Playing piano is difficult enough as it is, requiring years of practice to be truly good at it. Now try playing the piano upside down and backwards, and you’ve got yourself a very difficult task. The MoMA has recently opened an exhibit of Allora and Calzadilla called “Stop, Repair, Prepare” where a pianist is placed into a hole made in a baby grand piano and plays. Aside from playing in this odd position, the piano was placed on wheels and the pianist has been choreographed to move the piano in certain directions and with different intended movements. There are 5 rotating pianists who play Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, otherwise known as “Ode to Joy”. The hole carved out of the piano, which is a Bechstein make, causes the loss of 2 octaves of notes, so all that can be heard when a note from those octaves is played is a “percussive thump”. Calzadilla and Allora’s pieces of art usually have extremely symbolic underpinnings. In this particular showcase, pianist and piano form an intimate relationship, becoming closer than ever. As Roberta Smith of the NY Times put it, “The concentrated embrace of musician and instrument is more intense and exclusive than in normal performance.” Because of the difficulty of the task in playing upside down and backwards, the pianists are often required to make minor note changes to the piece by their own free will. Smith said of the piece, “‘Stop, Repair, Prepare’ destabilizes all kinds of conventions, expectations and relationships. The music is often muffled and fragmented, the players prone to error…Precariousness ensues; things teeter on the brink of disintegration. Chaos, Romanticism’s energy source, threatens or titillates.” Ode to Joy was also used intentionally because of its history and familiarity. Ode to Joy has been used as an anthem for Rhodesia, prone to apartheid, and was noted as one of Hitler’s favorite pieces of music, to name a few of its histories.
If only this exhibit would have been installed a few months ago, it would’ve been a nice addition to our outing at the MoMA. I think that this really does take music and art to a new level, and I particularly love how premeditated the symbolism of the piece was. It adds true depth to understanding and appreciating it.
I know, I’ll paint an extraordinary landscape in oils on the back of the canvas and hang it on the wall so that no one can see it. Then I’ll invent a new instrument that no on can play and compose a concerto for it that is written in a new notation that only I can understand. Then I’ll charge everyone $1,000 a ticket and re-install the seats in the theater so that they all face AWAY from the stage, and then I won’t perform! I’ll be rich! Famous! (Or I could just write really sarcastic responses like this… – )
Haha professor, I’d give you mad props if you pulled something like that off. And you know I’d be the first one to buy your uber-expensive tickets!