Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Cage, Mayuzumi: String Quartets

LaSalle Quartet - Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Cage, Mayuzumi: String Quartets

CD released in 1987

LaSalle Quartet:

Walter Levin - 1st violin
Henry Meyer - 2nd violin
Peter Kamnitzer - viola
Jack Kirstein - cello

The string quartet was one of the supreme achievements of an age when music came nearest to the nature of speech, an age when themes could be stated and discussed in a language that was both rich and clear. It was a conversational medium for a conversational art, and so successful as such that it has survived into a time of musical confusion enough to eliminate any possibility of Haydnesque discourse. Hence the problem which these four quartets (not to mention those of T.S. Eliot) all address: how to use a naturally discursive medium when the foundations of the language have fallen. All dating from 1949-64, these are quartets in which the first violin can no longer speak to the cello and expect to be understood.
The most drastic, radically opposed reactions to this linguistic disintegration are those of Cage and Lutoslawski, the one making the quartet into a single instrument to play "a melodic line without accompaniment", the other writing alienation into his music so that "each player performs his part as though he were alone". If harmonious counterpoint is not possible any more, then these are the obvious alternatives, of monody and of a polyphony of independent voices. The other two works here bear witness to the same dissolution - the Penderecki in its abundance of previously marginal effects, the Mayuzumi by having the players sit as far apart as possible on the platform - but both find ways to retain a more progressive continuity, in contrast with Cage's stasis and Lutoslawski's elusive fluidity. (Paul Griffiths)

tracks 1-4 originally released on LP in 1968
tracks 5-8 originally released on LP in 1976

Tracklisting:

1.  String Quartet: Introductory Movement  {8:29}
composed by Witold Lutoslawski, 1964

2.  String Quartet: Main Movement  {15:15}
composed by Witold Lutoslawski, 1964

3.  Quartetto per archi  {7:03}
composed by Krzysztof Penderecki, 1960

4.  Prelude for String Quartet  {11:10}
composed by Toshiro Mayuzumi, 1961

5.  String Quartet in Four Parts: Quietly flowing along  {4:18}
tracks 5-8 composed by John Cage, 1950

6.  String Quartet in Four Parts: Slowly rocking  {4:57}

7.  String Quartet in Four Parts: Nearly stationary  {10:38}

8.  String Quartet in Four Parts: Quodlibet  {1:33}

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John Cage - Sonatas And Interludes For Prepared Piano (Harmonia Mundi,1980)

Well, the CageCentennial week here in A Closet is officially over.
But- never let it be said that we here can't go above and beyond the call of duty.
Or, more accurately, never let it be said that I, DrEyescope, can't be counted on to be the consummate procrastinator, with more to add now which should have come before.
So, Here you go:

John Cage: Sonatas And Interludes For Prepared Piano. (recorded either 1950 or 1958) Maro Ajemian, Piano

The minimal notes are in French, and I won't torture you all with my half-assed translation.

This is a kind of a strange record.
It's one of those Harmonia Mundi releases with a thin, minimal cover without photos or liner notes (there is an enclosed strip of paper with minimal notes), the idea being (as I recall) that the money would be spent on superior performances and pressing.
This record clocks in at over 64 minutes, which means that the grooves are cramped.
Normally in cases such as this, the cramped grooves give a less defined sound than wider grooves, and this record is no exception- especially towards the end of each side, or when the music gets loud, the record suffers from distortion.
And, on top of that, Maro Ajemian is playing while sitting on a squeaky chair.
But the real problem with this record is that it is incomplete:
The center label lists track 1 on side two as "Sonata No.IX", but it is, in fact, Sonata No.X,

Sonata No.IX is entirely absent. (Either that, or silent.)

Nevertheless, I enjoy this album very much. When it comes to the Sonatas and Interludes, I (who know these works only as a listener and not a performer or reader of scores, and am therefore only partially informed)  judge many of these performances to be very nearly "definitive".
There is a rhythmic vigor; a "dancing" quality in these interpretations which I find lacking in some other recordings, and even with the questionable reproduction, one can also hear a sensitivity and subtlety in some of the slower, more meditative pieces which gives them a broader emotional scope than other interpretations.

I plan to compare these interpretations with the (seemingly very dramatic) Steffen Schliermacher disc which was posted the other day by (timely and hard-working) grey calx.


John Cage: Sonatas And Interludes For Prepared Piano (composed 1946-48)

Side One:

a1: Sonata I (3:00)

a2: Sonata II (2:23)

a3: Sonata III (2:43)

a4: Sonata IV (3:04)

a5: Interlude I (3:42)

a6: Sonata V (1:28)

a7: Sonata VI (2:20)

a8: Sonata VII (2:31)

a9: Sonata VIII (2:54)

a10: Interlude II (4:22)
 
a11: Interlude III (3:04)
 
Side Two::

B1: Sonata X (3:35)

B2: Sonata XI (3:27)

B3: Sonata XII (4:18)

b4: Interlude IV (2:45)

B5: Sonata XIII (4:03)

B6: Sonata XIV (3:36)

B7: Sonata XV (3:36)

B8: Sonata XVI (5:02)
 
Maro Ajemian, Piano

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CageCentennial: In Honor of the 100th Anniversary of John Cage's Birth (Collections 3 & 4)

various artists compilation -  CageCentennial: In Honor of the 100th Anniversary of John Cage's Birth (Collections 3 & 4)

The week of Cage is near the end. This week went by really fast. There may be one or two more posts later today. In the meantime, the third and fourth collections arrive. For those who stumbled on this post, all of the background information for this compilation is mentioned in the previous post.

Collection #3 Tracklisting:

1.  Sonic Youth - Four6  {29:59}
from CD Goodbye 20th Century ; composed in 1992 ; released in 1999

2.  American Composers Orchestra - Seventy-Four Version I  {12:14}
from CD The Seasons ; composed in 1992 ; released in 2000

3.  Jonathan Faralli - Cartridge Music  {5:18}
from CD Percussion XX ; composed in 1960 ; released in 1999

4.  Gentle Fire - Music for Carillon 2  {1:25}
from LP Gentle Fire ; composed in 1952; released in 1974

5.  Bertram Turetzky - 26'1.1499" for a String Player  {16:05}
from LP The Contemporary Contrabass ; composed in 1955

Collection #4 Tracklisting:

1.  The Kroumata Percussion Ensemble - Second Construction  {6:51}
from CD The Kroumata Percussion Ensemble ; composed in 1940 ; released in 1983

2.  Sonic Youth - Six 3rd take  {3:03}
from CD Goodbye 20th Century ; composed in 1991 ; released in 1999

3.  Karen Phillips - Dream  {6:54}
from LP Viola Today ; composed in 1948 ; released in 1974

4.  Mieko Kanno - Freeman Etude # IX  {4:33}
from CD metaCage: Essays on and Around Freeman Etudes, Fontana Mix, Aria (accompaniment to book of the same title) ; composed in 1977-1980 ; released in 2009

