Duet for a Pianist

Susanne Achilles performs the Duet for One Pianist by Jean Claude Risset.

This piece, composed at MIT in 1989, is for disklavier and computer. The disklavier is a grand piano made by Yamaha, whose mechanics are motorized and can be controlled via MIDI. So the disklavier can play pieces on its own, but, more interestingly, a pianist’s performance data (pitches, dynamics, durations) can be sent, in real time, to a computer which can react by driving the disklavier according to rules formalized in software by the composer.

This is what happens in Duet for One Pianist, hence the title. The piece is divided into eight sketches in which the computer manipulates and sends back the material performed by the performer based on the principles cited in the title of each movement: Double, Mirror, Extensions, Fractals, Stretch, Resonances, Up Down and Metronome.

The pianist is accompanied, like a shadow, by a second, invisible performer, who create his own part and plays it on the same piano with lowering keys.

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