Keyboard Cat

June 14, 2011 9:39 PM

The Katzenclavier - ‘A fugue played on this instrument – when the ill person is so placed that he cannot miss the expression on their faces and the play of these animals – must bring Lot’s wife herself from her fixed state into conscious awareness’.

Bonus for those that came inside: The Cat Piano, narrated by Nick Cave. Best viewed in full screen HD.

posted by unliteral (14 comments total)

Obligatory.
posted by eegphalanges at 9:51 PM on June 14, 2011

Shouldn't it be spelled Katzenklavier?
posted by readyfreddy at 9:55 PM on June 14, 2011

Shouldn't it be spelled Katzenklavier?
You're right. Mods, please delete this post.
posted by unliteral at 9:58 PM on June 14, 2011

And unitalicise my line.
posted by unliteral at 9:59 PM on June 14, 2011

See, that's the problem with modern music. All computers and synthesizers. No emotion. No purrrity.
posted by Jimbob at 10:02 PM on June 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you like the Katzenclavier you will love The Torturer's Apprentice.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:03 PM on June 14, 2011

Oh what the shit.
posted by tumid dahlia at 10:11 PM on June 14, 2011

I disapprove of cruelty to kittens, but the Strange History blog is fantastic.
posted by rivenwanderer at 10:16 PM on June 14, 2011

Previously.
posted by 2N2222 at 10:17 PM on June 14, 2011

Nick Cave the performance artist or Nick Cave of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds? I'm not sure which actually seems more likely in this context. I can imagine Nick Cave the musician's speaking voice sounding like this, but I don't think I've ever heard a recording of him talking..
posted by Alterscape at 10:27 PM on June 14, 2011

Yeah, that's Nick Cave of the Bad Seeds. I didn't know there was any other...
posted by Jimbob at 10:31 PM on June 14, 2011

Alterscape: And the Ass Saw the Angel.
posted by unliteral at 10:34 PM on June 14, 2011

Heh! Neither did I Jimbob. He sounds very different.
posted by unliteral at 10:53 PM on June 14, 2011

That night a tall foreign-looking man with a switchblade big as a butcher knife open in his hand walked into the loft without knocking and said "Good evening, Mr. Peterson, I am the cat-piano player, is there anything you'd particularly like to hear?" "Cat-piano?" Peterson said, gasping, shrinking from the knife. "What are you talking about? What do you want?" A biography of Nolde slid from his lap to the floor. "The cat-piano," said the visitor, "is an instrument of the devil, a diabolical instrument, You needn't sweat quite so much," he added, sounding aggrieved. Peterson tried to be brave. "I don't understand," he said. "Let me explain," the tall foreign-looking man said graciously. "The keyboard consists of eight cats?the octave?encased in the body of the instrument in such a way that only their heads and forepaws protrude. The player presses upon the appropriate paws, and the appropriate cats respond?with a kind of shriek. There is also provision made for pulling their tails. A tail-puller, or perhaps I should say tail player" (he smiled a disingenuous smile) "is stationed at the rear of the instrument, where the tails are. At the correct moment the tail-puller pulls the correct tail. The tail-note is of course quite different from the paw-note and produces sounds in the upper register. Have you ever seen such an instrument, Mr. Peterson?" "No, and I don't believe it exists," Peterson said heroically. "There is an excellent early seventeenth-century engraving by Franz van der Wyngaert, Mr. Peterson, in which a cat-piano appears. Played, as it happens, by a man with a wooden leg. You will observe my own leg." The cat-piano player hoisted his trousers and a leglike contraption of wood, metal and plastic appeared. "And now, would you like to make a request? 'The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian'? The 'Romeo and Juliet' overture? 'Holiday for Strings'?" "But why?" Peterson began. "The kitten cries for milk, Mr. Peterson. And whenever a kitten cries, the cat-piano plays." "But it's not my kitten," Peterson said reasonably. "It's just a kitten that wished itself on me. I've been trying to give it away. I'm not sure it's still around. I haven't seen it since the day before yesterday." The kitten appeared, looked at Peterson reproachfully, and then rubbed itself against the cat-piano player's mechanical leg. "Wait a minute!" Peterson exclaimed. "This thing is rigged! That cat hasn't been here in two days. What do you want from me? What am I supposed to do?" "Choices, Mr. Peterson, choices. You chose that kitten as a way of encountering that which you are not, that is to say, kitten. An effort on the part of the pour-soi to?" "But it chose me!" Peterson cried, "the door was open and the first thing I knew it was lying in my bed, under the Army blanket. I didn't have anything to do with it!" The cat-piano player repeated his disingenuous smile. "Yes, Mr. Peterson, I know, I know. Things are done to you, it is all a gigantic conspiracy. I've heard the story a hundred times. But the kitten is here , is it not? The kitten is it not?" Peterson looked at the kitten, which was crying huge tigerish tears into its empty dish. "Listen, Mr. Peterson," the cat-piano player said, "listen!" The blade of his immense knife jumped back into the handle with a twack! And the hideous music began.

posted by nasreddin at 11:14 PM on June 14, 2011