John Cage (1912-92)

[San Antone]

Have you heard Stockhausen's Momente?

It's interesting for me to reflect on how I appreciate the Cage Songbook and, for example, Winterreise. The problem I have is to get beyond being amused and impressed by the shock of the new, Yes, Cage has succeeded in "épater la bourgeoisie" - has he done more?

Like Marcel Duchamp.

Cage said this about the Song Books, " ... to consider the Song Books as a work of art is nearly impossible. Who would dare? It resembles a brothel, doesn't it?"

But do not be misled by Cage's often self deprecating comments.  Although he admired Duchamp and cited him as a major influence - Cage was producing work on an almost daily basis right up to the end of his life.  Very different from Duchamp who, stopped working fairly early in his career and became a personality and commentator.

While there is humor in much of Cage's work, it is a well trod path in Zen to use humor to wake up a disciple.

[Mandryka]

Cage said this about the Song Books, " ... to consider the Song Books as a work of art is nearly impossible. Who would dare? It resembles a brothel, doesn't it?"

But do not be misled by Cage's often self deprecating comments.  Although he admired Duchamp and cited him as a major influence - Cage was producing work on an almost daily basis right up to the end of his life.  Very different from Duchamp who, stopped working fairly early in his career and became a personality and commentator.

While there is humor in much of Cage's work, it is a well trod path in Zen to use humor to wake up a disciple.

You didn't give me a chance to finish the post.

Duchamp because it is so totally disorienting, we have a fractured version  of the Large Glass in London, I haven't seen Etant Donnés - has anyone here seen it?

[San Antone]

You didn't give me a chance to finish the post.

[torut]

^^^^^ this looks very cool! Vinyl only?

Download is available from bandcamp.
https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/complete-song-books

[Mandryka]

Download is available from bandcamp.
https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/complete-song-books

There are two recordings of the songbooks, that one and with Lore Lixenberg and others - the latter a selection. You NEED both. Or Neither. But one will not do.

[not edward]

I don't know if anyone's posted this already, but the OgreOgress recordings of many of the Number Pieces are now available as lossless downloads from cdbaby at very cheap prices. Three of them are almost free, but there's lots around the $5-$7 mark, many with 2+ hours of music.

The really cheap ones:

Three², Twenty-Three, Six, Twenty-Six: $1.75
Four⁴: $1.85
One⁴, Four, Twenty-Nine: $2.45

[torut]

There are two recordings of the songbooks, that one and with Lore Lixenberg and others - the latter a selection. You NEED both. Or Neither. But one will not do.

I listened to both. The Sub Rosa recording (with Lixenberg), which I prefer, has more variety of voice, and the usage of electronics and the accompaniment are less intense. No. 17 is the most beautiful.

According to Sub Rosa, it is also a complete recording (and the first one) of Song Books. The "mix" tracks "comprise layered 'Solos for Voices' in superimpositions that were created using chance operations." (discogs)

Amelia Cuni and Joan La Barbara are also very good, though they recorded just few selections.

[torut]

I don't know if anyone's posted this already, but the OgreOgress recordings of many of the Number Pieces are now available as lossless downloads from cdbaby at very cheap prices. Three of them are almost free, but there's lots around the $5-$7 mark, many with 2+ hours of music.

The really cheap ones:

Three², Twenty-Three, Six, Twenty-Six: $1.75
Four⁴: $1.85
One⁴, Four, Twenty-Nine: $2.45

It's really nice. I downloaded Three2 etc. and Three, Twenty-Eight, Fifty-Four, Fifty-Seven. I believe there are few (none?) other recordings of Twenties pieces. Fifty-Four is actually Twenty-Six performed with Twenty-Eight, and Fifty-Seven is Twenty-Eight with Twenty-Nine. These are rich works.

[Mandryka]

I listened to both. The Sub Rosa recording (with Lixenberg), which I prefer, has more variety of voice, and the usage of electronics and the accompaniment are less intense. No. 17 is the most beautiful.

