Cage: Two4

Steffen Schleiermacher’s recording of the complete piano works of John Cage brought him his international breakthrough. These highly professional recordings earned him numerous prizes including three ECHO Klassic awards. Teaming up with Andreas Seidel, he now returns to Cage’s music to record his complete works for violin and piano. The four pieces span five decades in Cage’s life.

Continuing their critically acclaimed series of John Cage’s works, MDG presents this next volume of his works for piano and other instruments. Mike Svoboda (tenor trombone) joins award winning advocate of this music, Steffen Schleiermacher, along with singer Anna Clementi, who join forces once again for this recording.

John Cage may still be known as avant-garde, a musical rebel, who greatly influenced music all over the world. But not all his music was written for prepared piano or consisted of electronic sounds. He also wrote several pieces for the ‘traditional’ combination of violin and piano. One CD of this album is devoted to this complete part of Cage’s output. He developed a keen interest in percussion, hence his prepared piano compositions. This lead to a number of unusual works, including one for voice and percussion. Such as the four dances for piano, voice and percussion. All of Cage’s songs are present here as well, with Three songs and Five songs on texts by E.E. Cummings and James Joyce. Cage was stimulated in his work by other disciplines of art.

Remarkable in this respect was his collaboration with choreographer Merce Cunningham. The composer travelled extensively with the Cunningham Dance Company. This lead to a couple of pieces of ballet music for a single piano (with one item for voice). Both Four walls and The Seasons are recorded here.