Piano Apocalypse

Eka Chabashvili

"Piano music has come to an end and something quite different is coming. I sense it clearly: with the claviers made up to this time, there is nothing new to discover any more," declared Karlheinz Stockhausen in 1992. Truly, the piano, a brainchild of its era, has gradually been alienated by our epoch. Contemporary composers engage themselves less and less with the piano – particularly as a solo instrument. Though, we have to consider that a musical instrument is a musical chronicler with the structure, tuning system and performance techniques reflecting to certain extent the epochs it was created and employed in. Consequently, the main principles of music representative of every epoch lead to transformation of the instrument, its renewal, refinement, enrichment of performance techniques. Each epoch adapts the instrument to the principles of the corresponding musical thinking in order to make it capable of producing contemporary sound. Using our artistic imagination, we compare this situation to the Apocalypse, trying to find some ways of dealing with it. In this exposition we present some results of our experiments with the piano and its sound conducted within the artistic project "Has Piano Music Come to an End?". Methodology we employ is comparative and experimental. Analysis of piano music repertoire, its compositional and performance techniques and instrument's structure in various epochs led us to the reconsideration of the piano and inspired us to offer to you some new experimental options of its employment and modification, the latter resulting in a new instrument “ModEkAl”. Of course, no artistic research about music and a musical instrument could be conducted without making the research and its results public. Publicity is an inherent part of music which has to be performed and perceived in order to fully fulfill its purpose.

J.S. Bach – Goldberg Variationen, BWV 988, Aria (Tamar Zhvania)

M. Virsaladze – Millenium (Nino Jvania)

A.Schoenberg - Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11, I (Nino Jvania)

W. A. Mozart - Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, K. 448, I mov. (Zhvaniasisters)

Eka Chabashvili has been thinking about engaging an orchestra consisting of hundreds of pianos in her works for years. Development of social media, as well as new technologies has made her dream come true. At the same time, she often uses various opportunities to engage public in her performances, as interaction with public is very typical feature of contemporary performances. These two ideas merged and resulted into the virtual piano orchestra.

The idea of the virtual piano orchestra was introduced for the first time in Chabashvili’s aleatoric piece “Spiral of Wisdom” that was premiered on a public concert in Tbilisi, in the Ilia State University Concert Hall on January 31, 2020 – just a month before the virtual world became an inseparable part of our concert lives, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

What is a Virtual Piano Orchestra?

It is represented by public playing recordings of piano music of various epochs (they are free to choose) on their mobile phones. It is this orchestra that starts the first stage and the whole performance, performing the first movement of the first stage – Wandering Information Signals.

C. Debussy - 6 Épigraphes antiques, No.1 (Zhvaniasisters)

W. A. Mozart - Andante and Five Variations in G major for Piano Four Hands, K. 501 (Zhvaniasisters)

J. S. Bach - Fughetta super: Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot', BWV 679 (Nino Jvania)

J.S. Bach – Goldberg Variationen, BWV 988, Variation No. 3 (Tamar Zhvania)

A.Schoenberg - Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11, II (Nino Jvania)

We invite you to become part of our artistic research and to create your own virtual orchestra. Turn on randomly the given short recordings below – excerpts of our recorded performances of piano music of various epochs. After a while, when all the recordings sound simultaneously, the orchestral sound will be created.

W. A. Mozart - Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, K. 448, III mov. (Zhvaniasisters)

N. Mamisashvili – Five Pieces (Tamar Zhvania)

E. Chabashvili – Panorama (Nino Jvania)

C. Debussy - 6 Épigraphes

antiques, No.6 (Zhvaniasisters)

J.S. Bach – Goldberg Variationen, BWV 988, Variation No. 28 (Tamar Zhvania)

W. A. Mozart - Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, K. 448, II mov. (Zhvaniasisters)

F. Schubert – Fantasia in F minor for Piano Four Hands, D.940 (Zhvaniasisters)

J. S. Bach – Fughetta super: Wir glauben all'an einen Gott, BWV 680 (Nino Jvania)

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Z. Nadareishvili - Tarantella (Tamar Zhvania)

N. Svanidze – Circle for prepared piano (Nino Jvania)

A.Berg – Sonata, Op. 1 (Tamar Zhvania)

A.Schoenberg - Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11, III (Nino Jvania)

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