Conlon Nancarrow, Study for Player Piano No. 21 (Canon X)
Conlon Nancarrow's Canon X is a classic canon with a conceptual twist, and it is quite remarkable in several ways.
The first time you hear this 3 minute piece, it's difficult to physically process what is happening to your ears, and to understand how this composition so bends our perception of time. Musically, we hear the slowing down and speeding up of two lines as from opposite beginning points they move in pitch and speed towards one other, to cross in the middle - hence Canon X. Working with piano rolls in the 1940s, decades before modern computing had developed, Nancarrow created humanly unplayable music, using mathematics and drawing out compositions on large graphs, finally creating the "song file" by physically punching holes in lengths of piano roll paper.
Conlon Nancarrow composed in exile in Mexico where he lived after the US State confiscated his passport, on his return from fighting fascism in Spain. When asked why he went to Mexico, he explained that there were only two countries he could go to without a passport, and on balance, he preferred the sun of Mexico to the snow of Canada.
One Saturday afternoon, I sat in an audience with Conlon Nancarrow at the Almeida theatre in Islington, London, we listened to Canon X and several other pieces, and we enjoyed a lengthy session of interview, questions and discourse afterwards.
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