The Well​-​Tuned Piano in the Magenta Lights

La Monte Young’s evening-length piano improvisation creates a bewitching sense of alternative space. This effect is accomplished through Young’s otherworldly piano tuning, which privileges a set of harmonies far removed from those typically available on a modern piano. Despite the arcane tuning and forbidding length, the surface of the piece is surprisingly easy to inhabit. Young’s musical ideas are consistently lucid, and the piece maintains a fantastical sense of adventure. So many foreshadowings of the ’60s musical culture to come can be heard here: Steve Reich’s pulses, John Cale’s viola drones, quests for transcendence.