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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | John Cage: The Works for Organ
Gary Verkade (organ of Nederluleå Church, Gammelstad, Sweden) assisted by various registrants This release is the first complete recording of all of Cage’s works for organ, plus 4’33” (on this DVD version only). The organ is ideally suited to Cage’s aesthetic — its multitude of stops make it the ultimate prepared instrument. The fact that sound emanates from a number of pipes placed at discrete locations in space nicely accords with Cage’s idea of the separation of sounds in space. And it represents vast possibilities that could be released as sound through the use of chance operations. For this reason Cage’s organ music occupies a small but quite important place within his output. For Some of 'The Harmony of Maine' Cage selected 18th-century American hymns by Billings, Law, and Belcher and altered them by extending certain tones and removing others through chance operations so as to attenuate the functional harmony underlying them. Here and there, melodic fragments from the original hymns remain. The 1978 and 1987 works were written for the German organist Gerd Zacher, an important champion of new music. American organist Gary Verkade, a student of Gerd Zacher, is on the faculty of the Musikhögskola in Piteå, Sweden. He has appeared at major festivals and concerts throughout Europe and the USA. Verkade was one of the registrants in the first German performance of Some of 'The Harmony of Maine'. The DVD allows the listener to enjoy the sounds of the spectacular organ and its acoustic in surround sound while viewing Tim Chu’s painterly films of the organist with the up to six registrants needed for some of the pieces. Includes booklet with trilingual notes by Rob Haskins. DVD BONUS: – Gary Verkade discusses performing Cage on the organ, how “chance” is applied to the performances and gives musical examples (31 minutes) Performance of 4'33" Dedicated stereo and 5.1 surround mixes. | 
| | | Scheduled for release on 3 June 2013. Order it now and we will deliver it as soon as it is available. |
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| |  | John Cage: Journeys in Sound
A documentary by Oscar winning director Allan Miller and Paul Smaczny to mark the composer’s centenary A sonic innovator or an expert on chance? A writer or an anarchist? A specialist in mushrooms or a performance artist? A Zen master or a cook? John Cage was all of these things. On the occasion of his centenary in Autumn 2012, this documentary by Oscar-winner Allan Miller and Emmy-winner Paul Smaczny pays tribute to the most fascinating American avant-garde composer John Cage. Shot in America, Germany and Japan, the program premieres rare archival footage; presenting concert excerpts and a set of short episodes, featuring associates of Cage and contemporary artists, playfully delineating different aspects of John Cage. The documentary features interviews with Yoko Ono, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, Steffen Schleiermacher, Irvine Arditti, Toshio Hosokawa, Mayumi Miyata, Calvin Tomkins and many others. Picture Format DVD: NTSC 16:9 Sound Formats DVD: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, PCM Stereo Region Code: 0 (worldwide) Running Time: 60:35 min Bonus: 49:25 min Disc Format: DVD-9 (1 DVD) “This fascinating, eloquent DVD draws on archive footage of the composer at work and interviews with surviving collaborators” Financial Times, 6th October 2012 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | How to get out of the CageA year with John Cage
With 5 experimental films by Frank Scheffer WAGNER'S RING • 1987 • 4:24 mins STOPERAS I & II • 1987 • 3:05 mins NOPERA • 1995 • 5:56 mins CHESSFILMNOISE • 1988 • 17:21 mins RYOANJI • 2011 • 60:37 mins
Documentary by Frank Scheffer. New Documentary by Frank Scheffer based on his archives on the occasion of John Cage’s 100. Anniversary of Birth on September 5, 2012 . († 12.8.1992) From 1982 to 1992 Frank Scheffer worked with John Cage on many different occasions, which resulted in a unique archive of historical audio-visual material. Based on this unique archive, including interviews, musical performances and images of different locations related to his life and work - filmed on 16mm - the filmmaker Scheffer created “How To Get Out Of The Cage – A Year With John Cage”. Picture format DVD: NTSC 4:3 / 16:9 Sound format DVD: PCM Stereo Region code: 0 Booklet notes: English, German, French Original Language: English Subtitles: German, French, Japanese Running time: 52 mins (Documentary), 92 mins (Extra films) “Throughout the film Cage continues to tell stories, as he did, explaining his ideas, philosophies and working methods with great clarity, humility and humour...All of the films on this DVD will appeal to the aficionados as well as those seeking an insight into the ideas and the music of one of the most adventurous, imaginative and innovative composers of out time.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2012 ***** “He clearly enjoyed talking to Scheffer and, even by Cage's standards, the juicy quotes come thick and fast...Watch Ryoanji first and marvel at how Cage unifies sound and image. The controversies are set to endure but the art speaks for itself.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2013 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Legendary Film by Hans G Helms, premiered at the Donaueschingen Festival in 1972
