JOHN CAGE begins anywhere
"John Cage begins anywhere" is an art exhibition focused on records, photographs, books, videos and visual scores by the legendary composer, held at Die Schachtel (O' art space) in Milano, in july 2011
Etudes Boreales • Ryoanji
Very scarce John cage album released on Mode Records in the early eighties. "This two-record set collects some terrific performances in solo and duo contexts and is also quite a fine welcome mat into the Cage . By comparing different versions of "Etudes Boreales" -- first piano solo, then cello solo, then combined -- much can be gleaned about the way this composer thinks, a endlessly interesting subject in itself. The individual players are virtuosos not only in playing but thinking as well, com…
Etudes Australes For Piano
Etudes Australes is a set of etudes for piano solo by John Cage, composed in 1974–5 for Grete Sultan. It comprises 32 aleatoric pieces written using star charts as source material. The etudes, conceived as duets for two independent hands, are extremely difficult to play. They were followed by two more collections of similarly difficult works: Freeman Etudes for violin (1977–90) and Etudes Boreales (1978) for cello and/or piano. Only one copy available.
0°C
As the title may suggest, 0°C is a sonic exploration at a very bottom of human perception - the fragile line between life and death, dark and light, noise and silence. The authentic being is never to be achieved with complete and definitive perception of the universe - the limited human is just negligible drop somewhere between infinity and nonentity. There is no fulcrum for pretentious awareness and peace for one's arrogant mind - obscurity, uncertainty and hesitation are the only true man's sa…
Complete string quartets, volume 2
The Complete String Quartets Vol. 2. “String Quartet in Four Parts” (1949-50). “Four” (1989). The Arditti Quartet. The second volume of Cage's String Quartets features his first and last works in this repertoire. The well known and exquisitely beautiful, serenely Zen-like early quartet receives its first new recording in 16 years. It is a pivotal work in Cage's oeuvre, showing the composer's transition between the rhytmically complex percussion works before it and the chance works of the 1950s. …
Atlas eclipticalis / 103
Two live, unedited performances of Cage's orchestral music: "At last Eclipticalis With Winter Music" (recorded 5/19/93, performed by The Orchestra of the SEM Ensemble, conducted by Petr Kotick, piano by David Tudor) and "103" (recorded 11/21/98, performed by the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Petr Kotik)." Kotik and Cage met for the first time in May, 1964, performing a 3-hour, six percussion version of Atlas Eclipticalis. Kotik's association with Cage continued until the composer'…
Empty words (parte III)
John Cage's empty words is something of an epic in reverse: a diminutive vocal exercise divided into four distinct parts that gradually breaks down the writings on sound from Henry David Thoreau's Journal into pure vocalise. Disarticulated, distended and utterly transformed, Cage's recitation utterly abandons all connection to linguistic meaning and becomes pure aesthetic glossolalia. The nearly three hour performance documents Cage reading from the third part of empty words at Teatro Lirico in …