Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano

“His brisk, bracingly abrasive, brightly percussive account, part analytical, part declamatory, is like an inquisitive composer’s test drive of the piece and makes for an exhilarating ride” International Piano, September/October 2012

“Tenney's interpretations, recorded exactly 10 years ago by the late pianist, are the best I've heard: the piano sounds less damped than usual, the notes more resonant and glacially metallic, with a gamelan quality reflecting Cage's original inspiration for his innovative compositions.” The Independent, 14th July 2012 *****

“Pescia makes the 16 little single-span sonatas and four interludes ping, ring and clatter as well as anyone — better than most.” Sunday Times, 9th July 2012

“this is a wonderfully fluid performance of one of the most beguiling keyboard works of the last 100 years...Pescia is wonderful at exploiting the resources created by his careful preparation of the piano with the screws, nuts and bolts, and pieces of rubber and plastic that Cage specifies; there's a hypnotic beauty to his playing that seems entirely unselfconscious” The Guardian, 5th July 2012 ****

“Cage's prepared piano music might be better known by reputation than by acquaintance, but this excellent new release, part of Naxos's praiseworthy ongoing exploration of seminal 20th-century works, should persuade more people to step into the composer's eccentric sound-world. Boris Berman gives a sensitive, closely considered performance of the Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano, written in the late Forties, and seems to relish every sound he makes. The very close recording allows the listener to hear every sound and every resonance in minute detail, and it is the strange beauty of the sounds themselves under Berman's tight control that makes this disc such a joy.” BBC Music Magazine, September 1999