Presented by Soundwalk Collective and spatialized by MONOM, the Reethaus hosts a rare staging of an early composition by La Monte Young, one of the first American minimalist composers, a drone music pioneer and a central figure in Fluxus and postwar avant-garde music. The sound installation takes place during Young’s 88th birthday and will include the full-length rendition of “The Well-Tuned Piano in the Magenta Lights: 87 V 10 6:43:00 PM — 87 V 11 1:07:45 AM NYC,” a solo improvised work that he performed live in public over 65 times between 1974 and 1987 in the Marian Zazeela light environment.
Conceived in 1964, this work continued absorbing, evolving and expanding for over two decades until it flourished to its full structure in the 1980s. Each performance was improvised by memory over an interwoven architectural form, which often inspired new material while performing. During the second decade, the scale of the work expanded exponentially with a wealth of musical materials built from the organic confluence of both Western and Hindustani classical traditions.
The keyboard of Young’s Bösendorfer was sometimes stained with blood from his wounded fingers after a long performance. The 45-minute recorded version (1964) gradually developed into a continuous 6-hour 25-minute virtuoso live performance in 1987. “The Well-Tuned Piano” is certainly the epitome of a justly tuned piano in the modern context that transcends the character and limitations of the instrument. While deeply rooted in the ancient traditions of aural primacy, tonal structure and modality, “The Well-Tuned Piano” delineated an unprecedented sustained harmonic resonance and a complex sonic epic that we had never before experienced.