Conlon Nancarrow’s greatness and significance lie not in variety but in his deliberate focusing on the realization of time relations, with the player piano serving...

Conlon Nancarrow’s greatness and significance lie not in variety but in his deliberate focusing on the realization of time relations, with the player piano serving him as the ideal medium here. He thus anticipated by decades the possibilities offered today by computer music. The amount of time that had to be invested was enormous; for five minutes of music Nancarrow required many months of work. With his characteristic modesty he once said, “I’ve discovered a little musical niche, but I believe that I’ve explored it well.”

To the end Nancarrow lived in complete seclusion in Mexico City, where he had emigrated to following his return from fighting in the Spanish Civil War. He bequeathed to posterity a magnificent musical work in his fifty Studies for Player Piano, which is regarded by many as the “The Well-Tempered Clavier of the Twentieth Century.”