Revelation: Music in Pure Intonation
Revelation has twelve interconnected sections in various key centers. Originally, the main thematic material for most sections of the work was composed but the resonant tone clouds incorporated structured improvisation using a set of pre-determined pitch relationships, rhythmic patterns and ostinati to develop a complex sustained harmonic resonance with unusual acoustical effects. In order to optimize these effects Harrison wanted to be flexible enough to vary what he was playing in response to what he was hearing. The exact nature of these effects would vary according to resonances of the instrument, the precision of the tuning, the acoustics of the performance space, and even variations in temperature and humidity.
However, while working on a score that would enable pianists other than himself to play the work, he eventually decided to notate the tone clouds, with their complex, shifting rhythmic patterns. As he scored the work, he found that he could more fully develop the themes and material by writing everything out rather than leaving the development to the discretion of the performer.
Named Best Classical Recording of 2007 by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and Time Out New York.
Track Listing
- 01 Revealing the Tones 4:26
- 02 Night Vigil 2:38
- 03 Revealing the Commas 5:29
- 04 Tone Cloud I 8:14
- 05 Homage to La Monte 5:38
- 06 Tone Cloud II 8:47
- 07 Night Vigil II 3:07
- 08 Vision in the Desert 3:22
- 09 Carillon 6:38
- 10 Tone Cloud III 5:13
- 11 Finale 5:25
- 12 Tone Cloud IV 12:56
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“…a virtuosic tour-de-force… Michael Harrison's Revelation: Music in Pure Intonation is probably the most brilliant and original extended composition for solo piano since the early works of Frederic Rzewski three decades ago (and no, I am not forgetting Elliott Carter). What could have been a mere glossary of unfamiliar sonorities made possible by Harrison's unconventional tuning of a grand piano turned instead into a virtuosic tour-de-force that would have done credit to the hypothetical team of Franz Liszt and Claude Debussy working overtime. ”
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“…one long intoxication… As soon as the first notes sound, you know: the piano sounds very different from what we are used to. In a certain way more natural, more organic, whereby the sound resembles bells and clocks… The one and a half hour that the piece finally takes is therefore one long intoxication. ”
“Mr. Harrison strips away centuries of well-tempered convention to reveal naked notes, which he stacks up in clear chords or swirling clouds.”
“This hour-plus trance-inducing solo piano work is a vast experiment in 'pure intonation.' Using an original tuning for the piano, Harrison makes it hum and vibrate in ways that sound both ancient and modern.”
“Michael Harrison, Revelation: Pianist-composer Harrison documented his just-intonation solo manifesto, and the results were completely absorbing.”
“Revelation is a caressing, cataclysmic, monumentally over-the-top ode… a sonic bomb… you might think all the bells of the Vatican have entered your skull… by the hallucinatory end, it's all stars and rainbows.”
“Revelation is more than simply a composition. It's an entire sound world, created by selecting certain pure acoustic intervals and arranging them on the piano keyboard.”
“…a new harmonic world began to assert itself.”
“Think of Wagner's Tristan chord, Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, Schoenberg's Op. 23 Piano Pieces, or Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano. Each created new possibilities for their day… The same can be said of Michael Harrison's music. The results are often wondrous. In the midst of clouds of dense clusters rapidly drummed in the bass end of the instrument, an astute listener can perceive high ghost tones — sometimes bell-like, at other times vaporous — as if a choir of angels were singing along. ”
“Composer Michael Harrison has gone further than other musicians would dare, creating a customized piano to perform in his self-invented, idiosyncratic method of tuning. The outcome is a lofty work 'both archaic and avant-garde.' As the pieces 'build, refract, and climb,' you are pulled into Harrison's 'beauty/madness.'… Harrison is 'like a magician setting up a trick.' He transforms overtones, welcomes their clashes, and keeps his audience surprised and thoroughly captivated, taking them on a tour of beautiful and exotic 'non-Euclidean musical worlds.' ”
“With the tones stirred on the scale, totally different colors glowed red-hot…the crashing of a gong, bells, the plucking of a harp or sitar, the sound of a horn—the resonance nearly reaches one's abdomen.”
“A monumental work… the pulsing, gamelan-like waves Harrison conjures from his customized 'harmonic piano' have a hypnotic effect… Revelation sounds like a lullaby that would put only a mad scientist to sleep.”
“A pulsating, shimmering wall of sound in which all kinds of ghost-like sound effects and structures appear. A formidable pianist, Harrison… has a fascination with reconciling form and improvisation through raga-like structures, which beckon towards an unexplored universe of sound relationships.”
“Revelation should prove to be one of the most influential piano compositions of the 21st century.”
“…phantom overtones and resonances seemed to hover around him.”
“An indisputable landmark in Western tuning's circuitous history.”
“What is the next big thing? Michael Harrison's 90-minute Revelation is that sort of revolutionary work…”
“…you play the vividly specific, spine-chilling intervals on [Harrison's] 'just' piano, and then everything sounds so bland and washed-out and arbitrary and disappointing on the conventionally tuned one.”
“Glorious clouds of harmonics, …divine thunder, angel choirs, celestial bells.”
“Revelation is a 90-minute marathon for solo piano employing an otherworldly vocabulary of sounds and effects.”
“The intelligent discrimination with which he approaches his work is something that I have heard only in a tiny handful of classical recordings starting with Glenn Gould.”
“Revelation is one of the first great musical pieces of the 21st century.”
“Revelation belongs among the exhaustive modern masterpieces for solo piano, resting securely at the same level as Hindemith's Ludus Tonalis, Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues, Cage's Sonatas & Interludes, Duckworth's Time Curve Preludes, and La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano.”
“Often it sounds as if there is a whole orchestra of acoustic and electronic instruments accompanying the piano. Literal waves of sound wash over the audience…and after sitting through 90 minutes of this tuning, regular pianos seem colorless.”
“Revelation is a visionary development in the history of temperament.”