5.  Victoria Looseleaf - In a Landscape  {11:58}
from LP Harpnosis ; composed in 1948 ; released in 1984

6.  Gentle Fire - Music for Amplified Toy Pianos  {11:57}
from LP Gentle Fire ; composed in 1960 ; released in 1974

7.  Cathy Berberian - The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs  {2:29}
from CD Magnificathy: The Many Voices of Cathy Berberian ; composed in 1942 ; re-released in 1988

8.  The Brandeis University Chamber Chorus - Solos for Voice 2  {12:36}
from LP Extended Voices ; released in 1967

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CageCentennial: In Honor of the 100th Anniversary of John Cage's Birth (Collections 1 & 2)

Hope everyone is enjoying the week-long Cage fest so far. There's only two days left. I also hope everyone had a great Cage centennial on Wednesday.

I was planning to post this on Wednesday, but I was delayed by other activities that required my attention.

I put together a compilation or collection of recordings of performances of Cage's compositions. Many of these tracks will come from compilations and performers' albums that I posted and some will come from albums that I never posted. I thought this would help to have most of the Cage tracks in one place. This would also be ideal for those who may be new to the blog and/or Cage's music. The compilation is not quite comprehensive. In fact, it is a small humble collection. There are thousands of recordings of Cage's music.

I used chance operations to determine the order of the tracklisting. I didn't really feel like organizing them anyway. It doesn't really matter where the tracks are ordered. They don't have to be played in the order I ended up putting them in. It would probably be more fitting if one were to put whatever player is being used into shuffle or random mode.

I broke the compilation/collection into separate or smaller collections so that each collection will be a manageable file size where the file won't be too large rather than putting all of the tracks in one huge file.

Today the first two collections are posted here. Tomorrow, I believe about two more will be posted.

Collection #1 Tracklisting:

1.  Gentle Fire - Music for Carillon 3  {1:28}
from LP Gentle Fire ; composed in 1952 ; released in 1974

2.  Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen - A Flower  {3:46}
from CD Open Percussion ; composed in 1950 for voice and piano

3.  John Cage - Fontana Mix  {11:14}
from LP Electronic Music [compilation]

4.  Gentle Fire - Music for Carillon 1  {6:55}
from LP Gentle Fire ; composed in 1952 ; released in 1974

5.  London Sinfonietta - First Construction in Metal  {8:59}
from recording of Warp Records + London Sinfonietta at Ether 2004 ; composed in 1939

6.  Richard Bunger - The Perilous Night  {10:06}
from LP The Perilous Night (and Other New Sounds in American Music) ; composed in 1943-1944 for prepared piano

7.  Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen - The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs  {3:05}
from CD Open Percussion ; composed in 1942 for voice and piano

8.  David Tudor - Music for Piano No. 52-56  {13:20}
from CD Piano Avant-Garde (Recordings 1956-60) ; composed in 1956-1957

Collection #2 Tracklisting:

1.  John Cage - Williams Mix  {5:44}
from CD OHM: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music [compilation] ; also originally released on The 25th Year Retrospective Concert of the Music of John Cage ; composed in 1952

2.  Richard Bunger - TV Koln  {1:37}
from LP The Perilous Night (and Other New Sounds in American Music) ; composed in 1958

3.  Chicago Symphony Orchestra - Atlas eclipticalis  {14:18}
from CD Cage/Carter/Babbitt/Schuller ; conducted by James Levine ; composed in 1961 ; recorded in 1990 & released in 1994

4.  Sonic Youth - Six 4th take  {2:10}
from CD Goodbye 20th Century ; composed in 1991 ; released in 1999

5.  Comma - Song Books  {7:08}
from CD (voices) ; recorded in 1997 ; released in 1998

6.  Richard Bunger - Bacchanale  {9:49}
from LP Prepared Piano: The First Four Decades [compilation] ; composed in 1940 ; recorded in 1979 ; released in 1983

7.  Max Neuhaus - Fontana Mix-Feed  {10:07}
from LP Electronics and Percussion: Five Realizations by Max Neuhaus ; released in 1968

8.  Margaret Leng Tan - Suite for Toy Piano: 1  {1:35}
tracks 8-12 from CD Daughters of the Lonesome Isle ; composed in 1948 ; recorded in 1993 ; released in 1994

9.  Margaret Leng Tan - Suite for Toy Piano: 2  {1:41}

10. Margaret Leng Tan - Suite for Toy Piano: 3  {1:34}

11. Margaret Leng Tan - Suite for Toy Piano: 4  {1:24}

12. Margaret Leng Tan - Suite for Toy Piano: 5  {1:04}

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John Cage/Lukas Foss - Concerto For Prepared Piano And Orchestra/Baroque Variations (Nonesuch 1970)

Notes excerpted from the inner cover notes (enclosed).

John Cage: Concerto For Prepared Piano And Orchestra
The Concerto for Prepared Piano...uses silence, but does not yet disdain disdain to frame it in sound, albeit extremely wispy sound.. Like the Sixteen Dances which Cage  wrote for Merce Cunningham's dance company in 1950, the Concerto, begun the same year was composed with the help of a set of large charts on which rhythmic structures were drawn up. In the first of the three continuous movements, Cage says, " I let the pianist express the opinion theat music should be improvised or felt, while the orchestra expressed only the chart, with no personal taste involvved. In the  second movement I made large concentric moves on the chart for  both painist and orchestra, with the idea of the pianist beginning to give up personal taste. The third movement had only one set of moves on the chart for both, and a lot of silence..."Until that time my music had been based on the traditional idea that you had to  say something. The charts gave me the first indication of the possibility of saying nothing".


Lukas Foss: Baroque Variations
The use of silence in the Baroque Variations of Lukas Foss may suggest a parallel with Cage, but the purpose of this music (...) completed in 1967 is entirely different. Cage sets up the situation for a piece of music but leaves the result to chance (nature). Foss, in his ensemble improvisations 1957-62 and in indeterminate  moments of his most recent music, sets up a situation which will control the result.

Notes by the composer:

Variation I, on Handel's Concerto Grosso, Op.6,No.12. Groups of instruments play the Larghetto but keep submerging into inaudibility,(rather than pausing). Handel's notes are always present but often inaudible. The inaudible moments leave holes in Handel's music (I composed the holes). The perforated Handel is played by different groups of the orchestra in three different keys at one point, in four different speeds at another. Emerging fragments never render the original unrecognizable.

