Philip Carlsen

8 pianos in separate rooms

Composer's Note:

This piece was written for the January 2020 Elliott Schwartz Memorial Practice Rooms Project at the Portland Conservatory of Music. It can be performed in any facility with at least eight piano practice rooms or teaching studios along a common hallway. Each of the pianists sits in a separate room. Doors are open. During performance, the audience sits or stands in the hallway.

All individual entrances are cued with timecodes in the score and parts. Before the performance begins, players gather in a central location with a stopwatch app ready on their smartphones or tablets. At a signal, they start their stopwatches simultaneously then return to their pianos, placing the stopwatches in an easily visible location near the music. The piece begins at 0:45.

It is not necessary, or desirable, to sync exactly with other players. Each pianist should feel free to apply their own interpretation to the various Beethoven excerpts. (All are identified by opus number.)

The title alludes to the dedications appearing at the head of many of Beethoven's works. Although two of his piano sonatas, Op. 57 and 78, were inscribed to the count and countess of Brunswick, the Brunswick of this title actually refers to the small college town in Maine where Elliott Schwartz lived and taught for most of his career. ESCHART is his musical motto, the first seven notes of a tone row on the letters of his name.