Amplified Piano
The introduction of electronic amplification to the piano, which began as an innocent bluff by a teenage composer living in the Arctic Circle, had a devastating consequence for Tudor’s virtuosity on the keyboard instrument: it dissolved his control of escapement mechanism, opening up instead the wor...
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| Format: | Book Part |
| Language: | unknown |
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Oxford University Press
2021
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190686765.003.0003 |
| Summary: | The introduction of electronic amplification to the piano, which began as an innocent bluff by a teenage composer living in the Arctic Circle, had a devastating consequence for Tudor’s virtuosity on the keyboard instrument: it dissolved his control of escapement mechanism, opening up instead the world of feedback where a sound once activated could potentially never end. A detailed examination of Tudor’s idiosyncratic realization of John Cage’s Variations II in 1962 shows what previous scholars, as well as the composer himself, have failed to see: the specific nature of the amplified piano that was altogether a different instrument from the piano. What the new instrument presented was not simply more complexity and indeterminacy but a specific kind of complexity and indeterminacy which is reflected in how Tudor actually performed the music. |
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