Variation II, on Scarlatti's Sonata No. 23. The entire Sonata is heard in the distance (harpsichord) but is often obscured by the foreground (orchestral groups playing Scarlatti fragments, emerging, submerging). In this variation the loveliness of the original wants to be preserved, a form of neo-Classicism, a piece of music in love with a piece of music, like  setting a poem, complete in itself (Scarlatti's Sonata does not need my setting), an unsolicited present, an abuse, an Hommage.

Variation III, "Phorion"... On the Prelude from Bach's Partita in E major for solo violin. The submerging and emerging out of inaudibility  is rendered  more hazardous for the players because it is executed at moments varying with each performance. Though the conductor cues the various instruments in and out, he himself cannot keep track of the point at which an instrument will have arrived in it's inaudible rendition when he calls upon it to emerge. As in Variation I, where only Handel's notes were used, Variation III's are entirely made  out of Bach''s violin solo. Even the glissandi are Bach-derived. What I wanted  can perhaps best be described as "torrents of Baroque sixteenth-notes, washed ashore by ocean waves, sucked in again, returning"- a Bach Dream- abruptly changing situations, some humorous, (two flutes racing each other-the xylophone spelling out "Johann Sebastian Bach" in morse code-etc.), some frightening- (the organ and percussion duel at the end).


Side One: John Cage:Concerto For Prepared Piano And Orchestra 

Yuji Takahashi-Piano
Buffalo Phiharmonic Orchestra
cond.Lukas Foss


Side Two: Lukas Foss-Baroque Variations

b1: No.1- On a Handel Larghetto

b2: No.2- On a Scarlatti Sonata

b3: No.3- On a Bach Prelude "Phorion"

Lukas Foss conducting the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra

























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John Cage 100th Anniversary

At last, the big day has arrived!

There's more to come later today. Stay tuned.

Works for Percussion

John Cage - Works for Percussion

CD released in 1991

performed by Quatuor Helios

Recorded "live in studio" July 1989 at the Centre Culturel Andre Malraux in Vandoeuvre-Les-Nancy (France)

A collection of most of Cage's percussion works. It is nice to have many of these in one place. (There was another Quatuor Helios CD released that included Cage's other percussion works.) I've featured other performances of many of these pieces that are played on this album yet I can't really get enough of Cage's percussion music. I've found this one somewhere online (can't quite recall where, but the site is likely no longer in existence). I thought it deserves a reposting.

Tracklisting:

1.  Second Construction  {7:32}

2.  Imaginary landscape No. 2  {5:30}

3.  Amores: I.  {1:06}
Isabelle Berteletti - prepared piano

4.  Amores: II.  {3:20}

5.  Amores: III.  {1:20}

6.  Amores: IV.  {3:32}
Isabelle Berteletti - prepared piano

7.  Double Music  {4:44}
composed by John Cage and Lou Harrison

8.  Third Construction  {10:14}

9.  She is Asleep: I.  {4:28}

10. She is Asleep: II.  {7:16}
Isabelle Berteletti - prepared piano ; Martine Ward - voice

11. First Construction (In Metal)  {10:04}
Philippe Chaignon - percussion ; Anne Berteletti - piano ; Eva Payeur - other [assistant]

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A Few Links to Cage Material

 

One more day until the big day. 

Here are a few links to Cage material that I found on the nets during the past few years. I think these would be of interest.

My friend Caitlyn recently posted on her blog the 2 LP Sonatas & Interludes for Prepared Piano performed by Gerard Fremy. Fremy's playing of Sonatas & Interludes sounds to me the most percussive of all the "Sonatas & Interludes..." I've listened to so far.

She also posted the Time Records LP that has Cage's "Aria with Fontana Mix" featuring Cathy Berberian. You'll want these for sure.


During 2008, John Kannenberg released Audio Tour: The 4'33" Museum on the Stasisfield net label. The album is a free download. All of the tracks are "performances" of 4'33'' at various museums. It can be argued that he is not actually performing it properly as he is not "not playing" an instrument especially in front of a crowd. They are field recordings of the audio environment at those places and they are quite good. His angle is that he is realizing one of Cage's motivations of 4'33'' in the encouragement of active listening. If so, then I think the album is successful.


In early 2009, the Chapel Hill, North Carolina station WXYC broadcasted a show about Cage on a program called Feedback Farm. WXYC is run and broadcasted by students of the University of North Carolina. The program's hosts discuss Cage's life and concepts, attempt to put in practice some of Cage's ideas and perform a few of his pieces. Yes, it is available for download.


In 1942, Cage wrote and conducted music for Kenneth Patchen's radio play "The City Wears a Slouch Hat." The original entire 1942 broadcast was played on the Wavelength radio program. Wavelength is broadcast on London-based Resonance FM. "The City Wears a Slouch Hat" takes up the entire first half-hour of the episode. A recording of William Burroughs takes up the rest of the episode. Scroll down to find the episode titled "Radio Narratives".


NPR (National Public Radio) also did a Cage overview for the Cage centennial as a tribute on its Hearing Voices podcast. It features recordings of performances of Cage's music. I don't think it's as fun as the Feedback Farm show, but it's suitable for those who prefer a more professionally put-together show.


I plan to feast on some cake tomorrow for the big day. After I indulge myself on the delicious yet calorie-abundant food, I'm going to take a hard look at this site. In the later part of his life, Cage lived on a macrobiotic diet which was introduced to him by his friend Yoko Ono. Cage wrote an overview about the macrobiotic diet. He includes a few recipes and explanations of foods in the macrobiotic diet as well as tips on how to cook those foods.

John Cage/Steve Reich: Three Dances/Four Organs (Angel 1974)

 






















From the back cover notes (enclosed):
 
John Cage:Three Dances For Two Amplified Prepared Pianos

The prepared piano, a Cage innovation, is a grand piano with screws, bolts, washers, plastic, rubber, felt etc. inserted according to precisely detailed instructions between the strings- completely changing the tone color, attack and volume and duration of each note.
More simply, it transforms the piano into a kind of percussion orchestra of steel drums, gamelans, rattles and low congas, all under the control of one keyboard player. Cage used the prepared instrument first in the dance piece Bacchanale in 1938 and subsequently in many pieces of the '40's- all concerned with dance rhythms and exotic Eastern color and mood. By 1945 Cage's ideas had advanced to the point of writing his most ambitious prepared piano work, these Three Dances.

Cage calls them "virtuoso" pieces, and indeed they are in many ways. Most obviously, the third dance is a moto-perpetuo tour-de-force of pounding jungle rhythms.But the subtleties of the gamelan-like music of the first dance and the melodic second dance provide plenty of finger and brain numbing complexities. "Virtuoso" too is the preparation of the instruments (the most complex he ever devised; with as many as
six objects altering the sound of a single note. Finally there is the composition itself, a maze of ostinati, rhythmic canons, talas, mirror images, number series and changing textures all totally determined by the composer.

