The Sunday Listen: 'Circus Galop' by Marc-Andre Hamelin
Hello pianists!
Due to a couple of long weekends, and a recovering from a dab of tendinitis, this week’s Sunday Lesson comes to you on a belated, though nevertheless achingly fashionable, Monday. Services should resume as normal from this week.
This week we’re going about as off-piste as you can get; I highly suggest you stick around for the wall-of-noise finale…
Circus Galop is a piece specifically written for player pianos by the virtuoso concert pianist, Marc-André Hamelin (who himself is known for tackling some of the most knuckle-breaking repertoire). Written between 1991-1994, it impressively anticipates a lot of MIDI-controlled electronic music that is now ubiquitous in songwriting and music production. (There’s also probably a whole essay I could write on what the history of the player piano can tell us about our current relationship with AI and how that’s now influencing music.)
I’m not entirely sure how to characterise the form. Demented circus march? It often has upwards of 15 notes played at the same time, far too many for one or two persons to play on a piano, although, there have been performances of the piece on YouTube using one piano but multiple players responsible for different areas of the piano, creating an apparently seamless performance of the piece.
There’s also a rather nice clip of Hamelin here playing the piece on a traditional pedal-powered pneumatic player piano.
I have a somewhat fond relationship to player pianos as my home town of Brentford, London, houses a nationally significant museum collection of piano rolls, with over 20,000 rolls, as well as an extensive collection of self-playing instruments which can be still be seen and heard.
Looking forward to seeing you all in class this week!
Best,
Will