According to Sub Rosa, it is also a complete recording (and the first one) of Song Books. The "mix" tracks "comprise layered 'Solos for Voices' in superimpositions that were created using chance operations." (discogs)

Amelia Cuni and Joan La Barbara are also very good, though they recorded just few selections.

I agree with you completely, I had noticed that it was probably complete after I made that post.

[snyprrr]

It's Monday now so, last week I had a little Cage revival and I happen to be listening to him quite frequently at the moment (being one of the only 20th century composers that I'm actively listening to right now.

BRB

I had just gotten out of my Cage rediscovery before you got here... I was surprised by the later works, sounding much like a random Feldman.

[Mandryka]

Strangely enough I listened to some of the harmonies from the Apartment House, both in the version for violin by Arditti and the version for violin and keyboard by Roger Zahab and Eric Moe. The Arditti caught my imagination, their transcription makes the music sound like nothing else.

[San Antone]

One can never listen to too much Cage.

[millionrainbows]

Cage tried to remove as much of his personality as possible from his work, but, ironically, it is those works in which I can detect his personal touch that are some of my favorites.

[Turner]

Rediscovered Cage composition?

https://twitter.com/LFCNev/status/918442426989236226

[San Antone]

Picked up a copy of "Silence" by John Cage from the library:

Excellent book.

[millionrainbows]

I'm glad you reproduced that cover image; it has a lot of zen character. It reminds me of when Suzuki visited Cage's loft studio; there was a small table,some bamboo mats, and a piano. The rest was empty, no curtains or anything. Suzuki said, "An old shoe would look beautiful in this room."

[bhodges]

Reigniting this thread with an expert reading of Cage's Aria, by Claron McFadden:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3tbdHbqUsQ&list=RDY3tbdHbqUsQ&start_radio=1

--Bruce

[Mandryka]

Claudio Crismani's essay on the Etudes Australes

"ETUDES AUSTRALES": A PLANETARY JOURNEY

John Cage is without a doubt one of the most extraordinary figures in today's musical world. In Cage's works the Sonic Phenomena' are isolated, even separated, from any reference whatsoever to rhythm, harmony, melody and development: the sequence of these sounds is determined by the ancient Chinese 1-Ching and therefore appears, and I stress appears, to be random.

Cage introduced this Random Element' into contemporary western music in the early 1950's. What followed was a re-evaluation of the hitherto traditional figures of Composer and Performer. This proved to be a provocative and determined challenge for those who were still assessing the heritage of the Vienna School (Stockhausen and Boulez, for instance).

Cage became a reference point, a prophet and provocateur: but all prophets are above all natural provocateurs, are they not?

This was then linked to a new way of perceiving, and therefore writing music, which was innovative in its fundamental elements, such as time and melody.

In his book entitled 'A Year From Monday' John Cage says: "we have played Winter Music many times recently; I remember that when we played it for the very first time, the pauses were very long and the sounds seemed to be very much separated in space. They were of no hin-drance whatsoever to each other. In Stockholm, when we played at the Opera, I realised that Winter Music had become melodic. Christian Wolf had foreseen this a few years earlier when he told me that: "what we create today will inevitably become melodic."

The Etudes Australes are of fundamental importance in Cage's numerous works written for piano. This is due to the sheer size of the Etudes Australes, (two parts divided into four volumes, each of which is divided into eight studies) and to Cage's extraordinary exploitation of piano sounds, that is his use of the keyboard and therefore of the sounds produced by the piano.

In the Etudes Australes Cage transcribed, or translated, Stellar Maps of the Southern Hemisphere taken from the book Atlas Australis' into musical signs and paths.

According to Cage: "when music is played, the correspondence between space and time should result in the music sounding as it appears." In each study both the exact pitch of each note and the seemingly random sequence (1-Ching) of the notes themselves are written with great precision; there is no absolute rhythmic pattern; instead, the amount of time to be taken into consideration between one note and the next and between one chord and the next while the music is being played is carefully written. The music is therefore independent of gravity, as would occur during a journey into outer space. In Cage's fertile imagination, the musician playing the Etudes Australes is compared to the captain of a team of astronauts. In each study the harmonic resonance created by the piano's strings are dead), stated. These are obtained with the use of the sustaining pedal and by keeping certain keys depressed throughout the Study by means of purpose-built rubber objects.

