Customer Reviews

Cage: Sonatas and Interludes

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

John Cage was a student of Arnold Schoenberg, & Schoenberg called Cage "an inventor...of genius." With the music of this cd, Cage could do any caliber of music he wanted & chose to focus it into whatever he wanted. That does take genius, & also great courage, to be so avant-garde. Also magnanimity. The music here, on a prepared piano -- various sizes & girths of rubber & screws, some with bolts, fixed in between the strings -- ranges from the intense, wildly rhythmic to the almost tearfully melodic, all in a way no mind but John Cage's, in all of human history, had braved until then, or even now. Prepare yourself; for this artistic & unique product of his fascination with the aesthetics of eastern religions while exploring the sonic possibilities of prepared piano, what you will need is concentration.... Through careful listening, the visceral flow of this music might convey the aescetic spirituality of John Cage's life when he composed Sonatas & Interludes.

John Cage's score for this is fantastic -- including rhythmically exciting music & very sparing, ethereal music; & even specific instructions on how to prepare the piano: where on which strings to put the bolts & things (but every time you prepare the piano you have to do it slightly differently). I like Aleck Karis's performance of the piece, but I've heard better performances, & unless you have other recordings & just want this one too, I'd expect that you could find other recordings of this piece that you'd prefer.

Some pieces of music seem to have found their definitive recordings. For example, I can't really conceive of a new recording of Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" that could teach me anything about that masterpiece that I haven't already learned from the Nonesuch recording (though I'd love to be proved wrong). With John Cage the situation is very different. As chance is an intrinsic element of the majority of his music, each recording enriches your understanding of a given piece's abstract inner potential.

The "Sonatas and Interludes" are fully notated, down to how to prepare the piano. But that doesn't mean a definitive performance of these pieces exists. No two preparations of the piano will result in the same palette of timbres (not to mention the vast differences in sound between unprepared pianos in the first place). Therefore the emotional content of these pieces is not well-defined - whatever emotions you derive from a certain recording are a mix of John Cage's personal vision, the performer's feelings, and chaotic randomness. On this recording by Julie Steinberg, everything comes together beautifully.

I first heard these works as played by Herbert Henck on an ECM recording. Previously I was a John Cage skeptic, but I hadn't heard much beyond 4'33" and some of his far-out vocal works. Well, Henck's recording immediately sold me that Cage knew all about writing real music. These pieces are little gems of incredibly individual and delicate emotions. There's a video interview of John Cage claiming that he's not interested in writing music that is trying to speak to the listener, tell a story, pretend to be in love, etc. That may be true of his late-career works, but I simply don't believe it when I hear the "Sonatas and Interludes". Every one of these pieces speaks to me on a personal level, suggests a scene.

I've never heard a "generic" recording of these works, but Julie Steinberg's seems particularly idiosyncratic somehow. After hearing recordings by Henck, David Tutor, Giancarlo Cardini and others, I was surprised at how many new details were revealed in Steinberg's very clear rendition. She listens to the chance mixtures of timbre very attentively, and reacts as a consummate artist would, to bring out as much emotion as possible from her one-of-a-kind configuration of piano, room, and so forth. I'm not familiar with the intricacies of John Cage's score, but Steinberg seems to take somewhat greater liberties with rhythm than most - either that, or she actually plays them accurately while others approximate. Whichever the case is, the results work. The timing of some of her attacks almost make me leap out of my seat.

If you regard John Cage as kind of a weirdo but think there might be something to his ideas, please take a chance* with this or some other recording of the "Sonatas and Interludes".

*No, I couldn't resist this little pun.