Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano - John Cage / Maro Ajemian
When it comes to selecting some albums I feel very much as if declaiming from a dark fount of ignorance. This is the only album by Cage that I own, and the only version that I have heard. (I have now briefly listened to two other versions which did not match this version.) However, using ears and instinct, I was drawn to this having heard snatches and have never regretted that attraction.
This is quiet unassuming yet gently revolutionary music. At times it seems apologetically quiet but there is also an undercurrent of violence, as if the piano is being dismantled. The tunings here share some common ground with Harry Partch, and Cages 'preparation' of the piano makes it sound like a new instrument.
Percussive and hypnotic, this music has retained the freshness it had for me when I first listened to it many years ago.
Listening to this with my toast and marmalade. And I thought 'thick cut/bitter' was challenging... I'll have to get back to you on this one Seamus; I like the percussive dissonance but am searching for melodies (and coffee!)
ReplyDeleteBut it's all the rage down at the Conserv(e)atoire!
DeleteSmall 'c'?
ReplyDeleteI'm now at work (school) and listening still; currently getting some approving nods from a passing K2 crowd... and this particular class know their onions; they do their 'sleeping lion' time to Miles's 'So What'.
The teacher goes: 'badabadabadabadooda'.
They go 'baba'.
It's brilliant; although I fear that they're preparing themselves for black sheep...