RADIO SHOW #26: Surrealism in 20th-Century American Music

This show, first broadcast on August 12, 2016, looks at the history of surrealism in American music. Although chiefly a postmodern movement, surrealist qualities occur in certain modernist works, most notably the music for player piano composed by Conlon Nancarrow. Important postmodern contributions to musical surrealism are the electro-acoustic scores of Richard Maxfield and Morton Subotnick, which utilize tape to multiply and confuse the live performer with electronic sound; the creation of synthesized speech in the computer-generated works of Charles Dodge; and of course the breathtaking imagination on display in the music of The Residents. Quotations from my interviews with Nancarrow, Subotnick, and Dodge are featured. The music played is:

CONLON NANCARROW

Study No. 12 for Player Piano (c.1950)

RICHARD MAXFIELD

Piano Concert for David Tudor (1961)

MORTON SUBOTNICK

Liquid Strata (1977)

CHARLES DODGE

Speech Songs (1972)

THE RESIDENTS

Meet The Residents, “Rest Aria” (1973)

The Tunes of Two Cities, “Praise for the Curse,” “Smack Your Lips (Clap Your Teeth)” (1982)