title: Nineteen
instrumentation: electronic
duration: 9:32
written in: 2013
Nineteen is a mashup of 100 pieces by 100 different composers — one for every year from 1900 to 1999. They enter in chronological order, although the samples are different lengths and often overlap considerably. (The densest moment comes at the beginning of Part 3, where for a moment there are five pieces playing at once.)
You could look at Nineteen as an illustrated history of 20th-century composition, or as a very elaborate and esoteric game of name-that-tune, but it’s also designed to work as a “real” piece of music, even if you’re not familiar with the source material.
(If you do want to play name-that-tune, you can check your answers with this list of everything I sampled.)
Listen