Pianist-composer Conrad Tao was inspired to write The Hand after seeing a facsimile of Ludwig van Beethoven’s manuscript of Piano Concerto No. 1. Tao describes Beethoven’s scribbly first draft filled with “paths not taken, discarded ideas, alternate versions,” and recalls seeing the score as unforgettable. The Hand is a work that expresses what it means to compose and pays homage to the creative process itself.
An element of creative strife runs through The Hand, as if a main theme is just beyond reach. A low piano tremolo opens the work and becomes a foreboding presence throughout. This creates an intentionally murky sonic foundation, illustrating the dark annals of the creative mind. From the first measure, Tao conjures a nebulous swamp of musical possibility.
From the depths of the tremolo, bursts of melody bubble up from the winds and brass. Accented bell tones sound and decay as musical ideas never quite come to fruition. Under the surface, a musical theme begins to synthesize from these fragments. As quickly as it forms, the melody questions itself, dissipating back into low regions of the piano. A flute idea circles, ruminating and conflicted. Later, triple forte percussion accents rip through the orchestra, almost sounding as if the composer is tearing pages from his manuscript book, crumpling and destroying ideas in real time.
While much of these effects come from standard technique and notation, Tao also utilizes extended techniques and less-than-traditional sounds. He uses microtones, harmonic glissandi, lip slurs, and mouthpieces turned the wrong way. Tao is searching not only for his fully formed melody, but for new sounds to achieve it.
The Hand reminds us that music is not born from one perfectly formed idea. Ideas evolve, they shatter, they transform completely. It is up to the composer to guide that process. That sensitivity, the ability to nurture even the tiniest fraction of a melody, is the artist’s nature. Music is born of chaos, and it is the composer who organizes it. The Hand is a testament to this artistic ability and creative process.
Program notes from Conrad Tao:
The first time I ever saw a facsimile of the manuscript to Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, I saw all of the crossed-out music in it—paths not taken, discarded ideas, alternate versions. I don’t have the words to describe what I felt while looking at these scrawls, but it was an unforgettable sensation. I was making concrete contact with something I already knew in the abstract: that composing is an accumulation of many decisions, choices made by a person on the other side of the score.
In this time of language learning models sold as magical “generative AI,” I think that perception of the person in our shared world is more important than ever. This sensitivity, which I believe is a part of our animal nature—sensitivity to art, to spontaneity, to the microscopic trace of another human—is something that we risk losing by buying into the fantasy that all we need in the future is endless reproduction and simulation of what already exists.
Classical music can sometimes be taught in a top-down manner, as though we were receiving completed works as fully formed gifts from above. Yet that which we might call “divine inspiration” is not in contradiction with the labor of the composer’s hand erasing, scribbling, trying, finding. In that effort, that feeling around, that foraging and forging, we may get in touch with our deepest instincts. Searching for the right notes is searching for that feeling where everything resonates.
In my piece, melodies begin as nearly imagined, pulled out of the piano’s resonance. Listening for the line and following it. Lines then take on a life of their own. The relationship between intention and effect shifts. The hand pushes but also senses. The goal is to sing the song within.