Cowell - The Banshee

Henry Cowell (1897-1965) was an American composer, teacher and pianist.  He was a part of the avant-garde movement in music at the turn of the 20th century, and experimented with complex rhythms, atonality, and was an early advocate of the use of tone clusters. 

He also would play directly on the strings of the piano, sometimes for the entire piano piece. The Banshee is one of those pieces. A Banshee is from Irish mythology, is usually female. and appears as an omen of death and to bring messages from the other world.  The Banshee begins to wail when someone is about to die, and some legends say that each Irish family has their own Banshee. 

The work is for two performers and a grand piano. One performer merely holds down the damper pedal of the piano while the other stands at the bend of the piano. Cowell directs this performer to wave their hands over the strings like a harp, to pluck the strings, to scrape their fingernails over the strings of the bass notes. Cowell brings out some very distinctive, different sounds from the piano, well suited to the subject of the piece.