Hermann Keller

A vinyl re-release of four pieces for prepared piano, originally from 1978, played by Hermann Keller himself in a non-traditional way. Including 'Ex Tempore VI und Anrufung', 'Ex Tempore I', 'Schwebungen-Brechungen', and 'Ex Tempore VII'. Hermann Keller is the prototype of a circumspect and restless experimenter, an improviser who turns out unprecedented inventions while holding his audience in thrall. One of his favorite occupations is to play ex tempore at the piano, attacking the keys and the body of the instrument in veritable transports of madness. Anything that can be coaxed and twisted from the instrument is brought to bear on his music. There are bonus features as well, the most familiar being preparations, i.e. distorting the piano sound with such implements as erasers, screws, mallets or cymbals. He works with cluster bars, fingernails, fists, elbows -- the entire body, it would seem. He claims that he has never laid eyes on a Cagean prepared piano, but of course he knows the relevant Cage recordings. Henry Cowell, John Cage and Hermann Keller, according to the composer and piano preparer Hans Rempel, form a single a line of evolution. Rempel is right: over the years Keller has experimented ceaselessly with preparation and produced truly evolutionary achievements.