Spahlinger – Farben Der Fruehe

German composer Matthias Spahlinger (b. 1944) scored his Farben der Frühe (Colors of Morning) for the unusual, if not unique, ensemble of seven pianos. It's impossible to know the composer's motivation for limiting a work whose subject is "color" to the single color of the piano, but apparently it proved to be a daunting task, because it took eight years to complete. The six-movement, 45-minute piece falls squarely into the tradition of European modernism, with a spiky tonal language and loads of rhythmic complexity.