Carolyn Brown, Phillip Corner, Merce Cunningham, Teeny Duchamp, Don Gillespie, Doris Hays, Frederik Rzewski, Grete Sultan, Margaret Tan, David Tudor, Paul Zukofsky. By releasing the DVD “BirdCage: 73'20.958" for a composer”, WERGO presents another highlight among the releases marking the composer's 100th birthday: The legendary film collage, created in 1972 on commission of WDR and SWR on the occasion of the 60th birthday of John Cage and premiered at the Donaueschingen Music Festival, paints an extraordinary picture of Cage the Artist, of his musical and extra-musical thinking, his character and his remarkable oeuvre. The cinematographic composition, which is released here in the unabridged original version for the first time, was realisd by the composer and writer Hans G Helms in collaboration with Cage himself. Helms assembled various film materials into a special kind of mosaic: Historical flashbacks, biographical milestones and music recordings are complemented by original commentaries of the composer's contemporaries, companions and friends, such as Carolyn Brown, Phillip Corner, Merce Cunningham, Teeny Duchamp, Don Gillespie, Doris Hays, Frederik Rzewski, Grete Sultan, Margaret Tan, David Tudor, and Paul Zukofsky. The twittering of birds – symbol of the aesthetically unintentional and basic material of Cage's tape composition “BirdCage” – runs like a thread through the film, forming its musical basis. | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
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| |  | Cage: The Percussion Works 2
Gregory Beyer, Ross Karne (percussion) Third Coast Percussion (surround sound with full video) John Cage’s vision of the future of music was first shaped by an ntense creative period from 1935-1942, when he wrote many of the seminal works of percussion chamber music featured here. When he composed these works, the young Cage was basically the same age as the members of Third Coast Percussion. This release includes all three of the groundbreaking 'Constructions'. 'First Construction' (in Metal) utilises dozens of metal instruments which are beaten, scraped and shaken, creating an other-worldly mixture of resonant sound unlike any heard before it. 'Second Construction' prominently features one of Cage’s greatest inventions, the prepared piano. Finally, 'Third Construction' brings the greatest degree of complexity and the widest range of instrumental timbres yet, creating one of the first landmark pieces in the percussion chamber music literature. -There are very few recordings of the early works 'Quartet' and 'Trio'. -The surprisingly beautiful sounds of everyday objects come forth in Third Coast Percussion’s recording of 'Living Room Music', recorded onsite at the futuristic Ford House in Aurora, IL, designed by one of America’s most iconoclastic architects, Bruce Goff, in 1947. Third Coast utilizs the house itself as an instrument for the first movement. All works dynamically directed and filmed by Ross Karre. The DVD features surround and stereo audio. Hailed by the Chicago Reader as “one of the finest new-music ensembles in the country,” Third Coast Percussion's performances have swiftly gained national attention for effortlessly combining the energy of a rock concert with the precision and sophistication of classical chamber music. | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
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| |  | John Cage: The Works for Percussion I
Credo in Us (1942, 2 versions) or percussion quartet (including piano and radio or phonograph) 1) with LP recording of Shostakovich: Symphony No.5 2) with 78-rpm recordings of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Wagner & von Suppe Imaginary Landscape No.1 (1939) for 2 variable-speed turntables, frequency recordings, muted piano & cymbal, to be performed as a recording or broadcast Imaginary Landscape No.2 (1942) for percussion quintet Imaginary Landscape No.3 (1942) for percussion sextet Imaginary Landscape No.4 (1951) for 12 radios Imaginary Landscape No.5 (1952, 2 versions) for any 42 recordings, score to be realised as a magnetic tape, realisation by Michael Barnhart: 1) using period jazz records 2) using recordings of Cage's music DVD EDITION contains the above plus: • “Landscapes : Credo”, Percussion Group Cincinnati presents a video documentary/demonstration of Cage’s unusual instrumentation, techniques, vari-speed turntables and test-tone records. Plus performance excerpts. (40 minutes) • Dolby & DTS 5.1 surround & dedicated stereo mixes • Audiophile quality 96 khz/24-bit PCM stereo tracks • DVD BONUS: Imaginary Landscape No. 1, in an authentic recreation of the 1939 original radio station performance directed by Eric Levin. (accompanied with photos from the recording session, stereo) • DVD BONUS: Imaginary Landscape No. 4, third version (no video) NB: There is no video with the music tracks.
