Harpsichord
Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer: Pieces des clavecin (1746) (excerpts)
Paul Whitty: seven pages (1) & (2) (2008)
Gyorgy Ligeti: Passacaglia Ungherese (1978)
Gyorgy Ligeti: Continuum (1968)
Louis Andriessen: Overture to Orpheus (1982)
Electric Organ
Terry Riley: Persian Surgery Dervishes (1974)
Piano
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Rondo K511 (1787)
Franz Liszt: Unstern! (1881)
Arnold Schoenberg: 3 Klavier Stücke (1909)
Leo Ornstein: Suicide in an Airplane (c. 1918-19)
Iannis Xenakis: Everyali (1973)
Lauren Redhead: i am but one small instrument (2013)
La Monte Young: X is for Henry Flynt (1961)
Philip Corner: Piano Activities (1962)
Jane Chapman harpsichord
Leon Michener electric organ
Mark Knoop piano
In Keyboard Breakdown, we travel from harpsichord to electric organ to piano, finishing the night with an increasingly agitated series of works. Along the way, in the music of Terry Riley and Louis Andriessen, calmer oases temporarily open up. But Leo Ornstein and Iannis Xenakis lead us back down into the darkness and we end the festival with Philip Corner’s violently anarchic Piano Activities, which sees the piano itself completely destroyed (1962 premiere performance photographed above).