Search - John [1] Cage, Manhattan Percussion Ensemble, David Tudor :: The 25-Year Retrospective Concert of the Music of John Cage

A primary document of the American avant-garde

gone daddy gone | 04/10/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It was painters Jasper Johns and Bob Rauschenberg who helped arrange this, what today is a monumental document of the American avant-garde. And this was in the late Fifties a time when these American artists had very little money. Here we have all the Cage classics. The "Sonatas and Interludes" for pre-pared piano speaks for itself. Cowell suggested this idea to Cage. So Cage while working on dance accompaniments where no percussion instruments could be played,saw the availability of a piano. He began placing various screws and erasers between the strings. The sound is gamelan-like with thuds,knocks,clings and pings. But also very beautiful even enchanting. Also "Williams Mix" is here a very early electronic piece made from the ancient art of splicing tape together in an indeterminate fashion. I believe Earle Brown had helped. "The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs" is also fascinating where the pianist closes the piano lid to strike 5 various parts of the front piano seated. The effect is not quite bongo-like more dull and thudy with a disarming folksy plain vocal lines singing Joyce. Pure simplicity was an early Cage fascination which has not lost its power to evoke. The mammoth "Concert for Piano" is also here a seminal work conceived of various graphic(almost encyclopedic) procedural ways of playing. Cage had identified some 40 odd ways of attacking,rolling verticalities and horizontialities on the piano keyboard. The work is also a pure graphic feast for the eyes, a delight. The orchestral accompaniment(we really cannot call it that) is made of independent solos,trombone,violin with no direct synchronization. And can be played with or without the piano or these various instruments. But the effect can be anarchistic(non-political) mesmerizing,humorous,dead serious all simultaneously,or not,depending on the performer's energy levels. Cage had opened a chasm of libertarian performing and conceptual creative fluidity that hasn't been closed yet. His open creativity continues to inspire and redirect itself through succeeding generations. This is a monumental document from the earliest days of the high avant-garde reflecting the full scope of these new aesthetic freedoms,or a turn away from an aesthetic object. Perhaps we will know someplace in between."