Perhaps most remarkable in these pieces is Cage's ability to escape entirely from thinking in terms of the keyboard - of G's and A-flat's - and to plunge into uncharted regions of complex and then-unknown sounds that the prepared piano actually produces. (For the performer this is enough of a problem to produce temporary schizophrenia, as he fingers his ever trustworthy A-flat only to have it go "Kahbong".

For Cage to have solved this problem so brilliantly is a testament to his compositional technique, imagination, and taste - all of which are plainly revealed in these Three Dances. -Michael Tilson-Thomas


Steve Reich: Four Organs

Four Organs was composed in January 1970. It begins with a short pulsing chord which gradually gets longer and longer in duration. As the chord stretches out, slowly resolving and unresolving, a sort of slow-motion music is created. The maracas lay down a steady time grid of even eighth notes throughout, enabling the performers to play together while mentally counting up to as much as 200 beats and more on a given cycle of sustained notes.

Four Organs is the only piece of work I am aware of that is composed exclusively of the gradual augmentation (lengthening) of individual tones within a single chord.From beginning to end there are no changes of pitch or timbre..All changes are rhythmic and simply consist of gradually increasing durations.

The original idea for Four Organs came out of anelectronic musical device I built in 1968-69 with the help of an engineer from Bell Labrotories. This device, the Phase Shifting Pulse Gate,  could gradually alter the phase position between a number of continuously pulsing tones. If all tones were in phase (pulsed at the same instant) a  repeating chord would be heard. If the tones were moved slightly out of phase a repeating rippling broken chord would be heard, and if moved further out of phase, a repeating melodic pattern would result. There was also a control on the device to shorten or lenghtn the duration of each pulse. I began to think of gradually extending the durations of individual pulsing tones but like a sort of horizontal bar graph in time.

since I was becoming disenchanted with electronic devices, largely because of their mechanical sounding rhythms and pitches and the lack of bodily involvement in making music with them, I began to think instead of simply holding down individual notes longer and longer on an organ. Insted of a digital clock to count and produce regular pulses, I began to think of a musician playing a steady pulse with a rattle (maracas) which the organists could then count  together from.

Four Organs is thus an example of a piece of live music with a rhythmic structure, the basic idea of which derives from an electronic device.This feedback of ideas from electro-mechanical devices to instrumental and vocal music has been important in several compositions of mine and has brought me to think of electronic music as primarily an interlude filled with new ideas for the ongoing history of instrumental and vocal music. -Steve Reich

Side One:John Cage: Three Dances For Two Amplified Prepared Pianos (1945)

a1: No.1 (6:29)
a2: No.2 (7:07)
a3: No.3 (8:52)

Michael Tilson-Thomas & Ralph Grierson : Prepared Pianos

Side Two: Steve Reich: Four Organs (1970) For four electric organs and maracas

b1: Four Organs (24:13)

Michael Tilson-Thomas
Ralph Grierson
Roger Kellaway
Steve Reich: Electric Organs
Tom Raney: Maracas

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Updates about Past Posts Featuring Cage

John Cage has been featured in several posts in this blog. The posts have been about recordings devoted only to Cage's compositions, compilations that include Cage or performers' recordings that include one or a few more works by Cage. Since we are focusing on Cage this week, we encourage you to explore these past posts if you have not already done so. Some of the past posts include:

John Cage - Cheap Imitation

John Cage - Empty Words Part IV

John Cage - Variations II/Eight Whiskus/Music for Two/Ryoanji

John Cage - Complete Piano Music Vol. 1: The Prepared Piano 1940-1952

John Cage - Litany for the Whale

Amadinda Percussion Group - Works by Varese, Chavez, Cage and Harrison
includes a few of Cage's pieces including "Amores", "Double Music" [collaboration with Lou Harrison] and an excellent performance of "4'33""

Stefan Hussong and Mike Svoboda - Anarchic Harmonies -- Frescobaldi Cage
some tracks are some of Cage's "Forty-Four Harmonies"

John Cage and Lejaren Hiller/Ben Johnston - split release
side one of the LP is Cage and Hiller's "HPSCHD"

various artists compilation - New Electronic Music from Leaders of the Avant Garde
side one of the LP is Cage's "Variations II" performed by David Tudor

The posts above have been re-upped recently.

Some other additional past Cage posts include:

John Cage - Imaginary Landscapes

John Cage/Christian Wolff - split release
side A is Cage's "Cartridge Music" performed by Cage and David Tudor

John Cage - Variations IV

John Cage - Variations IV Volume II

Harry Partch and John Cage - Music of Harry Partch and John Cage

various artists compilation - Concert Percussion for Orchestra

There are also more posts featuring Cage's works. Not every post including his name as a label has been re-upped yet. We're trying to work on it.

What we have posted so far is only a very small portion of recordings featuring Cage's works. There are many more out there and we encourage to explore those too.

This Week of Cage (in Honor of the Cage Centennial)

This week sees the 100th anniversary of the birth of John Cage on the day of Wednesday, September 5, 2012.

John Cage is arguably the most influential musical thinker of the twentieth century.

A pioneer of musical methods which have been adopted by numerous composers who have come after him, Cage has followed many paths: chance, extended instrumental technique, found sound, silence and graphic scores, to name but a few.

Information about Cage is readily available to anyone who is interested, and Cage wrote a number of books which remain in print.

To celebrate this occasion, a number of new posts of Cage's music will appear this week, and new links will be posted for past Cage posts which have gone offline.

We hope you enjoy them.

Victoria Looseleaf - Harpnosis

Victoria Looseleaf - Harpnosis

released on LP in 1984

The intent on this album of harp music is to help calm and relax its listeners which it does. It's one of those new-age type recordings that draws from classical music. It is alluring and beautiful. When I spotted a copy of this in the flea market and saw the names Satie and Cage on it, I knew I had to have it.

The liner notes give Looseleaf's bio at the time of the album's release:

Victoria Looseleaf was classically trained in both piano and harp. She earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and then received a master's of fine arts in the performance and literature of the harp from Mills College. She has appeared in chamber music concerts and as a featured soloist in San Francisco, New York, Southern California and Europe. Currently residing in Laguna Beach, Ms. Looseleaf is perfecting the art of harpnosis, a technique she herself originated. Harpnosis, a de-stressing and relaxation practice, combines the most cogent aspects of psychology, analysis, meditation, sensory input and music.

