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.
John Cage Shock Vol. 1
In October 1962, John Cage and his great interpreter/co-visionary David Tudor visited Japan, performing seven concerts and exposing listeners to new musical worlds. This legendary "John Cage Shock," as it was dubbed by the critic Hidekazu Yoshida, is the source of this series of releases -- three CDs and a "best hits" double LP compilation. Recorded primarily at the Sogetsu Art Center in Tokyo on October 24, 1962 (with two performances from October 17 at Mido-Kaikan in Osaka), all recordin…
Shock
Special 2LP version of EM Records' John Cage Shock series, compiled from the three CD releases. Featured works: 26'55.988" for 2 Pianists and a String Player, Piano Music #7, 0'00", Variations II. Performers include: David Tudor, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Kenji Kobayashi, Yoko Ono and John Cage. Includes rare photos and liner notes in Japanese and English, plus commentary by Toshi Ichiyanagi. In October 1962 John Cage and his great interpreter/co-visionary David Tudor visited Japan, performing seven …
The Number Pieces 6
New York based ensemble Essential Music had a strong relationship with John Cage in his later years. This experience gives these recordings a special authority. Recorded in 1993-94, they are being released for the first time. In 1987 John Cage began writing his “number” and “time-bracket” compositions, which became his primary compositional method for the remainder of his life. These works are named for the number of musicians participating, consist of the number of parts with no com…
Freeman Etudes - Books 1&2
Amazing CD of Cage's Freeman Etudes with the amazing performance of Marco Fusi.
Complete Piano Music Vol. 10 - Etcetera
“The interpreter is a very important person indeed in Cage’s piano music, and a top international expert like Steffen Schleiermacher is a must for a complete recording such as this one: he knows the nuts and bolts and all the fine nuances.”
Silenzio
*Italian language edition* This volume presents fully translated into Italian the landmark texts of the post-World War II musical avant-garde. Master John Cage revolutionized the traditional and academic concept of music and pushed into new frontiers of sound experimentation by applying the method of composition through consultation of the I Ching. And without forgetting to fascinate the reader with the narration of episodes from his life, which rise to the role of Zen parables.
How To Get Started
"John Cage conceived How To Get Started almost as an afterthought -- a performance substituting for another that was previously planned in 1989 for delivery at 'Sound Design: An Invitational Conference on the Uses of Sound for Radio Drama, Film, Video, Theater and Music' presented by Bay Area Radio Drama at Sprocket Systems, Skywalker Ranch, in Nicasio, California. In his introduction, Cage talks about the difficulty of initiating the creative process, while exploring the usefulness of im…
The Works for Percussion I
After 42 Volumes in Mode’s Cage Edition, Mode is releasing the first volume dedicated to his percussion music. Percussion Group Cincinnati is particularly respected for its knowledge of and experience with the entire range of John Cage’s music, having made tours and festival appearances with him on a number of occassions in Europe and in America, and having had pieces created by Cage especially for the Group. Volume 1 consists of the complete Imaginary Landscapes 1-5 (1939-52) and Credo in US (…
Radio music (1956)
Four different versions of Radio Music (1956) from John Cage performed by S. Pittis, JH Peron, Z. Diermaier. Each version is 6 minutes long and uses radio as only sound source.
