Missouri Classical Music News and Notes

The Piano on the Edge Series continues this Sunday, October 17th, at 2:30PM in White Recital Hall with a program for piano four-hands by the Bugallo-Williams Duo.

Admission to the recital is free.

The series is devoted to artists or composers who take the piano to the edge, stretching the listeners ears and the performers abilities while remaining within the traditional confines of the piano recital.

Helena Bugallo and Amy Williams will perform 12 arrangements of Conlon Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano. Nancarrow, an American composer who lived in Mexico City, wanted to explore writing canons at different tempi. The effect would be the same as if one person sang Row, Row, Row your Boat at one speed, never varying, and the next person came in with the second voice at a totally unrelated yet steady speed. For example, Nancarrow wrote canons with speeds at a ratio of the square root of 2 to 1! Hence the use of the player piano as the medium of performance. Nancarrow could punch the holes in the piano roll paper with great precision, assuring the accuracy of the metric relationships. He never imagined the pieces could be performed by human performers!

The Bugallo-Williams Duo has arranged several of the canons for performance by two people at one piano. I heard them perform last year in Miami, Florida, and was tremendously impressed and excited. Also on the program is the four-hand arrangement made by Igor Stravinsky of The Rite of Spring. It was intended for use in the ballet studio to assist with rehearsals, but it is nevertheless a tour-de-force to listen to in the concert hall.