Tom Johnson: Music & Logic

The Rational Melodies may be played by any instrument, in any octave or transposition. It is not necessary to play the whole set, and performers are welcome to group selected melodies into suites however they like.


The pieces are intended primarily for soloists, though they may also be performed by groups of instruments, playing in unison or alternating in antiphonal patterns. Rationality, or more precisely, deductive logic, has seldom been the controlling factor in musical composition. Composers are usually more interested in inspiration, intuition, feelings, self-expression. Lately, however, there has been a tendency for composers to give up individual control over every note, and rely on factors outside themselves. Pieces have been controlled by the wind, by chance, by the idiosyncrasies of tape recorders, or by unpredictable variations in electronic circuity, for example, and it seems to me that composing by rigorous adherence to logical premises involves a similar way of thinking.

Rational Melody # 14

***


Rational Melodies (1981/82)
Twenty-one pieces for any instrument

Eberhard Blum - piccolo, flute, alto flute and bass flute

(1)

One Happy Return with Cheap Imitations

After 3 weeks with a bad cold (couldn't even speak because my vocal chords refused to do their work) and no internet access, I'm glad to be here again. Grey Calx has outdone himself in the meantime, posting a whole truckload of interesting material. Bravissimo. So I feel obliged to post something special for my comeback:

 
1-3 Cheap Imitation (1969/77) - version for flute
performed by Eberhard Blum

4 Experiences I for 2 pianos (1945)
performed by Richard Bernas

5-7 Cheap Imitation for 24 instruments (1969/71)
performed by the Ensemble Modern and Paul Zukofsky

John Cage's "Cheap Imitation" is indeed a very pragmatic imitation of Erik Satie's "Socrate".
After writing an arrangement of "Socrate" for two pianos, on the occasion of one of his musical happenings, the Satie publisher rejected Cage's arrangement, making further performances of Cage's version impossible.

Cage then decided to compose an imitation of Satie's piece, keeping the rhythmics of the melody line, and replacing all pitches by new chance-determined pitches. In the following years, two adaptations of the original "Cheap Imitation" for piano were written, one for violin solo and the second for 24-96 instruments.

Both adaptations are presented here, for a most pleasurable listen. These are unreleased productions from German radio studios, recorded during radio broadcast.

"Experiences I" fits in very nicely as a knee-play for the two long pieces. It's from Cage's no-chance "romantic" period and borrows phrases of original Satie, reworking them in a very elegant repetitive way. This version is taken from the LP "Jan Steele/John Cage - Voices and Instruments" (Obscure No.5)

(1)