Nine Rare Bits

Nine Rare Bits

For those of you who think Nine Rare Bits sounds like an awful lot of melted cheese on toast, you’ve got another thing coming. Unlike British cuisine, Earle Brown’s piece for one or two harpsichords is packed with loads of punchy flavor. At first, the piece sounds like some sort of competition in which contestants… Read more »

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NewMusicBox Staff

For those of you who think Nine Rare Bits sounds like an awful lot of melted cheese on toast, you’ve got another thing coming. Unlike British cuisine, Earle Brown’s piece for one or two harpsichords is packed with loads of punchy flavor. At first, the piece sounds like some sort of competition in which contestants earn points by cramming as many notes as possible into little pockets of time. With only slight breaks in the frenzy, the dense textures are only tempered by the fact that harpsichords just aren’t that loud. How to end such a piece? With even more spastic chaos than you started with, of course. Without a doubt Brown’s Nine Rare Bits would clobber Ligeti’s Continuum, as sure as it would be disqualified for doping after the race.

—RN