One of this year’s sold-out Proms has been the late-night show by Nils Frahm and A Winged Victory for the Sullen, programmed by BBC Radio 6 Music’s Mary Anne Hobbs. Frahms is unquestionably a very talented pianist, but his performance – and rapturous reception – has got me thinking about the infinity of possible connections waiting to be made between the worlds of “contemporary classical” and “alternative”, whatver they might mean.
Here’s a playlist I made for 6 Music that explores the boundaries of contemporary and classical music. And, if you love Nils Frahm and his many keyboards, try these masterpieces of pianistic possibility.
Steve Reich: Piano Phase
Hallucinogenic brilliance from the master of minimalism: rhythmic patterns that go in and out of phase, and take your mind on a musical trip.
Terry Riley: A Rainbow in Curved Air
A psychedelic, otherworldly and beautifully constructed electric keyboard meditation.
John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano
In the late 1940s, Cage turned the piano into a multi-percussion micro-cosmos in ways that still sound enchanting, discombobulating and radical.
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Mantra
Stockhausen’s two-piano revelation of another musical world.
Jean Barraqué: Piano Sonata
From another stylistic universe, but if you want to know what real pianistic uber-virtuosity is, here’s Roger Woodward’s performance of Barraqué’s sonata, one of the mighty masterworks of the postwar period.
