Among the free-reed instruments, the bandoneon takes a special place. A closer relation to the concertina than the accordion, it features an impressively extendable bellows, distinctively voiced reeds, and a non-standardized keyboarding (buttoning) pattern, with an enormous range of possibilites about how tones are divided between the left and right sides and then arranged for […]
Markus Trunks Boeotische Riten (2005) for piano is an anthology of enigmatic and epigraphic pieces, subtitled The fragments of the Plataeae manuscript in a transcription for piano. Music of a(n) (re)imagined past culture, suggestive of the playing techniques of the ancient Greek Kithara, yet very much in the experimental tradition. The composer writes about the […]
Douglas Leedy’s 88 is great (1969) for piano 18 hands. The photo above (click to enlarge) is from a performance at Pomona College in Claremont, CA in 1974, under the direction of William F. Russell (far left), long-time chairman of the Pomona Music Department. 88 is great is a study in the efficient […]