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.
early music
“The room I entered was a dream of this room.” “It wasn't the hole in the landscape that gladdened us, it was the invitation to the weather to drop in anytime.” John Ashbery (both quotations from: Your Name Here 2000) “...all the hard dry studied Rules that ever was prescribed, will not enable any Person to form an Air any more than the bare Knowledge of the four and twenty Letters, and strict Grammatical Rules will qualify a Scholar for composing a Piece of Poetry, or properly adjust…
Empty Words
"Empty Words" begins by omitting sentences, has only phrases, words, syllables and letters. The second part omits the phrases, has only words, syllables and letters. The third part omits the words, has only syllables and letters. And the last part ... has nothing but letters and sounds. A mix of words, syllables, and letters obtained by subjecting the Journal of Henry David Thoreau to a series of I Ching chance operations. What was interesting to me was making English less understandab…
Beuger.Cage
Composed by Antoine Beuger (1) and John Cage (2)
Kathryn Gleasman Pisaro: oboe
Recorded in Hohenferchesar, August 1998 Engineer: Peter Hecker Produced by Antoine Beuger Layout by Daniel Bechem Includes liner notes in German and English by Kathryn Gleasman Pisaro
Accordion Music
Fold in; fold out: the breathing of the accordion. On this CD the accordion unfolds in a very special way, unusually close to the instrument. Four works, four worlds that seem to know each other; refer to each other like a greeting from far away. Hearing John Cage's ,,Cheap Imitation" played on accordion gives you the impression of folk music from an unknown, probably non-existent country. This music comes from nowhere, goes nowhere, is forever on its way.....Like ,,Sam Lazaro Bros". The Swiss c…
Die Natur der Klange: Neue Musik fur Harfe
Gabriele Emde-Hauffe was born in 1953 in Darmstadt, Germany. She received a humanistic education at a local grammar school in Darmstadt and started studying the harp after her A-levels, first in Darmstadt and finishing in Cologne. Conducted by Péter Eötvös, she worked out modern chamber music and modern improvisation by J. G. Fritsch and Vinko Globokar. Passing her exams in 1980 and 1981, she continued her studies of musical science at Cologne University, based on her thesis, "The Harp bet…
A composer's confessions
"A single sound by itself is neither musical nor not musical. It is simply a sound. And no matter what kind of a sound it is, it can become musical by taking its place in a piece of music. This point of view requires some adjustment of the definition of music which was given by my Aunt Phoebe. She hadsaid that music was made up of melody, harmony, and rhythm. Music now seemed to me to be the organisation of sound, organisation by any means of any sounds. This definition has the advantage …
The American Avant-Garde in the 20th Century
Following on from our popular primer A Young Person's Guide to the Avant-Garde, LTM now offers a more comprehensive overview of American avant-garde music in the 20th century.Commencing with early pioneers Charles Ives and George Antheil (including the celebrated, Futuristic Ballet Mechanique of 1924), this chronological double disc collection also includes pieces by émigré arrivals in the New World such as Leo Ornstein, Dane Rudhyar and Edgard Varèse, as well homegrown composers including Henry…
Electronic music for piano
Agostino Di Scipio (computer e live electronics), Ciro Lombardi (piano).
