Hammerklavier

No, this isn't Ludwig Van Beethoven's Sonata 29, Op. 106, but a recent electroacoustic work by Massimo Biasioni, here in the Jekyll & Hyde version.

The piece, originally quadraphonic, is based on samples recorded inside a grand piano. The instrument is not played conventionally; the samples were obtained by striking, plucking, or rubbing the strings and body of the instrument with objects, aiming to obtain the resonances of the piano rather than sounds with a defined pitch.

Electronic means were then used to analyze and resynthesize these complex sounds, extracting specific characteristics from them each time, exploring the range from noise to pitch, modifying the attack of the sound based on the model of a plucked string, and finally arranging the resulting material in quadraphonic space and assembling it across time to construct an organic form.
The software used is Max/MSP and ProTools. The duration is eleven minutes.

Here you can listen to it in streaming (note: it starts very softly). You can download the entire CD “Inside the instruments (l’instrument outragè)”, with 4 other tracks, from the author's website.

Massimo Biasioni – Hammerklavier – 2008

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