Tuesday Tones

Continuing our look back at the classical music of one hundred years ago, we have a work for solo piano that was written in 1925. Henry Cowell lived from 1897 to 1965, and he was a largely self-taught composer and performer who found himself heavily in the avant-garde school. It’s a roughly five-minute piece in which the pianist never touches the keyboard. Instead, the performer reaches into the string chamber and manipulates the strings directly through various means: brushing the hand over them, plucking them, and dragging the nails of a finger along them. The effect is otherworldly and haunting; it almost sounds like the kind of atmospheric soundscape-type music that is often heard during old science fiction movies and horror movies of all eras. Here is a good post with more information on this eerie, haunting work.