Search - Cage :: Works for Percussion

Good performances and a great collection

Steward Willons | Illinois | 07/09/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The Helios Quartet turns out some nice performances of some of Cage's classic ensemble works. I love the philosophy of his middle and late periods, but I love the *music* of his early period best - the time when he was still using standard notation and writing out intricate parts with almost unrivaled rhythmic complexity.



The performances are fine. They're not the most inspired that I've heard, but they're technically solid and reasonably musical. They're more than adequate. The real reason to buy this disc is to have these important percussion works collected in one place. You can find a better recording of "Amores" or of the constructions, but then you need to assemble a collection of CDs to get everything. For those with a casual interest in Cage's influential percussion work, this may be the only collection you need. Cage enthusiasts may want to hunt down better performances, but this is still a very nice collection.



Cage's Music ***** (5 stars)

This performance ***1/2 (3.5 stars)

Overall ****1/4 (4.25 stars)"