Solo with obbligato accompaniment, arranged for three alto recorders (1933-34)Three, for three players having a variety of recorders (1989)Solo with obbligato accompaniment, completed on 5 April 1934, is a three-part composition "for any three or more instruments encompassing the range g below middle c to g one and one half octaves above middle c." The Trio Dolce, planning to include this work in its repertoire, wrote Cage for permission to perform it on three alto recorders, one octave higher than the prescribed range. Cage acceded, and in 1988 it was performed with Cage in attendance. The composer's enthusiastic reaction to this performance ultimately led to the creation of
Three, dedicated to the Trio.
The compositional method Cage used in
Solo with obbligato accompaniment required that repetitions of the twenty-five chromatic pitches within the two-octave range were to be avoided, both within and between the voices. Imitations of the solo (the third and opening voice) by the accompanying voices were also an objective, duration and voice leading being respected but not pitch relations, while at the same time the first voice imitates the second one in a strict canon at the unison. The subjects of the six brief inventions with which the work concludes were derived from the first fifty tones of the solo (two expositions of the complete range). Although the method Cage employed in
Solo is unmistakably related to twelve-tone technique, the succession of pitches was in no way predetermined, as is the case in twelve-tone technique. It was decided upon during, not prior to, the actual process of composition. Hence, nearly all intervallic types occur, and although minor and major seconds prevail, perfect fifths and octaves are not avoided. The interval structure is heterogenous, a static, even distribution of pitches being paramount to the coherence between them.
The interval structure in
Three, "for three players having a variety of recorders," is no less heterogenous. For each of both outer movements of the work, numbered 1 and 2 respectively, Cage composed seventeen groups of three tones. Using the chance mechanism of the
I Ching, he first selected the individual tones of these three-tone groups from the entire range of all recorder types used, F to c''''', or sixty-eight chromatic pitches, and then distributed them in time--mostly as a melody and occasionally as a chord--and among the instruments (there are fifteen instruments used in the piece, of seven different types). As a consequence, the three players--player 1 using sopranino, soprano, alto and tenor; player 2 using sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, basset and bass; and player 3 using soprano, alto, tenor, basset, and double bass--change recorders constantly. The performance instructions state that the indication "as legato as possible" preceding both outer movements not only refers to the playing of individual parts but also to all three parts together. The virtuosity and breath control needed to fulfill both requirements at the same time--changing recorders and maintaining a continuous legato throughout both movements--determines the sometimes fragile balance between the resulting durations and dynamics.
Both outer movements of
Three are interpolated by nine movements lettered A through I, one or any number of which may be played. As Cage's sketches show, he derived the pitches in these movements from an unexpected source: a collection of harmonies which he used to compose many of his later piano works. The collection, which consists of nothing but abstract constellations of interval relationships, includes all conceivable harmonies consisting of three, four or five tones playable by a single hand--and hence having a range not exceeding a major ninth--on a keyboard instrument. Having selected twenty-seven harmonies from this collection, three for each of the nine lettered movements, Cage then assigned actual pitches to them. The starting point for this assignment was a "basic tone" selected from the twelve-tone range from g' to f'' sharp. The double restriction in range Cage subjected himself to--a major seventh for the basic notes and a major ninth for the harmonies--evidently furnished him with a contrast between the wide ranges in the outer movements and the modest ones in the middle movements, which indeed do not exceed the range from g sharp to c''' or twenty-nine chromatic pitches, close to the two-octave range employed in
Solo with obbligato accompaniment. Players only use altos, tenors, and a basset in these movements.
Cage then redistributed the constituent tones of the original harmonies among the three parts, mostly in descending sequences, a transformation process which in effect almost completely conceals the original interval structure. Finally, in each of the nine middle movements there are three time brackets.
When the decisive factor in the compositional process of
Three proves to be the chance-determined selection and distribution of pitches in time and among the parts, that process reveals an intervallic heterogeneity reminiscent of that of
Solo. Whereas the succession of pitches in the latter work was based on free invention, it was at the same time governed by a strict control of all tones of a given chromatic collection. Conversely, the strict chance mechanisms operative in
Three brought about pitch successions which were essentially unpredictable and which only potentially used all tones of a given chromatic collection. The common factor is that a disavowal of inherent relationships between sounds and an emphasis on the identity of each individual sound exist at the expense of unifying factors. Cage's conception of tones manifesting themselves in a universe of sounds "to each element of which equal honor could be given," as he wrote in 1981, underlies both works. What has changed in
Three is the profundity of using these techniques. Indeed, when in
Three one hears the equal-tempered chromaticism also characteristic of
Solo, but now manifesting itself in a static, non-hierarchical harmony, this can be said to be worth a life's work. At the aesthetic heart of the music, the compositional techniques of both works at the outer limits of Cage's compositional career that seemed at first to be mutually exclusive prove to be in complete agreement.
--Paul van Emmerik