Agnostic Luddites – Music for Physically Modeled Piano

Here, according to the description of the album Music for Physically Modelled Piano, is hyper-virtuosic piano music that a human artist cannot physically play. The feat is made possible by a software that can express acoustic piano sounds of stunning realism (or “hyperrealism,” according to Pianoteq, a sound creation tool based on real instruments), and this with a MIDI interface. Those who wrote that probably don’t know Marc-Andre Hamelin, because for most of what I hear, I imagine him capable of the challenge. I say most, because there are passages where the notes (more like sounds) produced stretch and contract as they change resonant frequency, as if a vinyl record was slowly losing or gaining speed. Obviously, this sort of thing is simply impossible with a real piano.

I really like some of what I hear on this album. This is, for some pieces, inventive contemporary music, halfway between electronic and acoustic, and it manages to bring an honestly new and refreshing character to scholarly music.

The Agnostic Luddites mentioned are a collective of composers loosely attached to the idea of this hyperrealist music creation. 

There are five compositions on Music for Physically Modelled Piano, two by Manuel Morales, two by Brian Abbott and one by Paul Newman (no, not the actor, who would have to be resurrected anyway to access this relatively recent technology). Morales’ two pieces are really one, post-Reich minimalist in style, but in two different versions, one for the hyper-realistic piano and the other for a “classic” synthesiser. The universe of differences that is witnessed by the sounds of the two instruments is simply impressive. Abbott, on the other hand, works his pieces more boldly. He is responsible for the slides that sound like a record slowed down or speeded up (the piece “Greatest Hits for Bent Piano”), while Paul Newman’s “Newton’s Cradle” is repetitively minimalist without sounding, at least to the ears, particularly difficult to play, nor that much original.

Not everything is equally appealing, but some tracks on this album are simply fascinating.