Victoria Looseleaf recorded another album called Beyond Harpnosis (which I am on the lookout for). Then she quit releasing music and went on to do a cable public-access show called The Looseleaf Report that aired only in Los Angeles and New York. It totaled somewhere around 400 episodes and aired from 1987 to 2008. It had some big name celebrities and other interesting personalities as guests. So far, I found only one episode of her show, but it's a good one, an interview of Timothy Leary. Another interesting tidbit is that she wrote a biography of Leonardo Dicaprio whom she says she knows quite well personally.

She is currently writing a blog of the same name as her TV show where she covers the arts as well as contributing articles to The Los Angeles Times, Dance Magazine, among other publications.



Tracklisting:

Side One

1. Premiere Gymnopedie {3:02}
composed by Erik Satie

2. La Fille aux cheveux de lin {2:17}
composed by Claude Debussy

3. Deuxieme Gymnopedie {2:32}
composed by Erik Satie

4. Premiere Arabesque {4:14}
composed by Claude Debussy

5. Troisieme Gymnopedie {2:20}
composed by Erik Satie

6. Clair de lune {5:07}
composed by Claude Debussy

7. Air on a G string {2:48}
composed by Johann Sebastian Bach

Side Two

1. Canon in D {5:29}
composed by Johann Pachelbel

2. Andante {3:55}
composed by Johann Sebastian Bach

3. In a Landscape {11:58}
composed by John Cage

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Open Percussion

Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen - Open Percussion

released in 2002

Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen - percussion and voice

Unlike other instruments, it is impossible to say that percussion is a specific instrument. Indeed one may argue that percussion is not even a group of instruments but numerous different groups. In total, percussion instruments range over the primary acoustic categories of sounds: stone, wood, metal and skin. The variations in size and shape, expression and sound are enormous and surely unique in acoustical music - from cymbals the size of an ear and objects of stone and wood to gigantic drums and gongs as well as tempered instruments such as vibraphone, marimba and glockenspiel.

This enormous arsenal of sonic possibilities has long fascinated composers; all the more so since the early works of Edgar Varese, Henry Cowell and John Cage. Besides the extended range of sonorities, what is new in composing for percussion lies in the possibility of distilling the pulse and rhythmical aspects of the music. Rhythm is in many respects just as complex a phenomenon as melody and harmony. In the pieces by Iannis Xenakis and Rolf Wallin on this disc it is the development of the rhythm and the sonorities that expand or bring the music to life. The rhythmical processes create tensions, relaxations, even pulses or chaotic surfaces. While in the pieces by Franco Donatoni and Ase Hedstrom there are also harmonic and melodic processes at work, here too the rhythmical progress is essential as a structural and expressive element of the musical tempus. With Cage one is more conscious of cyclical, repetitive rhythms. The works on this disc thus give us an understanding of the fascinating variety of writing for percussion. At the same time it is a programme which places great demands on its performer, demands for rhythmic and sonic precision in order to take us from the chaotically pulsating to the softly moving; from the extrovertly explosive in Xenakis and Wallin to the introvert and theatrical in Cage. (Henrik Hellstenius)Tracklisting:

1. Rebonds: I {7:19}
composed by Iannis Xenakis for percussion solo (1987-89)

2. Rebonds: II {6:59}
composed by Iannis Xenakis for percussion solo (1987-89)

3. Open I {5:12}
improvisation by Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen

4. Flow {7:44}
composed by Ase Hedstrom for marimba (1990)

5. The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs {3:05}
composed by John Cage for voice and piano (1942)

6. Omar: I {5:42}
composed by Franco Donatoni for solo vibraphone (1985)

7. Omar: II {8:55}
composed by Franco Donatoni for solo vibraphone (1985)

8. Open II {2:52}
improvisation by Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen

9. A Flower {3:47}
composed by John Cage for voice and piano (1950)

10. Stonewave Part 1 {8:40}
composed by Rolf Wallin, version for solo percussion (1990)

11. Stonewave Part 2 {4:54}
composed by Rolf Wallin, version for solo percussion (1990)

12. Open III {3:56}
improvisation by Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen

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HPSCHD/String Quartet No. 2

John Cage and Lejaren Hiller/Ben Johnston - HPSCHD/String Quartet No. 2

LP released in 1969 or 1970

HPSCHD (1967-1969) for harpsichords & computer-generated sound tapes

composed by John Cage & Lejaren Hiller

performers:

Antoinette Vischer - Neupert Bach-model harpsichord (Solo II)
Neely Bruce - Hubbard double harpsichord with 17% Eltro time compression (Solo VI)
David Tudor - Baldwin solid-body electronic harpsichord (Solo I)

This recording of HPSCHD was made possible through use of facilities of the Experimental Music Studio and the Department of Computer Science of the University of Illinois, Urbana.

The esthetic is what we think in the presence of the object. The artist's means are not esthetic but his thinking on them is; his esthetic thought prevails over the means to make a work of art. The rules of fugue or sonata form prophesy no esthetic consequence, except by the thought and doing of the artist.
The sound object HPSCHD - "harpsichord" reduced to the computer's 6-letter-word limit becomes HPSCHD - may be the most elaborately defined sound composite so far achieved by deliberate formal composition. All "chance" factors occur within limits closely or widely permitted by the makers. Each part includes ideas from both composers; together they shaped it. Their thought, the object, and our thinking responses, in whatever relationship we hear it, decide our reaction to this work as a work of art.
HPSCHD consists of 51 electronic sound tapes and 7 solo compositions for harpsichord. Writing in the avant-garde music magazine Source, Cage explains that the piece can exist as "a performance of one to seven live harpsichords and one to fifty-one tapes." The present record is a composition including 3 "live" solos across a composite of the 51 tapes.
The source work, Introduction to the Composition of Waltzes by Means of Dice, is attributed to Mozart (K. ANH. C 30.01). For each measure of a 32-measure "empty" form (four 8-measure sections) the composer provides 11 alternative "composed" measures, the choice made by throw of dice. Measure 8 is always the same. With each section repeated the final form is 64 measures (AABBAABB), lasting onem inute. This Dice Game repeated 20 times is Solo II. Using now a computer-derived numerical system borrowed from the digital principle of I-ching (an ancient Chinese oracular or wisdom book), assemble another 64 measures of the same pattern, until another 20 successive assemblages fill 20 minutes. Solos III-VI each start with one realization of the Dice Game, progressively replacing the original choice of measures by: Solo III, passages from Mozart piano sonatas, treble and bass together as written; Solo IV, the same, treble and bass dissociated; Solos V & VI, associated and dissociated bass and treble measures from keyboard works by Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Gottschalk, Busoni, Schoenberg, Cage, and Hiller. Solo I is computer-written in 12-tone equal temperament on the same formulae which are used for the 51 sound tapes. Solo VII is anything of Mozart's chosen by the soloist, played as he wishes.
The 51 sound tapes contain music in equal-tempered scales of, successively, 5 to 56 tones in the octave, each tone deviating over a field of 129 (the half-interval up or down divided by 64 or the equal-tempered tone). Each tape is composed according to a series of programs: e.g., from simple repetitive tones and silences across a field to non-repetitive tones and complexly varies spaces. The patterns are overlaid and continually change, the more redundant being more clearly differentiated, the effect rather like individual trees merging into a forest. Other computer-formalized programs, for note sequence, time (in units), successive events, melodic "goals" (without cadence) and types (diatonic, chromatic, chordal arpeggiation), volume, and dynamics, are similarly intermixed. (Peter Yates)

