Why wasn the piece performed until recently?
It was played in 1989, using a single mechanical player piano—which was the version performed in Paris and New York by Antheil in 1927—by Maurice Peress at New York’s Carnegie Hall. And through the ’90s, the German Ensemble Moderne performed it with two custom-modified computer-controlled player pianos. But until very recently, the technology to synchronize 16 player pianos together simply didn’t exist. But now, Yamaha and QRS make player pianos that talk MIDI, the standard computer protocol for musical instruments. By hooking up 16 MIDI-compatible player pianos to a central sequencer, like an ordinary desktop or laptop computer, you can get them all to play in perfect synchronization.