CCM Percussion Ensemble, James Culley CAGE ON ORIGINAL INSTRUMENTS! The first modern recording to utilise Cage’s specified 78-rpm test tone records played on variable-speed phono turntables and 78-rpm records Cage’s percussion works are among his most historically important. After 42 Volumes in Mode’s Cage Edition, Mode is releasing the first volume dedicated to his percussion music. Percussion Group Cincinnati is particularly respected for its knowledge of and experience with the entire range of Cage’s music, having made tours and festival appearances with him on a number of occasions in Europe and in America, and having had pieces created by Cage especially for the Group. Volume 1 consists of the complete Imaginary Landscapes 1-5 (1939-52) and Credo in Us (1942). Some of these works’ revolutionary features include the use of radios and phonograph recordings — anticipating the concept of sampling. The actual records and turntable specified in the score were located and used for this recording. “Despite the title, this 43rd volume of Mode's John Cage Edition focuses more on his early experiments with radios, tape and turntables...The results are, literally, hit and miss, but absorbing.” The Independent, 29th July 2011 *** “The realisations of these pieces by the Cincinatti Percussion Group are both imaginative and often distinctly tongue-in-cheek; there are two versions of No 5 here, for instance, one using jazz recordings from the early 1950s, when the piece was written, the other using only recordings of Cage's own music.” The Guardian, 28th July 2011 *** “I'd argue that no other Cage percussion disc reconnects us with the shock of how Cage questioned every cliche about music, and why people should want to create it, as powerfully.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2011 | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
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| |  | She Herself Alone:The Art of the Toy Piano 2
Margaret Leng Tan (toy pianos, toy instruments, piano, percussion, music boxes, voice) In addition to being a renowned new music pianist, Margaret Leng Tan is the foremost specialist at the toy piano. She has performed worldwide with her miniature instruments, bestowing them with serious music status in repertoire both written for her and arrangements. For this disc of attractive yet challenging music, Ms. Tan performs Cage’s classic Suite for Toy Piano plus her arrangement of Cage’s seminal Dream for toy & grand piano (a work that foreshadowed new age music); and her arrangement for voice and toy instruments of a recent song by George Crumb. Ms. Tan uses no less than six different toy pianos here. Some works find the toy piano performed with other instruments including grand piano, toy zithers, music boxes, glockenspiels and percussion, with Ms. Tan as a veritable one-person toy orchestra. Her initial toy piano CD, The Art of the Toy Piano on Philips/Point (1997) was critically acclaimed and a strong cross-over seller. This long awaited follow-up recording combines serious classics (Cage’s Suite) with colorful fun (Griswold), a sultry blues-tango (Twining), drama (Crumb), to haunting meditations (Cage’s Dream and Liben). Also available on DVD with full video. Original 96khz/24-bit recording. Liner notes by Margaret Leng Tan. SPECIAL DVD FEATURES: Each work is treated to its own visual mood, and captures the theatricality of Ms. Tan’s performance combined with the exotic toy instrumentation, as directed by Spanish cinematographer Anton Cabaleiro. Filmed in high-definition video. Uncompressed Stereo PCM audio in 96khz/24-bit. | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
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| |  | Cage Edition Volume 40 - Waltzes for the Five Boroughs
John Cage's artwork, 49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs, appeared in the October 6, 1977 Rolling Stone magazine: a gala issue celebrating their move to New York. He constructed his 'waltzes' through chance operations as a series of 49 multi-colored triangles superimposed on the Hagstrom map of New York City. Later, he published a score for "performer(s) or listener(s) or record maker(s)" with the exact street locations depicted by each point of the triangle. Cage was an inveterate New Yorker and after his death in 1992, Don Gillespie, a long time colleague, decided to celebrate his memory by videotaping each of the 147 locations indicated in the score. An impartial rotating camera was used to capture every location, the durations of each determined by the I-Ching.The result is a joyful, Cagean celebration of the sounds and the, sometimes unexpected, sights of New York City: and a time capsule travelogue of how it appeared in the years 1994-95. ADDITIONAL FEATURES: the names of the actual locations you are viewing can be shown on the screen using your remote control's SUBTITLE button. By using your remote control's alternate camera ANGLE button, you can toggle between the film, a detail map of the location you are viewing, or a full view of the map indicating the 3-point triangulation of the current Waltz. 16-page booklet with essay by Don Gillespie and a complete list of each Waltz location. Bonus AUDIO realisation of "Waltz #9", recorded by Gillespie in March 1979. “In 1977 Cage devised this do-it-yourself environmental piece based on 147 New York street locations selected by using chance operations.
