Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Namieyski

(fl 2nd half of the 18th century). Polish composer. He was probably active in the Wielkopolska district. Only one of his compositions is known, a five-movement symphony in the early Classical style (ed. in Symfonie Polskie, v); Abraham has said that it shows an assured technique and can stand alongside all but the best Mannheim or J.C. Bach symphonies. It is uncertain whether he is the Johann Namiesky, a ‘Harmoniemusikdirector’ in Baden, whose extant works include two masses, an aria, four Tantum ergo, two graduals, an offertory and two litanies (A-Wn).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

T. Strumłłio: ‘Do dziejów symfonii polskiej’ [The history of the Polish symphony], Muzyka, iv/5–6 (1953), 26–45

J. Berwaldt: Preface to Symfonie Polskie, ed. Z.M. Szweykowski, v (Kraków, 1967)

G. Abraham: ‘Some Eighteenth-Century Polish Symphonies’, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Music: a Tribute to Karl Geiringer, ed. H.C. Robbins Landon and R.E. Chapman (New York and London, 1970), 13–22, esp. 16

A. Mrygoń: ‘Polonica muzyczne w zbiorach austriackich’ [Polish music in Austrian collections], Muzyka, xv/2 (1970), 106–10 [with Eng. summary]

B. Chmara-Żaczkiewicz: ‘Rękopisy nieznanych kompozycji Johanna Namiesky'ego’ [Manuscripts of unknown compositions by Johann Namiesky], Muzyka, xxix/4 (1984), 85–9 [with Eng. summary]

ZYGMUNT M. SZWEYKOWSKI

Namur, Jean de.

See Gallicus, Johannes and Dufon, Jean.

Nancarrow, (Samuel) Conlon

(b Texarkana, AK, 27 Oct 1912; d Mexico City, 10 Aug 1997). American composer. Sent by his father (the mayor of Texarkana) to the Western Military Academy in Illinois, he started playing trumpet there, and later attended the national music camp at Interlochen, Michigan. His father pushed him towards an engineering career, for which purpose Nancarrow briefly attended Vanderbilt University. Enrolment in Cincinnati College Conservatory (1929–32) did not result in graduation, but it did, in 1930, expose him to Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, which sparked an interest in rhythmic complexity. In 1934 he moved to Boston and studied privately with Sessions, Piston and Slonimsky. A communist party member, he volunteered for the Lincoln Brigade and fought in the Spanish Civil War. Upon returning home, he reacted to growing anti-communist activity in America by moving to Mexico City in 1940, where he lived until his death.

Nancarrow's works from 1930 to 1945 were for piano (Prelude and Blues), small orchestra, string quartet and small chamber ensembles. Best known, however, are his series of about 50 (the numbering is ambiguous) studies for player piano, which explore a fascinating range of techniques for achieving extreme rhythmic complexity. In 1947, living on inherited money and inspired by Cowell's book New Musical Resources (in which Cowell recommended using a player piano to achieve complex polyrhythms), Nancarrow travelled to New York to buy a player piano and have a roll-punching machine built for him. His first pieces, later gathered together as Study no.3, were experiments in extremely fast jazz pianism, influenced by Nancarrow's favourite pianists Art Tatum and Earl Hines. The piece officially numbered Study no.1 spun fragments of a 30-note pitch row around marching major triads in two simultaneous tempos of four against seven.

Considering that three quarters of Nancarrow's output is for the same instrument, the variety of his musical strategies is astonishing. Nevertheless, his music can be summed up as deriving from four basic rhythmic ideas: ostinato, isorhythm, tempo canon and acceleration. The early blues-influenced studies, nos.1, 2, 3, 5 and 9, are generated by setting ostinatos against each other at different tempos. In Studies nos.6, 7, 10, 11 and 20, he revived the medieval technique of isorhythm (though inspired by a strong interest in the tāla structure of Indian music), employing multiple repetition of the same rhythm against different pitch sequences. The climax of the early studies is no.7, in which three isorhythms are set against each other in myriad combinations and at lightning-fast speed. Even here the feeling for jazz harmony remains strong, and the isorhythms simulate the freedoms of a wild jazz pianist.

With Studies nos.13–19, Nancarrow discovered the technique with which he would be most identified: tempo canon. In the tempo canons, a melody (or, later, textual block) is superimposed upon itself at different levels of transposition and at varying tempo ratios, for example 4:5, 12:15:20, and so on. Formal variety is achieved by varying the placement of the convergence point, i.e. the moment at which the melodies reach the same point in their respective material. For instance, the simple Study no.14 has two voices at a 4:5 ratio, with the convergence point at the exact mid-point of the piece. Study no.31 ends just seconds before its three voices (at ratios 21:24:25) would have converged. Starting with Study no.24, Nancarrow works with highly elaborate schemes in which the melodies begin at a convergence point, grow further and further apart, switch tempos, grow back together, reach a second convergence point, and repeat the process over and over again.

In his most elegant canons (Studies nos.24, 32, 33, 36, 37, 43) this process achieves a classic interdependence between form and content. Near a convergence point, the motives tend to be brief and to echo from voice to voice quickly. In between such coincidences, the melodies tend to stretch out at greater length. As Nancarrow developed this technique, his rhythmic ratios grew to almost unimaginable complexity: the square root of 2 against 2 in no.33, e against π in no.40 (e being the base of natural logarithms), and in no.37 a scale of 12 tempos analogous to the pitch ratios of a justly-tuned chromatic scale (similar to a scale Stockhausen had used in Gruppen, and which both may have taken from Cowell's book).

