Cage: Bacchanale

Leading prepared piano exponent Tzenka Dianova presents her original approach to the piano.

It began with the word deconstruction, which was “merely a pun” (Cage’s phrase) on John Cage’s construction. Originally, it was the title of a sound-recycling piece of mine, written to accompany his “Perilous Night.” Later on, the word inspired the idea of a collection of “deconstructed” works of Satie and Cage – works reinvented by unusual means, a respectful tribute to the two composers.

This double-CD set combines two of the key titles of Columbia Records’s legendary “Music of Our Time” series curated by David Behrman. Jeanne Kirstein’s recording of Cage’s early keyboard works remains a touchstone of Cagean interpretation notwithstanding the passage of time.

Christian Wolff recalls, "I remember Cage saying that Jeanne Kirstein’s playing caught the spirit in which the pieces were written at the time he wrote them—a kind of simple excitement and enthusiasm (also, surely, out of the discovery of the preparing of the piano and the great new sounds)."

The interpreter is a very important person indeed in Cage’s piano music, and a top international expert like Steffen Schleiermacher is a must for a complete recording such as this one: he knows the nuts and bolts and all the fine nuances.