Cage: Concert for Piano & Orchestra

John Cage (1912-1992) was one of the most controversial composers of the 20th century. He is best known for his 1952 work 4'33" which involves not a single note of music being played.

This selection of Cage's music provides a rare opportunity to get to know a range of works that were written between the years 1939-65, which were some of the composer's most productive years.

Credo in Us is a ballet score written for Cage's long-time partner and collaborator the choreographer and dancer, Merce Cunningham.

Imaginary Landscape is scored for four performers who play a muted piano and cymbal as well as two variable-speed phonographs with amplifiers, Imaginary Landscape No.1 is important for being one of the first examples of electro-acoustic music.

Cage's Concert for Piano and Orchestra has no overall score, but all the parts are written out in detail. A performance of the Concert may include all of the instruments, but may also be performed as a solo, duet, trio or any combination of the given instruments, resulting in a change of title (e.g. solo for piano or Concert for piano, voice and 2 violins, in case it is combined with a Solo for Voice.) In this recording two solo voices are used.

The Suite for Toy Piano is one of Cage's works for prepared piano and the Music for Carillon bring this collection to a fascinating conclusion.

"Concert for Piano and Orchestra" and "Atlas Eclipticalis" by John Cage are among the most important and influential pieces of the 20th century music. They represent a culmination of Cage's revolutionary concept of time, sound and form, which so influenced the music in Europe and America in the 50s and 60s. Both orchestral pieces are not based on the traditional score.

The S.E.M. Ensemble, with pianist Joseph Kubera and conductor Petr Kotik, had worked closely with Cage for more than two decades. Both pieces are recorded in full versions, including all 86 parts orchestra in "Atlas Eclipticalis". The recording was supervised by the composer.

Eric Salzman wrote in an article to these works: "This music is a walk down an unknown city street or perhaps a forest or a meadow where birds may sing and trees may fall and mushrooms grow."

On May 15, 1958 - a few months before Cage's memorable appearance in Darmstadt - some friends organized a concert for the then 45 year old composer in New York's Town Hall. The friends were Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Emile de Antonio.

The pieces performed were written over a period of 25 years - between 1934 and 1958. Presented together, they reflect not only Cage's search for new compositional processes and means of expression, they also already contain the seed for all the technical procedures and the ideological basis of his later compositions: the interest in Eastern philosophies, the involvement with "silence", and the introduction of chance as a compositional procedure.

WERGO has now obtained the original recordings from producer George Avakian and has released them on three CDs, following the original sequence of the pieces. The 96-page booklet includes all texts (extensive notes by John Cage and George Avakian) and facsimiles of music scores that appeared in the original record booklet, and, in addition, rare historic photographs.

Four of the nine works documented in the album were first performances: "Six Short Inventions for Seven Instruments", "She is Asleep" (the first complete performance), "Music for Carillon", and "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra", in which Merce Cunningham took the part of the conductor - the "living clock" - and David Tudor that of the pianist.