The remaining rhythmic idea is acceleration (and deceleration), employed in Studies nos.8, 21, 22, 23, and 27 to 30. Study no.27, for instance, is a canon in which the voices accelerate (and decelerate) at rates of 5%, 6%, 8% and 11%. (In a 5% acceleration, each note is 5% shorter in duration than its predecessor.) While acceleration was arguably Nancarrow's most original device (though again suggested by Cowell), it was difficult to control structurally in the pre-computer era, and did not prove as fertile as tempo canon or isorhythm.

In Nancarrow's early works, these rhythmic ideas remain fairly distinct. In his late studies, though – nos.25, 35, 41, 42, 45, 46, 47 and 48 – he begins, as Beethoven did in his last sonatas and string quartets, to combine his structures into hybrid forms. For example, in nos.45–7, a tempo canon based on an isorhythm creates an acceleration effect as it nears a convergence point. Also, beginning with the spectacular Study no.25, Nancarrow began to develop what was idiomatic about the player piano, indulging in superfast glissandos and arpeggios, figures that traverse the keyboard within a split second. At the thunderous climax of no.25, 1028 notes swirl by in 12 seconds. Perhaps his greatest works, though, are his chaotic-sounding late canons, Studies nos.41 and 48, in which frenetic glissandos and jazz gestures are flung together according to well-concealed accelerative structures.

Nancarrow composed in almost total isolation until the late 1970s, when Peter Garland began publishing his scores in Soundings and the studies started appearing on record. Late fame brought a series of commissions for live-performed works (Tango?, String Quartet no.3, Piece no.2 for small orchestra, Two Canons for Ursula) and invitations to major music festivals in America and especially Europe; in 1983 the MacArthur Foundation awarded him its prestigious ‘genius’ award of $300,000. Nancarrow's player piano studies have had a tremendous impact on young composers for their almost unparalleled fusion of visceral excitement and structural elegance.

WORKS

chamber and orchestral

Sarabande and Scherzo, ob, bn, pf, 1930

Toccata, vn, pf, 1935

Septet, 1940

Trio no.1, cl, bn, pf, 1942

Piece no.1, small orch, 1943

String Quartet no.1, 1945

String Quartet no.2, late 1940s, inc.

Piece no.2, small orch (1985)

String Quartet no.3, 1987

Trio no.2, ob, bn, pf, 1991

player piano

unless otherwise stated all extant as piano rolls and in MS score

Studies nos.1–30, c1948–60, incl. no.2b [based on final movt of Piece no.1, small orch]; no.13, no score extant; no.30, prep player pf, no score extant; no.34, arr. str trio

Studies nos.31–7, 40–51, c1965–92; nos.38 and 39 renumbered as 43 and 48

For Yoko, 1990

Contraption no.1, computer-driven prep pf, 1993

piano

Blues, 1935

Prelude, 1935

Sonatina, 1941

3 Two-Part Studies, early 1940s

Tango?, 1983

2 Canons for Ursula, 1989

MSS in CH-Bps

Principal publishers: Boosey & Hawkes, Peters, Smith Publications, Soundings Press

BIBLIOGRAPHY

E. Carter: ‘The Rhythmic Basis of American Music’, The Score and I.M.A. Magazine, xii (1955), 27–32

G. Mumma: ‘Nancarrow Notes’ in W. Zimmermann: Desert Plants (Vancouver, 1976), 247–51

P. Garland, ed.: Conlon Nancarrow: Selected Studies for Player Piano (Berkeley, 1977) [incl. interview with Nancarrow and articles by G. Mumma, R. Reynolds, J. Tenney and others]

J. Rockwell: ‘Conlon Nancarrow: Poet of the Player Piano’, New York Times (28 June 1981)

R. Commanday: ‘The Man Who Writes for Player Piano’, San Francisco Chronicle (30 June 1981)

P. Garland: ‘Conlon Nancarrow: Chronicle of a Friendship’, Americas: Essays on American Music and Culture (1973–80) (Santa Fe, 1982), 157–85

C. Gagne and T. Caras: ‘Conlon Nancarrow’, Soundpieces: Interviews with American Composers (Metuchen, NJ, 1982), 281–303

J. Jarvlepp: ‘Conlon Nancarrow's Study 27 for Player Piano Viewed Analytically’, PNM, xxii (1983–4), 218–22

M. Fürst-Heidtmann: ‘Conlon Nancarrow's “Studies for Player Piano”/Time is the Last Frontier in Music’, Melos, xlvi (1984), 104–22

R. Reynolds: ‘Conlon Nancarrow: Interviews in Mexico City and San Francisco’, American Music, ii/2 (1984), 1–24

J. LaBarbara: ‘The Remarkable Art of Conlon Nancarrow’, Musical America, xxxiv (1984), 12–13

M. Fürst-Heidtmann: ‘Ich bin beim Komponieren nur meinen Wunschen gefolgt’, MusikTexte, no.21 (1987), 29–32

P. Carlsen: The Player-Piano Music of Conlon Nancarrow: an Analysis of Selected Studies (New York, 1988)

M. Furst-Heidtmann: ‘Conlon Nancarrow und die Emanzipation des Tempos’, NZM, Jg.150, nos.7–8 (1989), 32–8

K. Gann: ‘Private Bells’, Village Voice (14 Nov 1989)

K. Gann: ‘Conlon Nancarrow's Tempo Tornados’, Village Voice (5 Oct 1993)

K. Gann: The Music of Conlon Nancarrow (Cambridge, 1995)

KYLE GANN