String Quartet No. 2 (1964)

composed by Ben Johnston

performers:

The Composers Quartet: Matthew Raimondi - violin, Anahid Ajemian - violin, Bernard Zaslov - viola, Seymour Barab - cello

HPSCHD and the Second Quartet of Ben Johnston embody two extremes of esthetic experience. The multiple routines and subroutines of HPSCHD, although resulting from personal choices by the two collaborators, are in effect as impersonal as statistics or the Golden Section. The decisions concerning the intonational and melodic relationships of the Quartet are as personal as a fine handwriting - in many cultures as highly esteemed as any work of art. Neither work is "classic" or "romantic." Each is as free of the conventional indices for analysis as of the customary signals for emotion - the esthetic equivalent of an experiment in pure research. Except the harpsichord solos, the sound medium of each work is composed in an intonation (system or scale of pitches) differing from the 12-note equal temperament of the piano. The macrotonal scales (5 to 11 pitches in the octave) and the microtonal scales (13 to 56 pitches in the octave) of HPSCHD are microtonally varied systems of equal division of the octave, without close relationship to the tones and intervals of the overtone series. They are disparate points of sound lacking acoustical coordination and rich overtone sonority. The melodic scales of Johnston's Quartet are unequal interval systems in just intonation: directly related in some degree to the overtone series and therefore proportionately the more sonorous. The musicians perform these unusual pitch and interval systems with extreme accuracy. If the tones sound "wrong" by our habituated hearing, we must accept the fact that they are "right."
Cage and Hiller made their esthetic decisions by means of computer. Ben Johnston's decisions follow a contrary esthetic philosophy, explained in his paper Three Attacks on a Problem: "What can be grasped with equal alacrity by ear, by mathematics, and by intuitive feeling is the best material for art. And this intelligibility is not a mere matter of conditioning: some relations are naturally more easily understood than others.
"In tacitly accepting as an arbitrary 'given' the 12-tone equal-tempered scale, Schoenberg committed music to the task of exhausting the remaining possibilities in a closed pitch system. Many composers, tired of tonal cliches, have either abandoned pitch or, more accurately, have organized it as if it were noise. [Noise can be defined as the totally random mingling of sounds.] "The use of harmonic intervals tuned 'just' (by eliminating the roughness of beats) provides a better point of departure than any tempered equivalents. To make a just intonation pitch system, you select a small number of generative intervals which you can tune precisely, by ear. The unison, the octave, the perfect fifth and perfect major third will suffice. "I wanted to write a piece in which the players would need to take much greater care than usual in locating the pitches. Each would be dependent upon making precisely the right interval with some other player's note. There are three distinct kinds of interval texture in this quartet." (Peter Yates)

Tracklisting:

Side One

1. John Cage and Lejaren Hiller - HPSCHD {20:50}

Side Two

1. Ben Johnston - String Quartet No. 2: Light and quick {2:42}

2. Ben Johnston - String Quartet No. 2: Intimate, spacious {5:19}

3. Ben Johnston - String Quartet No. 2: Extremely minute and intense {6:35}

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Prepared Piano: The First Four Decades

various artists compilation - Prepared Piano: The First Four Decades

LP released in 1983

recorded at EMRLD Studios, Carson, California, June 1979

Bacchanale (1940) composed by John Cage

performed by Richard Bunger - piano

In the late thirties I was employed as accompanist for the classes in modern dance at the Cornish School in Seattle, Washington. These classes were taught by Bonnie Bird who had been a member of Martha Graham's Company. Among her pupils was an extraordinary dancer, Syvilla Fort, later an associate in New York City of Katherine Dunham. Three or four days before she was to perform her Bacchanale, Syvilla asked me to write music for it. I agreed.
The Cornish Theatre in which Syvilla Fort was to perform had no space in the wings. There was also no pit. There was, however, a piano at one side in front of the stage. I couldn't use percussion instruments for Syvilla's dance, though, suggesting Africa, they would have been suitable; they would have left too little room for her to perform. I was obliged to write a piano piece.
I spent a day or so conscientiously trying to find an African 12-tone row. I had no luck. I decided that what was wrong was not me but the piano. I decided to change it.
Having decided to change the sound of the piano in order to make a music suitable for Syvilla Fort's Bacchanale, I went to the kitchen, got a pie plate, brought it into the living room and placed it on the piano strings. I played a few keys. The piano sounds had been changed, but the pie plate bounced around due to the vibrations, and, after a while, some of the sounds that had been changed no longer were. I tried something smaller, nails between the strings. They slipped down between and lengthwise along the strings. It dawned on me that screws or bolts would stay in position. They did. And I was delighted with the sounds they produced. I wrote the Bacchanale quickly and with the excitement continual discovery provided. (John Cage)

In 1976, I was very excited to have the opportunity to examine the original, "authentic" preparation materials, which John said were his and Jeanne Kirstein's (she made the first recording of Bacchanle for Columbia).
My recording utilizes the approach to preparation Jeanne Kirstein and John Cage developed for her recording, which I believe is more correct than the presently published version of the Bacchanale score. (Richard Bunger)

May Rain (1941) composed by Lou Harrison

performed by Richard Bunger - piano and Joan La Barbara - voice

text by Elsa Gidlow

May Rain was written for my friend William Weaver to sing. The beautiful poem by my wonderful friend Elsa Gidlow first appeared in the very early thirties, and currently is printed in her Sapphic Songs Seventeen to Seventy (Diana Press, 1976). The music was printed in the first issue of Peter Garland's Soundings. (Lou Harrison)

For Prepared Piano composed by Alan Stout

performed by Richard Bunger - piano

I Nervously
II Tranquillo
III Moderato, serenely
II Tranquillo (da capo)
IV Distantly, unemotionally

For Prepared Piano was composed when I was a student. Henry Cowell introduced me to John Cage in November 1951. I was very taken with the idea of macro-microcosmic form of Cage's sonatas and interludes. Cowell encouraged me to compose in as many styles as possible until I found one I could call my own. This is a piece outside the main body of my output, which reflects my imitation of Cage's works. (Alan Stout)

