Conlon Nancarrow

17 de octubre 2014

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Conlon Nancarrow (October 27, 1912 – August 10, 1997) was an American-born composer who lived and worked in Mexico for most of his life. He became a Mexican citizen in 1955.

Nancarrow is best remembered for his pieces for the player piano, being one of the first composers to use auto-playing musical instruments, realising their potential to play far beyond human performance ability. He lived most of his life in relative isolation, and did not become widely known until the 1980s.

******

In Boston, Nancarrow joined the Communist Party. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, he traveled to Spain to join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in fighting against Francisco Franco. He was interned by the French at the Gurs internment camp in 1939.^[3][4] Upon his return to the United States in 1939, he learned that his Brigade colleagues were finding it difficult to renew their U.S. passports. After spending some time in New York City, Nancarrow moved in 1940 to Mexico, in order to escape similar harassment.^[5]

Reception[edit]

Composer György Ligeti described the music of Conlon Nancarrow as "the greatest discovery since Webern and Ives... something great and important for all music history! His music is so utterly original, enjoyable, perfectly constructed, but at the same time emotional...for me it's the best music of any composer living today."^[15]

Legacy[edit]

Some of Nancarrow's studies for Player Piano have also been arranged for musicians to play. In 1995, composer and critic Kyle Gann published a full-length study of Nancarrow's output,The Music of Conlon Nancarrow (Cambridge University Press, 1995, 303 pp.). Jürgen Hocker, another Nancarrow specialist, published Begegnungen mit Nancarrow (neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Schott Musik International, Mainz 2002, 284 pp.)