NOTE • Click on the button and you can buy the disc or read the booklet details • You can also access each track which you may then sample or down load. • Further Information.

These are the first recordings of Cage’s last, ‘Number’ works for strings and percussion ensemble, elegantly if austerely presented by Ogreogress Productions. There are no notes but a quotation from Cage is printed on the disc and runs centre-out, in an attractive typeface, rather Laurence Whistler like. Three˛ evokes tinkles of sound, vivid wind squalls over a steady drone, coming to an abrupt stop at 5’00. The final section – it seems ponderous to speak of sectional writing in the Cagean context of these works but not unjust – launched from 8’07 brings a strong outburst, a fracturing mountain top blizzard and the piece ends on a note of open ended and unresolved ambiguity.

A strong pedal note, flecked with shadings, runs through Twenty-three, which dates from 1988 and not, as with the others on this disc from 1991, the year before Cage’s death. Multi-tracked with no dynamic level changes the work is held in a kind of active stasis. At 14’ melismatic patterns impinge themselves with the multi-tracked violins steadily rising in pitch and the synthetic aural perspective enriched by the occasional probing and meaning-vested single notes from the cello line. There is a kind of weight laden luftpause at 21’ – before a passage of increasing nasality – middle voicings, more viola oriented – brings with it a sense of veiled serenity and a final note of resolution. Six, lasting, obviously, three minutes is the Scherzo joker in the pack of the four pieces – a solo percussion jeux of virtuoso wit. Much high lying string writing permeates Twenty-Six. A sense of perceptible movement at 9’00 subtly opens the music to increasingly exploratory sonorities and a sense of slow unraveling, a kind of waking from slumber. Unlike Three˛ which evokes veiled oppositional, or at least contrastive, material and unlike Twenty-Three, which moves in almost imperceptible steps to tangible conclusiveness, Twenty-Six is more inside out and interior; less impressive, to my ears, but perhaps more obviously attractive.

Dramatically convincing performances from Fong, Freeman and Krummel and high production values.

Jonathan Woolf

CD Price: £ 11.50 - Download Price: £8.49

Buy CD:
Download all tracks:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOUND SAMPLES
(minimum 30 secs)


Three2 (1991)

Twenty-Three (1988)

Six (1991)

Twenty-Six (1991)




You require QuickTime to listed to samples.

Get a free QuickTime download here

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION • You can sample only 30 seconds (or 15% if that is longer) of a given track. Select from the View tracks list. Each sample will normally start from the beginning but you can drag the slider to any position before pressing play. • PLEASE NOTE: If you are behind a firewall and the sound is prematurely terminated you may need to register Ludwig as a trusted source with your firewall software. •You will need Quicktime to hear sound samples. Get a free Quicktime download here • If you cannot see the "Sample All Tracks" button you need to download Flash from here.

Return to Index