Silent Night (1976) composed by Samuel Pellman

performed by Delores Stevens - piano

Silent Night was composed in the autumn of 1976. It is not programmatic except in the sense that it evokes sounds and feelings the composer recalls from a silent, solitary walk on a snowy December evening some years ago. The material of the piece is comprised of a limited number of thematic/textural fragments, subjected to a good deal of manipulation, and arranged into something of a mosaic form. These fragments, however, tend to coalesce into larger-scale sections, which together comprise a five-part form for the work, and are subtitled as follows: Twilight Snowfall, Distant Lights, Reverie, Journey to Bethlehem, and Coda (Rest in Heavenly Piece). All 88 notes of the piano are prepared: clothespins and rubber erasers are affixed to the strings of the lower octaves; the middle octaves are altered by round or flat-head stove bolts; the upper octaves are given an extra sparkle by wood screws which are fit loosely between the strings. The piece is dedicated to the composer's wife, Colleen. (from the liner notes)

Something for Flute and Piano (1967) composed by August Wegner

performed by Delores Stevens - piano and John Heitmann - flute

Something for Flute and Piano might be thought of as a dance from some mythical, exotic land. Although the texture is somewhat pointillistic, the pulse is quite intense throughout most of the piece. Multiphonics are used with the flute and there is some improvisation in the middle section for both instruments. The piece is essentially percussive with the flute being treated both as a percussion instrument and the piano being used as a percussion instrument and, in the middle section, partially as a "source tape" for improvisation. The work is meant to be enjoyed for its play of rhythm and timbre. (from the liner notes)

Mirrors for Pianist and Tape Recordist (1978) composed by Richard Bunger

performed by Delores Stevens - piano and Richard Bunger - tape recorder

Mirrors for Pianist and Tape Recordist was composed in August, 1978, during a time I had become obsessed with the works of Loren Eiseley and was rereading Jorge Luis Borges's Book of Imaginary Beings. I was struck by the parallel between Eiseley's essay "The Snout" and the ancient Chinese myth of the kingdom of the mirrors - wherein lies a world temporarily doomed to merely repeat the actions of the human world. "Nonetheless, a day will come when the magic spell will be shaken off," according to Borges. I have ever since held all "lower" forms in greater respect.
The noted contemporary pianist David Burge has written that Mirrors for Pianist and Tape Recordist "ranks with the best that has been written for the instrument during the 70s." (Richard Bunger)

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. John Cage - Bacchanale {9:49}

2. Lou Harrison - May Rain {2:25}

3. Alan Stout - For Prepared Piano {9:00}

Side 2

1. Samuel Pellman - Silent Night {7:29}

2. August Wegner - Something for Flute and Piano {5:35}

3. Richard Bunger - Mirrors for Pianist and Tape Recordist {8:32}

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Litany for the Whale

John Cage - Litany for the Whale

Performed by Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices

I have been performing, reading, looking at, and listening to John Cage's work for years - I number myself amongst those who consider him to be an important composer and not simply an important influence. One of the earliest Theatre of Voices concerts, at London's Almeida Festival in 1990, was devoted primarily to Cage's music, and, since then, I seem to have been working toward this recording. After I moved to California in 1990, I began putting together the forever-fluctuating nucleus of the present Theatre of Voices, and this included working with Shabda Owens on text-sound compositions (by Cage amongst others) using electronics. Shabda has known the composer Terry Riley for some years (he tunes pianos in Just Intonation for both Terry and LaMonte Young) and made it possible for the three of us to get together at Terry's house in the Sierras and pre-record some of the materials used on this disc. The remaining material was recorded later in Germany, though only after moving to Bloomington, Indiana, in 1996 was I in a position to bring the project to fruition. It now forms the first of a projected series of recordings of modern American music which Theatre of Voices will undertake over the coming years. (Paul Hillier)

Tracklisting:

1. Litany for the Whale {25:49}
Alan Bennett and Paul Elliott - voices

2. Aria No. 2 {6:23}
Paul Hillier - voice; Shabda Owens - electronics

3. Five {5:04}
Andrea Fullington, Allison Zelles, Alan Bennett, Paul Elliott and Shabda Owens - voices

4. The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs {3:06}
Paul Hillier - voice; Alan Bennett - closed piano

5. Solo for Voice 22 [from Songbooks] {3:48}
Andrea Fullington and Paul Hillier - voices; Shabda Owens - electronics

6. Experiences No. 2 {4:08}
Andrea Fullington - voice

7. 36 Mesostics re and not re Marcel Duchamp {11:41}
Terry Riley and Paul Hillier - voices; Shabda Owens - electronics

8. Aria {10:16}
Andrea Fullington, Allison Zelles, Alan Bennett, Paul Elliott, Shabda Owens, Terry Riley and Paul Hillier - voices; Shabda Owens - electronics

9. The Year Begins to Be Ripe {1:22}
Paul Hillier - voice; Alan Bennett - closed piano

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Variations II/Eight Whiskus/Music for Two/Ryoanji

John Cage - Variations II/Eight Whiskus/Music for Two/Ryoanji

Performers:

