Morton Subotnick

Title: The Key to Songs: A Tone Poem in Collage After a Surealistic Novel by Max Ernst
Commission: 1984
Completed: 1985
Instrumentation: two pianos, percussion, viola, cello, and live computer sounds
Premiere Location: Aspen Music Festival, CO
Premiere Ensemble:
Notes:

Morton Subotnick is one of the pioneers in the development of electronic music and an innovator in works involving instruments and other media, including interactive computer music systems. The work which brought Subotnick celebrity was Silver Apples of the Moon (1966–67), commissioned by Nonesuch Records, which marked the first time an original large-scale composition had been created specifically for the disc medium—a conscious acknowledgment that the home stereo system constituted a present–day form of chamber music. It has become a modern classic and was recently entered into the National Register of Recorded Works at the Library of Congress.