The Piano Works 9
'Haiku' (1950-51), 'Sixteen Dances' (1950-51), 'Alternate versions for piano & percussion'. Jovita Zhl, piano. Thomas Meixner, percussion. 'It is rare to discover a previously unknown work by John Cage today. So, what are the chances to discover two major piano pieces from the same period of 1950-51? Thanks to the dedicated work of Don Gillespie (who was Cage's contact at his publisher, C. F. Peters Corp.) and composer Walter Zimmermann, we have the two works recorded here. Both works were disco…
The Works for Organ
This release is the first complete recording of all of Cage's works for organ, plus 4'33' (on the DVD version only). Gary Verkade, organ of Gammelstad Church, Sweden. 'Some of 'The Harmony of Maine' (Supply Belcher)' (1976). 'Souvenir' (1984). 'ASLSP' (1985). 'Organ2ASLSP' (1987). Bonus Track on DVD only: 4'33' (1952). The organ is ideally suited to Cage's aesthetic - its multitude of stops make it the ultimate 'prepared' instrument. The fact that sound emanates from a number of pipes placed at …
Sonatas & Interludes
How rare, and valuable, it is to be able to experience one composer’s masterwork through the sensibility of another significant, stylistically distinct composer – via a performance that reveals unexpected aspects of both. that is to say, an approach to performance not as an act of self-conscious, flamboyant or dramatic interpretation, according to the concerns of technique, expression, and projection that are at the heart of an instrumentalist’s presentation of a musical score to an audie…
Music Of Changes
The title is a double pun. The score is the first that John Cage devised allowing the hexagrams of the I Ching to fully determin e how the music would procee d, event by event, gesture by gesture—the musical details (pitch, duration, dynamic s, density, tempi) being painstakingly, albeit fortuitously, derived through point-by-point con sultation from charts of possi bilities designed by the composer. (Christian Wolff, Cage’s young friend and musical associate, had presented Cage with a co…
Variations V
This is the first commerical release of John Cage’s Variations V, from the legendary studio production made by NDR German Television, Hamburg, in 1967. It marks an early pinnacle in recorded Cage/Cunningham collaborations, and is one of the few available films of a Cunningham Dance Company performance from the 1960s. With music for an orchestra of electronic soundproducers by John Cage performed by Cage with David Tudor and Gordon Mumma to choreography by Merce Cunningham performed by Cun…
How To Get Out Of The Cage
From 1982 to 1992 Frank Scheffer worked with John Cage on many different occasions, which resulted in a unique archive of historical audio-visual material. Based on this unique archive, including interviews, musical performances and images of different locations related to his life and work—filmed on 16mm—the filmmaker Scheffer created How to Get Out of the Cage—A Year with John Cage. Frank Scheffer wrote: "The famous artist Marina Abramovic introduced me to John Cage. She thought it woul…
Journeys in Sound
This documentary by Oscar-winner Allan Miller and Emmy-winner Paul Smaczny pays tribute to the most fascinating American avant-garde composer John Cage. Shot in America, Germany and Japan, the program premieres rare archival footage; presenting concert excerpts and a set of short episodes, featuring associates of Cage and contemporary artists, playfully delineating different aspects of John Cage. The documentary features interviews with Yoko Ono, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, Steffen Schleiermac…
Cartridge Music
Cartridge Music was composed in 1960 and is one of Cage’s earliest attempts to produce live electronic music. Sounds are produced using cartridges from record players. Performers insert different objects into the opening of a cartridge, and manipulate them in a variety of ways (scraping, touching, striking etc) so that the sound of the object is picked up by the cartridge and then fed to an amplifier and speaker. The choice of objects and means of manipulation are left entir…
John Cage 100
This year, on 5 September, the music world is going to celebrate the 100th birthday of the American composer John Cage. WERGO very early turned to the oeuvre of the avant-garde musician and to the release of his most important works on LP or CD – including “Etudes Australes”, “Roaratorio” or “Sonatas and Interludes”, his “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra” or his “Diary: How to improve the World (You will only make Matters worse)”. The label now presents outstanding productions of the compo…
I Want the Beatles to Play at my Art Center
Music From the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter Archives 1968-2011. This 2LP presents seminal works of music from the nearly 50-year history of Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (HOK). When HOK founder Sonja Henie exclaimed that she wanted The Beatles to play at her art center, in essence she expressed its founding ambition to produce and stage a lively cross-artistic program that captured the contemporary spirit of the day in live form. This release is filled with previously-unreleased material recorded at H…
Sonatas and Interludes
The recordings of John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes (1946-48) with Yuji Takahashi on preparated piano was originally made in 1965 and released on two LP:s 1966.They were Fylkingen Records' first releases with the intention to make documentations of Fylkingen's concerts in public, and a test of the sound expert Stig Carlsson's thoughts about recording techniques.The Sonates and interludes are an attempt to express in music the "permanent emotions" of Indian tradition: the heroic, the erotic, the …
Song Books
Works for voices & electronics, performed by Lore Lixenberg, Gregory Rose, and Robert Worby. Recorded in 2012. "This year, 2012, the maverick American experimental composer John Cage would have been 100 years old. He defined experimental music in the 1930s and, since that time, his ideas, his music and his work have been copied by hundreds of other composers and musicians time and time and time again. Anybody who claims to make experimental music today has to acknowledge their debt to John …