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The MIDI-piano is an embodiment of the important but dubious connection between technical development and musical instruments. This alienated structure with its cables, sensors and motors fixed on the body of an instrument of classical proportions reminds us of space-monsters in science-fiction films. This duality (traditional sound and mechanical control) means new opportunities mainly in two fields: in the approach of rhythm and dynamics. (László Vidovszky)

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László Vidovszky is another composer influenced by Nancarrow. His etudes are for MIDI piano (a piano controlled by a computer) and are in the standard 12-note-per-octave equal-temperament tuning system, but still require a computer and synthesizer in order to be played. Vidovszky utilizes the precise degrees of control that writing for MIDI piano offers: Dynamics can be mapped across a scale from one to 127, rhythm can be specified down to the millisecond and, most interestingly, contradictory piano styles, such as rubato and tempo giusto, can be played simultaneously. Vidovszky has so far written four books of etudes for MIDI piano; this disc offers just the first two. Vidovszky considers his work for MIDI piano a continuation of the parlor-music tradition that includes music for player piano and music for everyday consumption. His etudes take other music (including Vidovszky's own) and refract it into something that relies completely on technology, yet attempts to please in the same way something unique and artisan-made might. I thought immediately of Walter Benjamin and the way production for mass consumption can distort the value of a work of art. But how does this apply to music, and if it does, what do you actually hear? I found the Drei Choral-Vorspiel-Variationen to be most fascinating in this regard because Vidovszky applies rules to manipulate the tunes of chorale preludes, creating some strange music -- yet the original tunes are still there. The more you listen, the more you realize how subtle this music is. Unlike Nancarrow and the Burt mentioned above, this music sounds like it can be played on a piano by a pianist, but the more you listen, the more you hear different and simultaneous types of attack distributed among multiple layers of dynamics -- impossible for a human to produce. It's quite an odd artifact, once you start to realize all that's in it.

     —Grant Chu Covell , La Folia