Now THIS is minimalist music. Forget Reich, Nyman and
Adams as minimalists. Cage has them all beat. He even trounces his own
Sonatas and Interludes recently glowingly recorded by Boris Berman on
Naxos 8.559042. The Sonatas and Interludes represent one of King Ludwig's
winter palaces (a cornucopia of extravagant excess) by the side of the
music on this disc. The titles, which are correctly shown above, are
minimal. The forces could hardly be less (a solo violin) although Cage's
famous 4'33" is an approach to minimalism. The packaging is a single
ultra-slim jewel case and there are no printed notes (they appear on
the disc) although I was provided with a programme note and other background
material for an event when these two works were played simultaneously
with another Cage piece ONE11 - a film in which there
are no people, only light.
During his last half-decade John Cage wrote about 45
works which carry a number in their title. These were often just a number
with a further number in superscript looking rather like a number expressed
to the power of another number. Not for Cage an autumnal or even wintry
return to (or even discovery!) of lush romance.
The music comprises as much silence as it does musical
notes. Both pieces (a three movement piece and a single movement piece)
are a series of single long-held notes played with husky concentration
by Christina Fong (a member of the Grand Rapids SO since 1988 and a
dedicated advocate of new music - http://christinafong.com). Decorative
display has been expelled completely. Elaboration comes only in the
slight cycling of the held notes and the very infrequent double-stopping
of sustained notes. Those long-held notes have a clarion quality and
listened to intently melt and resolve from the steady (non-vibrato)
tone of a string instrument into a suggestion of Tibetan lamasery horns
calling from dizzy heights to the evocation of Scandinavian lur cries
from Nordic fjords. Percy Grainger would have loved this. Listening
to this music is like hearing a single vocal strand from the complex
of lines which make the great wheeling incantatory chant of Cornelius
Cardew's The Great Learning (try Paragraph VII as performed
by the Scratch Orchestra).
The works date from Cage's very last years and are little
known. It is to Ms Fong's credit that she has leant her artistry to
this enterprise. You must be prepared for this music. It is not richly
detailed. It benefits from intense meditation. Not for everyone then
but certainly for those who would like to open a casement on avant-garde
simplicity. Such people could hardly make a better start with this disc.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
|
CD Price: £ 11.75
Post free airmail world-wide- Download Price:
£ 9.98
Buy
CD:
Download all tracks:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FREE SOUND SAMPLES
(minimum 30 secs)
One6
A (1990)
One6
B (1990)
One6
C (1990)
One10
(1992)
You require QuickTime to listed to samples.
Get a free
QuickTime download here
|