Customer Reviews

Cage: The Choral Works I / Ars Nova, Veto

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This is a stunning release by an exceptionally talented group and conductor. Cage, though a great composer, depends upon his collaborators to make ideas work at their best. Here I think Cage would have been very pleased, in spite of himself. The wonderfully exciting performance of "Living Room Music" (really quite "catchy" in this performance), and the obvious care and consideration to the purely vocal pieces make this a most pleasurable recording. Very highly recommended.

The first time I heard a Cage choral work was in 1991, at the New England Conservatory's "Cage Fest." At one point there was a pause between pieces. People started fidgiting in their seats. The next thing I hear is a voice coming from above in the balcony. Since the NEC is a music school, I figured it was a student. Then another voice started to my left. A few seconds later more voices came in. By the end there was a chorus of some of the most melodious music I had ever heard. (How many times has the word "melodious" been applied to Cage? ). From that point on I was hooked. This album brings that piece (ear for EAR), along with a number of other wonderful pieces, to life.

John Cage was an incredibly prolific composer,creator, word assembler. He practically invented new genres,like performance art,conceptual music,lecture/music/performance and has even made significant contributions within the confines of traditional music genres. Like here with vocal music,he has numerous pieces in varying shapes,focus and expression. The Vocal Group Ars Nova are a devoted bunch to be doing Cage. I guess Cage is popular now. . But his vocal music is not for everyone. It is traditionally beautiful with a focus on simplicity and the pure vocal quality of the the voice with much sustained sound like ancient melos. He hated vibrato,something Marcel Duchamp, his mentor,only for strings. probable told him.Duchamp said it (violins) sounded like sewing machines. The best pieces here are those the last decade of Cage's life. He died in August,1992.I like the vocal purity in "Four"(1990) also "Four Solos"(1988). And also the fact that I can easily hear this piece played by any four instruments. There are also early excursions into Cage's "didn't- know- if it- was- theatre- music- yet- like pieces, as "Living Room Music" (1940) an early quasi-narrative for percussion and speech quartet. In Cage's vocal music don't expect to find a melody you can hum on the way to work. This music is pretty abstract.