Karlheinz Essl
Listen Thing
Palindromic Christmas Canon in 4 Parts
Versions for Music Box / Toy Piano or Harpsichord or Organ
2008
CD | Videos | Score | Making of | Literature | Performances
About
Listen Thing is piece of 4 parts; the titles of each are anagrams of the name Listen Thing:
- Tingle Hints - inversion
- Shingle Tint - retrograde
- Lent in Sight - inversion of retrograde
- Silent Night - prime form
When the piece is performed on a music box, a single custom-punched paper tape is used which is inserted in 4 different orientations.
Furthermore, a version for toy piano, celesta, harpsichord or organ exists which is basically a transcription of the original music box piece.
Videos
Karlheinz Essl performing Listen Thing on a music box
Recorded by Marian Essl on 30 Nov 2008
Isabel Ettenauer performing Listen Thing on a toy piano
Studio kHz, 27 Dec 2011
Making of
Karlheinz Essl punching the paper tape for Listen Thing
Score
Exerpt of the score of Listen Things (2008) for toy piano
Here you can download the score in two different transpositions (C or G) in order to play it on various toy pianos.
Literature
- Isabel Ettenauer: A short introduction to the Music for Toy Piano by Karlheinz Essl
in: Fowl Feathered Review, Issue 4, Summer 2013, ed. by Virgil Kay (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada), p. 74-81.
- Rachel Wells Hall, Programmable Mathe-Musical Boxes
in: Proceedings of Bridges 2015: Mathematics, Music, Art, Architecture, Culture (University of Baltimore), p. 351-352.
Updated: 21 Dec 2018