This music is devoid of a narrative th= e proper. It is rather series of feelings be experienced bravely 'on the spot.'

The duration of each Study is linked to the visionary nature of its graphic plan. I also believe that the perfection of the piano's strings is of paramount importance, too.

With regard to the Etudes Australes, a brilliant observation was made by the critic James Rosenbaum in his book One day with John Cage'. According to Rosenbaum: "In a purely visual context an extremely interesting phenomenon occurs: when one is looking at the horizon in an attempt to find an indefinite and indefinable point in space where the blue line limiting the view of the surface of the sea and that of the visible heavens become one, our eyes perceive images which do not exist, images which the laws of physics do not allow us to see; this phenomenon is known to sailors as 'Morgan le Fay'. With regard to hearing, in conditions of absolute silence we hear noises or sounds which we would not perceive otherwise. These circumstances of 'static sound' have provided us with and influenced the writing of some of the most memorable pieces of music for piano, such as the Finale of the Chopin's Second Sonata, the beginning of Scriabin's Fifth Sonata, Debussy's 'Canope' Prelude and John Cage's 'Etudes Australes'."

Mention was made earlier of Cage's being inspired to write the Studies by a series of Stellar Maps, or perhaps by an imaginary journey across the Southern Hemisphere; in the light of these considerations, the Artistic Producer Eduardo Ogando and I would like to dedicate this recording of the Etudes Australes to the memory of the most romantic and visionary of all cosmonauts, to the bravest of visitors to this planet: 'To the Small Prince and to its Creator Antoine de Saint-Exupery.'

Claudio Crismani (Translation: The Office - Ts)

[Mandryka]

http://www.anothertimbre.com/cagetwo2.html

To get an idea of what Mark Knoop and Philip Thomas have done here, compare timings of Two2 (1991)

Josef Christoff, Steffen Schleiermacher -- 46m
Rob Haskins, Laurel Karlrik Sheehan -- 74m
Pestova, Meyer (naxos) - 42m
Edmund Niemann, Neurit Tilles - 34m


Mark Knoop, Philip Thomas - 128m

The result is really interesting. It's out of the question to try and see structure or pattern when it's taken at this speed. But what you can hear is sounds , you're led to focus on the character of the sounds as they decay. They make the listener aware of all that's contained in a chord on the piano, all the transient overtones.

And that makes Two2 sound like our contemporary, even though it was written 20 years ago. Because that's precisely what, I think, Éliane Radigue is trying to do in the Occam's Ocean pieces. Knoop and Thomas make Cage strangely prescient.

So an altogether stimulating release which projects Cage into the 21st century.

[San Antone]

http://www.anothertimbre.com/cagetwo2.html

To get an idea of what Mark Knoop and Philip Thomas have done here, compare timings of Two2 (1991)

Josef Christoff, Steffen Schleiermacher -- 46m
Rob Haskins, Laurel Karlrik Sheehan -- 74m
Pestova, Meyer (naxos) - 42m
Edmund Niemann, Neurit Tilles - 34m


Mark Knoop, Philip Thomas - 128m

The result is really interesting. It's out of the question to try and see structure or pattern when it's taken at this speed. But what you can hear is sounds , you're led to focus on the character of the sounds as they decay. They make the listener aware of all that's contained in a chord on the piano, all the transient overtones.

And that makes Two2 sound like our contemporary, even though it was written 20 years ago. Because that's precisely what, I think, Éliane Radigue is trying to do in the Occam's Ocean pieces. Knoop and Thomas make Cage strangely prescient.

So an altogether stimulating release which projects Cage into the 21st century.

I read the interview with Phillip Thomas on the label's website and found it very interesting.  I definitely want to hear their recording; too bad it is not on Spotify.