EXTREME VARIATIONS ON A THEME AND VARIATIONS BY MEL POWELL

Mel Powell

This work is based on Mel Powell's Etude for piano, composed in 1953, which you can hear here.  The original version was composed for six computer-controlled Clavinovas and premiered on the CalArts Contemporary Music Festival in 1987.  In 1998, I made a revised version of the piece using computer-created (not sampled) electronic piano sounds along with elemental electronic wave forms, the type that Mel was fond of using in his own electronic music.

The program, “Six Pianos in Search of a Player,” proved a catchall collection of works that shared only similar technical resources: four electric pianos arranged in a square on the [CalArts] Main Gallery floor and two more on the second level--all computer controlled. It was quadraphonic-plus.  Barry Schrader enjoyably recycled mellifluous Romantic styles in “Extreme Variations on a Theme and Variations by Mel Powell for Six Clavinovas."  - Los Angeles Times

This is the original "live" recording from the 1987 concert.  It's an air recording of the six Clavinovas where were spread around the CalArts gallery, so the quality of the recording is not that high.

This is a revised version of the piece from 1998 using computer-created (not sampled) electronic piano sounds along with elemental electronic wave forms, the type that Mel was fond of using in his own electronic music.