FRANCISCO LÓPEZ : UNTITLED #275    

                                              - for mechanically prepared piano, quadrophonia and electronics

untitled #275 is an unorthodox piano-composition that resulted from a collaboration between composer/sound-artist Francisco López and pianist Reinier van Houdt.

Working together on exploring sonorities, structures, preparations and modifications, both mechanical and electronic, they have been investigating the phenomenon of repetition.  

           REVIEWS           

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..minimalistische patronen in een tour de force van herhaling en dynamiek ..een heruitvinding van de piano...van bijna-stilte, waarin je alleen nog maar Van Houdt hoort ingrijpen in de verder niet 'bespeelde' piano, tot daverende crescendo's en een bloedstollende finale van minimal music met een fabelachtig drienootspatroon...met gemak één van de beste hedendaagse, gecomponeerde stukken van het jaar. ... (kindamuzik)

..Reinier Van Houdt activates the piano like a groaning, clunking mechanical beast. A crude, and brutish pulse of hammers and keys – a piano reduced to its most simple mechanical capacity traverses into a wholly more beautiful landscape – a middle passage of distant drifts and notes concludes with an insectivorous climax of clicks.  A wonderful refocusing of Lopez’s aesthetics....(<100)

..this is fabulous...This is probably the best contemporary 'classical' music you will hear this year made by an electronic artist...(peter wullen/goddeau)

..performed by the diverse and masterful Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt, Movement 1 takes us through periods of rapid hammering, often of a single note, that somehow reminds of both Alvin Lucier’s exploration of percussive phenomena on Opera with Objects and the incessant jabbing of Nurse With Wound’s ‘Cold’ from the Thunder Perfect Mind LP. These choppy passages last up to five minutes and are alternated with periods of similar length but containing the most minimal sounds: sustained chords that chime slowly, framed in silence to highlight their subtle, trailing overtones. The focus on regular rhythms roughly gilded by piano tones sets a stealthy, paranoid scene   Movement 2 is built entirely from Movement 1 (  ), The contrasting passages are still there, but often played at a much slower rate providing deliciously daunting sub-bass depth charges that churn up the delicate sedimentary sounds. What was bright, sparse chords now seem like muted beams of light questing through a dank darkness (you think you can even detect a stony dripping at several points throughout the piece). Meanwhile Movement 1’s frenetic charges are morphed into shuddering and shivering mechanisms, like being in a particularly demented clock makers workshop. By the end of the piece any sense of the piano has been removed in place of a polyrhythmic perversity at the heart of darkness.         (russel cuzner, musique machine)