Nam June Paik - Etude For Pianoforte

Tracklist

1

Etude For Pianoforte

15:29

Credits

• Composed By, Performer – Nam June Paik

Notes

Recorded at Mary Baumeister's Cologne studio in the Lintgasse in October 1960.

From release notes:
One review of the music action gives the following account: 'On top of the ladder sat the poet Helms, reading the score from a roll of toilet paper. Beneath him were the instruments: two pianos (one of which had no keys), tape recorders, tin cans with stones, a toy car, a plastic train, an egg, a pane of glass, a bottle holding the stump of a candle, and a music box. The audience was urged to be careful: Stand back, please! The cries of twenty distressed virgins rang out from the tapes, then came the WDR news broadcast. (...) In the fourth movement, the finale furioso, Paik ran about like a madman, sawed through the piano strings with a kitchen knife and then overturned the whole thing. Pianoforte est morte. The applause was never-ending.'