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Morton Subotnick's Complete Piano Works Released on Mode Records

Apr. 01, 2019

Morton Subotnick's Complete Piano Works Released on Mode Records

Morton Subotnick's latest recording "Morton Subotnick Volume 4: Complete Piano Works" has been released on Mode Records featuring pianist SooJin Anjou and the composer on electronics. This release brings all of Subotnick’s piano music together on one disc for the first time, including four first recordings (marked below with an asterisk), all supervised by the composer. 

The disc opens with The Other Piano* in which the composer notes that the electronics are ‘a quadraphonic sound painting [spread] throughout the auditorium, done on the spot, intuitively, by a sound painter. … one always hears the real piano and the transformations are a fantasy, changing in time and space, whirling around the room …’ Falling Leaves* is inspired by the sonatas of Scarlatti. The work has, as Subotnick notes, a ‘sense of Scarlatti, but is not derivative." There are repeated notes, the virtuosic crossing of hands, and the idea of cadences. Liquid Strata is a groundbreaking work that was the first of 11 Ghost Pieces featuring the use of electronics in an innovative way. Prelude No. 1* and Prelude No. 2* are early works in a post-Webern vein while Prelude No. 4 was the first piece in which Morton Subotnick employed the Buchla synthesizer. In this piece, the electronic component is composed onto stereo tape and this is played alongside the live piano.

Subotnick's new disc, called "a magical and beguiling release" by The Wire Magazine, may be purchased by clicking here or on the image below:


For more information about Morton Subotnick, visit schott-music.com.

Morton Subotnick
The Other Piano (2007)
for piano and optional live digital processing
20'

Falling Leaves (2012)
for piano 
11'

Liquid Strata (1977)
for piano and electronics
27'

Preludes for Solo Piano
Prelude No. 1 - The Blind Owl (1957)
6'

Prelude No. 2 - The Feast (1961)
2.5

Prelude No. 4 (1966) 
for piano and tape
6'
 

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