John Cage
American composer, philosopher, writer and printmaker. He was educated in California and then made a study tour of Europe (1930-31), concentrating on art, architecture and music. On his return to the USA he studied music with Richard Buhlig, Adolph Weiss, Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg; in 1934 he abandoned abstract painting for music. An interest in extending the existing range of percussion instruments led him, in 1940, to devise the 'prepared piano' (in which the sound is transformed by the insertion of various objects between the strings) and to pioneer electronic sound sources.
American composer, philosopher, writer and printmaker. He was educated in California and then made a study tour of Europe (1930-31), concentrating on art, architecture and music. On his return to the USA he studied music with Richard Buhlig, Adolph Weiss, Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg; in 1934 he abandoned abstract painting for music. An interest in extending the existing range of percussion instruments led him, in 1940, to devise the 'prepared piano' (in which the sound is transformed by the insertion of various objects between the strings) and to pioneer electronic sound sources.
Etudes Boreales • Ryoanji
Very scarce John Cage album released on Mode Records in the early eighties. "This two-record set collects some terrific performances in solo and duo contexts and is also quite a fine welcome mat into the Cage . By comparing different versions of "Etudes Boreales" -- first piano solo, then cello solo, then combined -- much can be gleaned about the way this composer thinks, a endlessly interesting subject in itself. The individual players are virtuosos not only in playing but thinking as well, com…
Atlas Eclipticalis With Winter Music
Featured compositions: "Atlas Eclipticalis' (1961, for chamber ensemble); "Winter Music" (1957, for 3 pianos); "Atlas Eclipitcalis" (1961, for orchestra); "Winter Music" (1957, for 20 pianos). Cage's relationship with the Cornish Institute in Seattle dates back to the 1930s, when he taught there and performed as accompanist for many dance pieces. Cornish was also the scene of several of his musical discoveries and innovations. Cage's celebrated return to the Cornish Institute in 1983 led to thes…
Sonatas And Interludes / A Book Of Music
Sonatas And Interludes' for prepared piano (1946-48) performed by Joshua Pierce. 'A Book Of Music' for two prepared pianos (1944) performed by Joshua Pierce (left channel) and Maro Ajemian (right channel). Only one copy available.
Etudes Australes For Piano
Etudes Australes is a set of etudes for piano solo by John Cage, composed in 1974–5 for Grete Sultan. It comprises 32 aleatoric pieces written using star charts as source material. The etudes, conceived as duets for two independent hands, are extremely difficult to play. They were followed by two more collections of similarly difficult works: Freeman Etudes for violin (1977–90) and Etudes Boreales (1978) for cello and/or piano. Only one copy available.
Variations VII
In 1966, 10 New York artists and 30 engineers and scientists from Bell Telephone Laboratories collaborated on a series of innovative dance, music and theatre performances, 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, held in October at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City. The artists were John Cage, Lucinda Childs, Öyvind Fahlström, Alex Hay, Deborah Hay, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, David Tudor and Robert Whitman. Archival material has been assembled into 10 films, each of whic…
Music For Keyboard 1935-1948 / The Early Years
This double-CD set combines two of the key titles of Columbia Records's
legendary "Music of Our Time" series curated by David Behrman. Jeanne
Kirstein's recording of Cage's early keyboard works remains a touchstone
of Cagean interpretation notwithstanding the passage of time. Christian
Wolff recalls, "I remember Cage saying that Jeanne Kirstein's playing
caught the spirit in which the pieces were written at the time he wrote
them-a kind of simple excitement and enthusiasm (also, surely, ou…
Rumori alla Rotonda
Live recording at the Rotonda del Pellegrini, Milan, January 21st, 1959 featuring John Cage, Morton Feldman, Juan Hidalgo, Leopoldo La Rosa, and Walter Marchetti. Among all the events involving John Cage during the long stay in Europe that followed his controversial appearance at Darmstadt Ferienkurse in September 1958, the concert he held in Milan on January 21st perhaps represents a less well known episode.
Featuring Cage's intervention both as composer and performer of one's own work as well …
Cabaret per Nulla
This album comes from the love for Music. Contemporary music, but also Songs. From the love for History and People. From the observation of a stage before and after a concert. And from Friendship and Collaboration.Erik Satie and John Cage were two musicians of great influence and supreme coherence. In their rigorous path they choose the road to astonishment. On the road to their artistic ideal they met the “music”, when others only loosely saw it. Satie and Cage are, now historically, two compos…
Fontana mix-feed
Rare and now long out of print LP, originally released on Mass Art, performed and realized by Max Neuhaus. Technically, this LP consists of four realizations of John Cage’s 1958 Fontana Mix, an indeterminate graphic score originally intended to be used for a tape piece, with or without additional instruments. To say that, though, is not really to capture the unique nature of this music, or the unique nature of percussionist and electronic music pioneer Max Neuhaus’ take on Cage’s material.…
Freeman Etudes, Books One and Two
John Cage's Freeman Etudes are the modern equivalent of Paganini's virtuoso solo violin etudes. Each etude is completely notated down to the smallest detail, and the composer states "...are as intentionally as difficult as I can make them...So I think that this music, which is almost impossible, gives an instance of the practicality of the impossible." The detail and complexity of these etudes give them a unique and unusual spot in Cage's oeuvre.
