nancarrow – Sonatina (Conlon Nancarrow – piano roll)

Henry Cowell – Dynamic Motion/What’s This?/Amiable Conversation (Henry Cowell)

Morton Feldman – Nature Pieces (Philipp Vandré)

Domenico Scarlatti – In B Minor, L. 33, Andante mosso (Aldo Ciccolini)

Karlheinz Stockhausen – KLAVIERSTÜCKE I (Herbert Henck)

Johann Sebastian Bach – Toccata in E Minor, BWV 914 (Glenn Gould)

Thelonious Monk – Pannonica (Thelonious Monk)