In Norway
CD in 64-page hardcover book with photos, interviews with the musicans and a transcription of John Cage's Q&A at the Oslo Art Academy. Having received an invitation from Ole Henrik Moe, the Director of the Henie Onstad Art Centre, John Cage arrived at Fornebu Airport one November day in 1983 and was quickly lodged into a guest apartment in the basement of the museum. Cage had brought with him to Norway a heavy suitcase containing amongst other things a water distiller, a selection of fungi and g…
Four4
Four4 for four percussionists (1991). By Simon Allen, Chris Burn, Lee Patterson, Mark Wastell. A unique realisation of one of Cage's late 'number pieces' by an ensemble of musicians better known for their work as improvisers. The 72-minute piece uses a system of flexible time brackets which were determined randomly according to a computer programme. Each musician chooses a number of sounds and assigns each of them them a number. Every time that number occurs above one of the time brackets, they …
Piano Music
JUST ARRIVED, awesome and low priced essential triple CD set with the piano compositions by John Cage (1912–92) regarded as one of the most influential and controversial composers of the 20th century. It is not only his music that this reputation is based on – his ideas were revolutionary, and he cast doubt on the supremacy of European art and music, when it was unchallenged and such views were considered heretic. Cage rejected the status held by harmony, instrumentation and even the devel…
Melodies & Harmonies
Cage is by no means a synonym for obligingness. All the more astonished we listen to the melodious and harmonious objects Annelie Gahl and Klaus Lang present on this album. Lang, the trained organist and internationally renowned composer, performs these pieces on a Fender Rhodes for the first time. Gahl, known as a versatile interpreter of both Old and New Music, plays the violin exactly as requested by Cage, without vibrato and with minimum weight on the bow. The musical material dates …
Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra / Sixty-Eight
For each of his compositions for prepared piano Cage created a specific piano preparation chart, setting out in meticulous detail the strings to be prepared, and the materials and manipulations to be used for preparing them. For the Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra (1951), 53 tones of the keyboard must be prepared; and in this case Cage himself was astonished at the complexity of these preparations. The range of sounds is further expanded by an extra bridge installed in the pian…
Works For Prepared Piano
John Cage was a student of Henry Cowell and Arnold Schönberg and made use of innovations of both of his teachers, promptly integrating them into his own creativity – and turning them into something completely different. He adopted Henry Cowell's idea of altering the sound of a piano by interfering with the strings, thereby expanding the instrument's range of expression to a downright undreamed of extent. And as for Schönberg's twelve-tone system, Cage playfully extended it to a 25-tone system, o…
Music For Percussion Quartet
As early as in 1942, in Credo in Us, Cage employed not only a percussion ensemble but also sounds from the radio and records. Therefore, quite in accordance with what the composer would have wished, the materials used by the Percussion Ensemble Mainz in this recording range from Beethoven's fifth symphony (vinyl record, including the rustling) to ABBA, Tina Turner and advertising slogans. It goes without saying that rhythms play an important part in music for percussion. Cage, though, was also i…
Sonatas & Inteludes
The sonata originated in the Baroque as a small, one-movement form, which nevertheless already contained the core of the sonata to be later developed and composed in elaborate detail by the Viennese Classics. In his Sonatas and Interludes John Cage stuck to the concise, one-movement form, thus establishing a link to Scarlatti and Bach's preludes as well as to Chopin's Préludes and Satie's piano pieces. Other than many of his later, freer works, these small but complex gems are fixed and noted do…
Cage Performs Cage
Empty Words (1973-74) with Music for Piano (1952-56). John Cage, voice. Yvar Mikhashoff, piano. One7 (1991) for any way of producing sounds. John cage, voice. Mode celebrates its 200th release with a special installment in its John cage Edition - works performed by John cage himself, released for the first time. These recordings were made in Buffalo, New York in April 1991. cage and Mode Records were in Buffalo to work on the premiere of his Europera 5, which he wrote for Yvar Mikhashoff, a long…
Etudes Australes
With a score derived from star maps - the "Atlas Australis", a book of maps of stars as they can be seen from Australia - and the "I Ching" (64-choice Old-Chinese chance manual) "Etudes Australes" is a quintessentially Cageian work. Grete Sultan is an active recitalist who has performed music both classic and contemporary around the world. "When I wrote the 'Sonatas and Interludes', it was with Maro Amian in mind", Cage said. "David Tudor was in my mind when I wrote the 'Music of Changes'. Witho…
49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs
A complete video realization by Don Gillespie, Roberta Friedman and Gene Caprioglio. John Cage's artwork, "49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs", appeared in the October 6, 1977 Rolling Stone magazine - a gala issue celebrating their move to New York. He constructed his "waltzes" through chance operations as a series of 49 multi-colored triangles superimposed on the Hagstrom map of New York City. Later, he published a score for "performer(s) or listener(s) or record maker(s)" with the exact street l…