These first two books (there are 8 etudes p…
The Piano Works 7 - Chess Serenade
A major discovery and first recording of an important Cage piece from 1944. In 1944, John Cage was invited to participate in “The Imagery of Chess” exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York City. The artists included Calder, Noguchi, Motherwell, Breton, Duchamp, Ernst, Man Ray, Tanning and other leading surrealists.Cage contributed a painting entitled “Chess Pieces”. It was purchased at the show and went into a private collection. For decades it was deemed lost and was (almost) forgotten…
Sonatas and Interludes
This landmark recording of John Cage’s prepared piano works performed by Mario Bertoncini was recorded back in December 1991. The sonatas are divided into four groups, each divided by the less overtly structured, rhapsodic interlude pieces. Bertoncini sensitivity to the displaced sonic characteristics of the piano is remarkable and suggests a rigorous dedication to Cage’s work.
The Piano Works 2 - Sonatas And Interludes For Prepared Piano
The Sonatas and Interludes enjoy a well deserved reputation as a masterwork and as a repertoire piece. But this is not a masterwork in the sense of other keyboard masterworks: Bach's Goldbergs, Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, Ives' Concord Sonata.
John Cage's masterwork is quite different -- a big piece with a quiet voice. The prepared piano operates entirely by muting: by attaching objects to the strings of the piano. Cage alters their sounds in various ways, turning the piano into a percussio…
Freeman Etudes, Books Three And Four
This CD presents the first recording of the second half of John Cage's Freeman Etudes for violin. Those familiar with the previously-released volume of this work will already know what to expect: the bewildering complexity of the Etudes and the astonishing virtuosity of Irvine Arditti's performance.
Convinced that the later, more complex etudes were unplayable, Cage abandoned work on the Freeman Etudes in 1980, after completing the first sixteen and beginning the eighteenth Etude. It wasn't…
Complete string quartets, volume 2
The Complete String Quartets Vol. 2. “String Quartet in Four Parts” (1949-50). “Four” (1989). The Arditti Quartet. The second volume of Cage's String Quartets features his first and last works in this repertoire. The well known and exquisitely beautiful, serenely Zen-like early quartet receives its first new recording in 16 years. It is a pivotal work in Cage's oeuvre, showing the composer's transition between the rhytmically complex percussion works before it and the chance works of the 1950s. …
Complete Short Works for Prepared Piano
The complete short prepared piano works collected on 2-CDs. John Cage's works for prepared piano expose his earliest experimentations in finding new and exotic sounds.Brief and attractive, they are among his most accessible work. This release marks the first time all of his short works for prepared piano have been made available in one set. All the prepared piano works are included aside from the magnum opus, Sonatas and Interludes. Pianist Philipp Vandr´e has recorded Sonatas and Interludes for…
One11 And 103
A performance for camera person and light, One11 is a film without subject. There is light but no persons, no things, no ideas about repetition and variation? Chance operations where used with respect to the shots, in black and white. The light environment was designed and programmed by John Cage and Andrew Culver, as was the editing of the film.The orchestral work 103 musically accompanies One11. Like the film, 103 is 90-minutes long, divided into seventeen parts - its density varies from solos…
A Cage of Saxophones 2
The 35th volume in Mode's Complete John Cage Edition is also the second release in Ulrich Krieger's series of interpretations for solo saxophone and saxophones with other instruments. Ensemble pieces of comparatively large dimensions were gathered on A Cage of Saxophones: Vol. 1, so this follow-up disc presents pieces for smaller combinations and solos, though with no less originality or charm. Even though most of these works were composed for open instrumentation, saxophones suit Cage's …
44 Harmonies from Apartment House 1776
Cage's "44 Harmonies" were originally written to form part of the sprawling bicentennial commission "Apartment House 1776", and take as their starting point late 18th century anthems and hymn tunes by William Billings, Jacob French, Andrew Law, James Lyon and the wonderfully-named Supply Belcher. Cage's compositional - or rather decompositional - method was to remove certain tones and extend others, and as James Pritchett points out in the (excellent as always for Mode) liners, he was delighted …
From Zero
Four films on JOHN CAGE by Frank Scheffer and Andrew Culver. Mode celebrates its 20th Anniversary in 2004 with the release of a major film on John Cage by renowned Dutch director Frank Scheffer in collaboration with Cage's long-time associate Andrew Culver. The group of films, entitled From Zero, are:* 19 QUESTIONS: Cage answers 19 questions on a variety of subjects, using chance operations to determine the duration of his colorful and often witty answers. A unique opportunity to view the Cagean…