Henry Cowell - Advertisement performed by Mary Prescott

[darkthunderz13]

Stunning performance! Just incredible.

[Ocielocique]

I believe I detected a wrong note at around 1:09

[gmmmmmm]

Woohoo!

[petezilla]

Wow great job! on playing this CRAZY thing (which, looking at the score, is NOT easy). Awesome.

[notker912]

Very fine. It reminds me of Cowell's own recording from so long ago, before television. Ms. Prescott's brilliant performance makes one want to play the piece on the television itself. There are tone clusters (acciaccature) in Scarlatti harpsichord sonatas too, but you play the notes with your fingertips in the usual way, without releasing any of them, to much the same effect.

[iSpySchool]

Fantastic, but clearly too difficult to play! Well done!

[lexo30]

I'd never heard this piece before and to begin with, I was wondering why she was wearing gloves - and then I thought, oh right.

[shosta18]

5 estrelas

[fremsley001]

I agree with nowotnik .... and there must also have been ten thousand kids who, when on first encountering their great aunt's piano, discovered the delights of the sustain pedal combined with a forearm's length of notes, and then those thousand kids who ventured into the interior and plucked or scraped that ghostly machine's strings with their tender fingernails. Cowell's genius was to remain that kid.

[thesurface850]

brilliant

[nowotnik]

Sorry i played similar stuff as an angry kid when had to practice my piano lol....... With all due respect to Henry for writing this noise down and for pianists who decipher this ...... "King Is Naked" ...anyone?

[mozart20dlubos]

This is nonsense. A child could do this.

[kevinm4435]

um, no.

[nowotnik]

umm yea

[Euroflounder]

A child could maybe make it up on the spot, though it would have to be a pretty messed up kid, but it takes a very talented individual to be able to write it down, or to read and play it.

[finchisgod]

No I think you miss the point of this, it actually has some sort of melody hidden within the clusters, and fairly advanced rythms. I think that it might have a few keys playing at the same time, just the keys happen to be minor seconds away from eacother and the same melody for all the keys is played at once

[Euroflounder]

I agree. The music is very complex and obviously purposeful.

[lexo30]

@mozart20dlubos But a child didn't.

[MuxoAlberto]

She use clusters, created by Henry Cowell.

[41320008]

Henry Cowell didn't create tone clusers.

[MuxoAlberto]

Yes he did read music history please.

[41320008]

um... Leo Ornstein used them before Cowell actually.

[MuxoAlberto]

um.. nop you're wrong.

[tadhgspiano]

I think Henry Cowell coined the term "tone clusters" to refer to the use of non-traditional groupings of notes, but he wasn't the first to use it.

The first appearance of what became known as "tone clusters" (thanks to Henry Cowell) was in 1673 in the second movement of a H.I. Biber string ensemble.

"Battle of Manassas" by "Blind Tom" Wiggins uses tone clusters also.

So...Henry Cowell "created" tone clusters in the same way that Liszt "created" the symphonic poem.

[rascalrascal]

great

[sterotypical1025]

AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[yodiepants]

yay! <3 <3 <3

[MovieMaestro36]

That's awesome!