Malcolm Goldstein - violin
Matthias Kaul - percussion, glass harmonica

When discussing John Cage's music, the word "anarchy" is never far away. There is nothing wrong with this, if the concept of anarchy is used discerningly, and if we remember that anything that lacks not just regimentation but also discipline is doomed to failure. Only those for whom others set the limits can proceed without consequences. By contrast, those who define the rules of their actions for themselves are best off being precise in those actions. Anarchy and discipline: the compelling logic of this combination is best demonstrated using the example of John Cage's lifework. For, however iconoclastic John Cage's thoughts and actions might seem, the open universe that he preached was always precisely surveyed.
Even in his early work, Cage revealed a marked preference for measurement. The sound explosions of his Constructions in Metal or his pieces for prepared piano occur within an exact grid of rhythmic structures, predefined subdivisions of time, within which Cage arranges the sounds and noises. And even in the Variations I of 1958, a (belated) birthday present for David Tudor, in which he proclaimed "anarchy by means of the negation of time" (Heinz-Klaus Metzger), he did not abolish measurement when he relinquished rhythmic structures. On the contrary, the "construction of a pure 'in itself,' the emancipation of every 'for other,'" as Metzger analyzes the situation of this composition, is based directly on operations involving measurement. Six transparent sheets - one of which has 27 different points, the others five lines each - can be superimposed in different ways. The lines represent different parameters of the sound event: pitch, volume, timbre, duration, and point of entry. When perpendicular lines are drawn through the points from each line, it gives values, distances to be measured or simply observed, as Cage puts it in his introduction to Variations I. If Cage's procedure for generating a musical text by means of points and lines might seem arbitrary, there is no denying the exacting subordination of the performer under this maxim of "measure and comply."
The same is true of Variations II, conceived four years later (and presented here in a version prepared by Malcolm Goldstein for violin and glass harmonica), where the plurality of possible results is even greater. The material provided by Cage consists of five small sheets with a point each, and six larger ones each with a line. The sheets can be superimposed in any way imaginable; five of the lines have the same function as in Variations I, while the sixth one determines the number of tones (in Variations I this was determined by the sizes of the points, which were fixed).
...
The visual contrast between the conspicuous macroforms of the fifteen large stones and the raked gravel, which from a distance seems homogeneous but from up close reveals an anarchic micropattern, that characterizes the famous stone garden of the Ryoanji monastery in Kyoto inspired Cage first to the drawings and etchings of the cycle Where R=Ryoanji. The musical composition Ryoanji transforms that visual contrast into sound in a way that is as appropriate as it is original.
...
Another variant of this surveying of preexisting materials so typical of Cage is found in the technique of writing through, in which texts of the most diverse provenance - from the Bible to James Joyce - are "filtered" through mesostichs. In Eight Whiskus for solo voice from 1984, Cage applied the method to a poem by the Australian poet Chris Mann, and since the poem is called whistlin is did, and since Cage used it as the source for eight haikus structured like mesostichs, he invented the word "whis-kus" for the results. Using chance procedures, Cage assigned the syllables to the notes of the F-minor scale, producing a piece of vocal music that is very unusual within his oeuvre: with a key signature of four flats and purely diatonic! The imaginary folk song that is generated by this abstract method was reworked by Cage for solo violin a year later, after consulting with Malcolm Goldstein, such that the vowel and consonant qualities of the poem are transformed into various bowing positions, gradations of bowing pressure, and forms of articulation. According to Goldstein, "The tonal melodies are thereby extended, as lines of timbre-texture qualities, expressive of the bowed violin sounding."
...
Two extensive series of pieces - Music for ... of the years 1984 to 1987 and the 47 compositions, ranging from solo to orchestral works, that make up the so-called number pieces that began with Two - demonstrate that Cage had now found a solid and productive method for reconciling his anarchic ideals with the conventions of traditional concert practice. The numbers that the computerized I Ching generates are as "random" as the distances between the perpendicular lines connecting the lines and points in arbitrarily arranged transparent sheets, and just as the sheets of the Variations allow for an incalculable number of versions, the numbers of the I Ching oracle can be read as answers to a wide range of questions. The questions that interested Cage in the reductionist pieces of his later years were ones like: "How many successive sounds should I place in a 'time bracket' of one minute? How many components should make up these events? What pitch and what dynamic should these sounds have?" Music for ... provides 17 half-hour-long answers in the form of independent parts for different instruments that are not coordinated into a score, which can be played as solo parts or in any possible combination. (Peter Niklas Wilson)

Tracklisting:

1. Variations II {20:10}
(1961) realization for violin and glass harmonica

2. Eight Whiskus {5:21}
(1985) for violin

3. Music for Two {29:40}
(1985) for violin and percussion

4. Ryoanji {19:51}
(1983-85) for voice and percussion; voice part transcribed for violin by Malcolm Goldstein

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John Cage/Christian Wolff split release REPOST

John Cage/Christian Wolff - split release

I posted this LP a couple of years ago which was a gift from one of this blog's visitors. Apparently the link in the original post is dead. Since I managed to obtain a copy, I decided to use my copy for reposting as my copy from the original post is buried somewhere in my archive of CD-Rs. If you got this from the original post you may want to get it from this repost as liner notes and photos from the record jacket are included this time.


The title, CARTRIDGE MUSIC, derives from the use in its performance of "Cartridges," phonograph pick-ups into which needles are inserted for playing recordings. Contact microphones are also used. These latter are applied to chairs, tables, waste baskets, etc.; various suitable objects (toothpicks, matches, slinkies, piano wires, feathers, etc.) are inserted in the cartridges. Both the microphones and cartridges are connected to amplifiers which go to loud-speakers, the majority of the sounds produced being small and requiring amplification in order to be heard. The dials of the amplifiers affecting volume and tone are controlled by the performers.
...
The sounds which result are noises, some complex, others extremely simple such as amplifier feed-back, loud-speaker hum, etc. (All sounds, even those ordinarily thought to be undesirable, are accepted in this music.)
...
Following the suggestion of David Tudor, the recording is the superimposition of four performers by the two of us. This is within the spirit of the directions given which accompany the material supplied ("there may be any number of performers equal at least to the number of cartridges and not greater than twice the number of cartridges"), and it takes advantage of physical possibilities in a recording studio which are not available in concert performance. (John Cage)



These are performances that happen to have been recorded under very good conditions.

The three pieces are all written in such a way that no two performances are likely to be the same. The way the instruments coordinate and the fact that the players constantly have options of what to play (say, one of three pitches, any pitch at a fixed loudness, any loudness at a fixed timbre) brings this about. The coordination - how the players play together - is not, in turn, for the most part, related to fixed time, of a beat or of the clock. The players are given indications of when to play simultaneously, one immediately after the other, overlapping, or alone. A situation is indicated, but not when one is to enter into it, nor, necessarily, for how long one is in it. Durations of individual notes may be indicated as relatively short, long, or free, or they may be determined by the requirements of a situation. For example, it is indicated that two players play simultaneously for a free duration. One of the two, whoever decides to do so first (without prior agreement), starts to play. The other, hearing this, must join immediately. Both play. One of the two, whoever does so first, stops playing. The other must stop immediately. The sound may have come at any point of time and may have been of any duration, as the players played, either one of them deciding and the other according with the decision as he heard it, each at each juncture (beginning, alteration, and end) of the sound.

Each of the pieces are made up of parts of varying lengths which can be repeated any number of times: they will tend to be different at each repetition. The continuity of the parts within a piece, then, is up to the players. Each can decide to play where he can begin a part, and the others must follow. It may happen that the players lose their way when, for example, two start different parts simultaneously, or one starts a part (which he indicates by making the first sound in that part) and the other mistakes that sound for another. That is part of the piece. The players, once they are aware of what has happened, stop and make a new beginning. A piece lasts as long as the players wish to continue it. I chose performances that would fit on the record. (Christian Wolff)

Tracklisting:

Side A

1. John Cage - Cartridge Music {19:44}
John Cage and David Tudor - cartridges and contact microphones

Side B

1. Christian Wolff - Duo for Violinist and Pianist {5:04}
Kenji Kobayashi - violin, David Tudor - piano; composed in August 1961

2. Christian Wolff - Duet II {7:55}
Howard Hillyer - horn, David Tudor - piano; composed in January 1961

3. Christian Wolff - Summer {9:08}
Matthew Raimondi and Kenji Kobayashi - violins, Walter Trampler - viola, David Soyer - cello; composed in August 1961

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