Piano Activities
**An incredible, iconic piece of Fluxus and sonic art history: a recording of George Maciunas (Fluxus founder), Emmett Williams, Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Ben Patterson, Nam Jun Paik and Wolf Vostell performing Philip Corner's score, 'Piano Activities' to its most extreme interpretation; dismantling a grand piano during the four weekend-long International Festival of the Newest Music at Weisbaden Festum Fluxorum in 1962. This recording was discovered on tape in the archive of Japanese Fluxus representative Kuniharu Akiyama, and is identical to one found in 2012 in the archive of Vytautis Landsbergis, former president of Lithuania and friend of George Maciunas. It features two pieces, one 10'20", the other 6'54", recorded at separate concerts, pressed on one side of vinyl, itself housed in printed inner and outer sleeve adorned with collage and notes by Philip Corner. Strangely exhilarating and utterly compelling stuff, surely a cornerstone of noise and improvised music. Hugely recommended!** "Piano Activity represents the first ever effective realization of the anti-art art intentions of Fluxus propaganda and the performance organized by George Maciunas brought the score to its extreme consequences. When Philip Corner, who had not been present at the Wiesbaden Festum Fluxorum concerts, learned about the destruction of the piano he was at first shocked. In the tradition of John Cage, the score that Corner wrote was intended to shape something coherent out of the chaotic reservoir of sounds that he saw in the instrument and to broaden the field of possibilities for freedom in performance. But the performers by their exaggeration brought out a potential that the composer had not suspected. As the listeners of this LP will experience, the destruction gives an opening to the previously unheard-of."
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**An incredible, iconic piece of Fluxus and sonic art history: a recording of George Maciunas (Fluxus founder), Emmett Williams, Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Ben Patterson, Nam Jun Paik and Wolf Vostell performing Philip Corner's score, 'Piano Activities' to its most extreme interpretation; dismantling a grand piano during the four weekend-long International Festival of the Newest Music at Weisbaden Festum Fluxorum in 1962. This recording was discovered on tape in the archive of Japanese Fluxus representative Kuniharu Akiyama, and is identical to one found in 2012 in the archive of Vytautis Landsbergis, former president of Lithuania and friend of George Maciunas. It features two pieces, one 10'20", the other 6'54", recorded at separate concerts, pressed on one side of vinyl, itself housed in printed inner and outer sleeve adorned with collage and notes by Philip Corner. Strangely exhilarating and utterly compelling stuff, surely a cornerstone of noise and improvised music. Hugely recommended!** "Piano Activity represents the first ever effective realization of the anti-art art intentions of Fluxus propaganda and the performance organized by George Maciunas brought the score to its extreme consequences. When Philip Corner, who had not been present at the Wiesbaden Festum Fluxorum concerts, learned about the destruction of the piano he was at first shocked. In the tradition of John Cage, the score that Corner wrote was intended to shape something coherent out of the chaotic reservoir of sounds that he saw in the instrument and to broaden the field of possibilities for freedom in performance. But the performers by their exaggeration brought out a potential that the composer had not suspected. As the listeners of this LP will experience, the destruction gives an opening to the previously unheard-of."