This three disc set sees the reissue of Charlemagne Palestine’s masterpiece for the piano along with two previously unreleased versions of the piece for harpsichord and string ensemble. "Strumming for Bösendorfer Piano" is a landmark of modern composition, a return to first principles typical of that generation of minimalist composers. Eschewing complex forms and technique, Palestine instead chases the pure sound lurking within the piano and uses the instrument in a way that was revolutionary then and remains just as stunning now.
The piano has long been a tyrant on composed music, the entire orchestra a slave to its discrete and immutable tuning. This is not necessarily a bad thing. To be honest, the world would be a far poorer place without the countless masterpieces that have used the piano and its tuning as their cornerstone. However, by the beginning of the 20th century, it was easy to see how composers were beginning to wonder where they could go based on the confines of the orchestra and, at its heart, the piano. Erik Satie's Vexations took an absurd idea of playing a short piano figure hundreds of times, stretching the patience of the audience and the pianist to its limits. Later John Cage silenced the black beast with 4'33" which, although not exclusively composed for piano, opened up a new direction for composers to move in. Morton Feldman's various piano works focused on playing softly over long durations, creating an intimacy lost in the showy compositions of earlier composers. Altogether, they usurped the role of the piano and gave it the chance to sing in a way which it never knew it could do.
These works laid the foundations for two great piano pieces of the late 20th century. The first is La Monte Young's dazzling long-form piece The Well Tuned Piano, which dispensed with the traditional piano tuning in favor of intonation. The result was a piece of piano music which was colored in a way that had rarely been heard before. The second piece, which actually preceded Young’s piece, Palestine's Strumming Music, managed to wrestle such unearthly tones out of the piano as Young’s without resorting to completely retuning the instrument. Charlemagne instead devised a piece which took advantage of the piano’s natural ability to resonate, creating a human-instrument feedback engine. Beginning with pulsing E and B notes, Palestine would keep the sustain pedal down and start listening for the resonances in the instrument and play other notes to accentuate and articulate these vibrations. Before long, it is hard to determine which notes are being played by hitting the keys and which are the ghosts of the keys previously played. By the end of the piece, the normally predictable piano is acting in a way most unlike its usual staid self. Palestine does more in one sitting at the piano than hundreds of composers have done in the history of the instrument.
The liner notes describe the genesis and evolution of the piece, initially Palestine was quite specific that only the Bösendorfer piano would suffice as other pianos lacked its own unique resonant profile but as will be discussed below, he later adapted the piece for harpsichord and string ensemble. Additionally, although this piano recording lasts just under an hour, there are references to Palestine's intentions for a four hour rendition which would have preempted and rivaled Young’s own epic piece.
The two "new" recordings (both remaining unreleased since the '70s until now) lack the dazzle and the ingenuity of the original but both are intriguing in their own way. Betsy Freeman’s playing of "Strumming Music for Harpsichord" highlights just why Palestine insisted on using the Bösendorfer piano alone for the piece. Granted the harpsichord is not renowned for its resonance but the brittle sounding notes sound unusually harsh after the lush timbres of the original. The blurring effect of the resonance is lost as each key played is startlingly clear throughout the piece but the repetition and sustained attack gives this version a charm of its own. The version for string ensemble takes the piece on a third path, Palestine conducting the ensemble and directing them like he directed his own playing at the Bösendorfer. The shortest of the three recordings (only around 25 minutes), it is again reminiscent of Young’s works; listening to "Strumming for Strings" brings about the same meditative mood as Young’s The Second Dream of the High Tension Line Stepdown Transformer from the Four Dreams of China. However, mood is the main link between the two, Palestine’s stamp is all over this piece and, honestly, this triple CD set is worth the money for this recording alone.
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