Word: pianists
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...friends in the form of paper gliders. He also wrote a little work for piano called Vexations-an 80-second chordal theme of only 180 notes in 52 beats. Then, in high humor, he added to the score an instruction that Vexations was to be played by a pianist with "interior immobility"-840 times in unbroken succession...
...some means determined that "people today are no longer afraid of time," played Vexations 75 times himself, then retired to sleep soundly on a foam-rubber pad down in the basement. But those who sat through the whole thing found themselves deeply enriched by the experience. The pianists were all transfixed by the music's windshield-wiper logic, and while each played his 20-minute turn (15 Vexations), the relief pianist stood by the piano, cultivating his interior immobility. "This kind of music," said one communicant, "leads toward the elimination of conscious control...
...lights in the recording studio were dimmed, and Vorsetzer, the 700-Ib. pianist, stood at the keyboard of the Steinway concert grand, all 88 fingers poised over the keys. Then the mechanical wizard began to play - first a spirited Josef Hofmann performance of Mendelssohn's Rondo Capriccioso, then further seances with Leschetizky, Paderewski, Busoni, Mahler, Saint-Saens, Debussy, Ravel. Guided by electric impulses from a collection of unique piano rolls, Vorsetzer's sensitive fingers produced all the notes with ghostly perfection, just as the turn-of-the-century masters had played them 50 years be fore. But this...
...dipped into a tray of mercury, completing an electric circuit that controlled the pressure of an inked rubber wheel turning against a roll of tissue-thin paper. The wheel marked the paper faintly if the key was struck softly; fortissimos produced a wide mark because the force of the pianist's finger sank the carbon rod deeper in the mercury and intensified the current. A companion machine-the Vorsetzer-was placed at the keyboard to play back the rolls, reproducing not only the notes and their rhythmic sequence but also the personality of the original performance.-There was none...
...place for the series of August concerts that introduced the improvements, but he found the new sound more tormenting than ever. He reported that he had to take up his Byronic wanderings again, and with the same unhappy results. "Something was wrong," he wrote, reviewing a recital by Pianist Gary Graffman, "and I drifted to the back of the hall." Things were better there, but Schonberg resolved once again to change his seat. "My apologies to Graffman," he wrote, "and a promise that I will catch his next recital-from a more favorable location." Taking a cue from the maestro...