The conception was realised complete only in 1994/95 when Don Gillespie and colleagues decided to visit all these places and video whatever they saw and heard. So the 49 Waltzes (three sections each = 147 places) are simply film with no other soundtrack apart from what is heard at the time. It's a celebration of ordinary life in urban and residential streets. Refreshingly there's no background music, no asinine commentator, and the visual aspect dominates so that it's more film than music. Cage enjoyed the sound of what happens – so here it is for just over two hours.
In each shot the camera swings out and back from a fixed position; and apart from endless ordinary streets there's a subway station, the Bronx Zoological Gardens, Cunningham Park in Queens, and JFK. The random processes often focus on Staten Island and the whole series ends picturesquely with the sound of gulls and waves at Weir Creek Park in the Bronx. Birds are the soloists elsewhere too. As people go about their business there's surprisingly little conventional music, apart from operetta on tap in a record store and the occasional car radio. The team has realised exactly what Cage intended in the most conscientious way; excellent documentation in three languages.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Sorceress of the New Piano
Includes excerpts from the following pieces: Sonata in C major Op. 2, No. 3 with Play It Again Charlie Brown (Beethoven). Sonata in C-sharp minor 'Moonlight' (Beethoven). The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs. Daughters of the Lonesome Isle. Music for Marcel Duchamp with Anemic Cinema. Works of Calder with film by Herbert Matter. The Perilous Night with the Perilous Night by Jasper Johns. Four Walls with film featuring choreography and performance by Merce Cunningham. 4'33" and Water Music. In a Landscape. Music for Piano No. 2. Suite for Toy Piano. One2 (John Cage). The Tides of Manaunaun. The Banshee (Henry Cowell). Makrokosmos I: The Phantom Gondolier. Makrokosmos II: Morning Music. Cosmic Wind (George Crumb). Three Landscapes for Peter Wyer (Jed Distler). Gu Yue - Ancient Music (GE Gan-Ru). Modern Love Waltz (Philip Glass). Sweet Chinoiserie (Guy Klucevsek). Mirabella (Stephen Montague). Gymnopedie No. 3 (Erik Satie). Litania (Somei Satoh). C-A-G-E (Tan Dun). Satie Blues with Great Small Works' A Mammals Notebook: The Erik Satie Cabaret. Nightmare Rag (Toby Twining). To Stare Astonished at the Sea (Lois V Vierk). The Maverick Piano - In a Landscape with Great Small Works In the Name of the Holocaust featuring prints by Cage Dream and Indeterminacy. Music for Piano No.2 (John Cage). Gu Yue 'Pipa' (GE Gan-Ru). Gymnopedie No. 3 with Great Small Works (Erik Satie). Satie Blues with Great Small Works (Toby Twining).
10 years in the making, 2 films by Evans Chan trace the artist's life, career and pianism. Strumming the strings of a grand piano like a harp and performing Beethoven on toy piano are among the surprising scenes in Sorceress of the New Piano (2004), which celebrates the trans-cultural career of Singapore-born, New York-based pianist Margaret Leng Tan, hailed by The New Yorker as "the diva of avant-garde pianism". The film traces Tan's quest for a new pianistic language, performing ground-breaking works by masters Henry Cowell, George Crumb and her longtime mentor John Cage, as well as by maverick composers of the next generation. Featured performers and critics include Joan LaBarbara, Edward Rothstein (New York Times), Mark Swed (Los Angeles Times), and Joshua Kosman (San Francisco Chronicle) share their thoughts on Tan's artistry and musical lineage. Incorporating 1944 footage of Merce Cunningham's dance, Jasper Johns' art and a Marcel Duchamp film; Sorceress also highlights Tan's latest transformation as the champion of new repertoire for the toy piano. BONUS FILM:The Maverick Piano (2007) The Maverick Piano is an excursion into the sonic world of the avant-garde piano, as Margaret Leng Tan gives complete performances of 6 works by Cage, Satie, Ge Gan-ru and Toby Twining The film represents the grand piano in various transformations: as a conventional keyboard (Cage: In a Landscape); prepared piano, also played with fists/forearms (Cage: In the Name of the Holocaust); as a stringed instrument, both plucked and bowed, juxtaposed with images of Cage's artwork (Cage: Music for Piano No. 2); strummed while played from the crook of the piano (Ge Gan-ru: Pipa/Ancient Music); in combination with toy piano (Twining: Satie Blues, Gymnopédie No. 3 arr. Margaret Leng Tan, in collaboration with Great Small Works) | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
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| |  | Cage Edition Volume 36 - One11 & 103
“As new releases of John Cage go, this is probably about as major as it gets…Cage himself looks frail and died shortly after One’’ appeared. But what an extraordinary valedictory throw of the dice.” The Wire, February 2007 | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
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