John Cage: Early Piano Music

John [1] Cage (Composer), Herbert Henck (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Herbert Henck
• Composer: John [1] Cage
• Audio CD (July 26, 2005)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Ecm Records
• ASIN: B0007YH4LC
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,851 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #31 in Music > Classical > Forms & Genres > Short Forms > Character Pieces
  • #32 in Music > Classical > Instruments > Keyboard > General
  • #59 in Music > Classical > Historical Periods > Early Music

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A design student/electronic music enthusiast trying to review John Cage, March 7, 2006

By 

eightpointagenda "Sean" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: John Cage: Early Piano Music (Audio CD)

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and try to review John Cage.

Here goes:

As one of my last Art/Design School projects, I decided that I was going to design a logo for John Cage. I had always had an interest in Cage but hardly an understanding, much less any background into his style of composition. I saw this project not only as way an excellent challenge as a designer, but also to force myself to learn more about John Cage. With a handful of text, information, I went out to find some musical works of Cage. I wasn't sure what to think, but Hebert Henck release was the one closest to my meeger price range. After listening to it while conducting my research, I can say that Henck captured the sound of Cage beautifully (or, at least in my mind based on my readings, that Cage would sound like).

Cage's compositions weren't just about music (i.e notes, signatures, etc.) but rather, how music occupies space. Cage's solo piano compositions often contain soft passages followed by sharp, held atonal accents which eventually seem to disapate into the air. It is through these techniques that Cage is capable of creating simple piano masterpieces like In A Landscape, or dramatic examples of musical frustration (Metamorphosis pieces were described by Shoenberg as Cage's musical knowledge "banging against a brick wall"). Despite its minor key sharpness and unsual melody, Cage's music is sublimely beautiful in my opinion. Its strangely evocative but yet subtle and not overbearing. And certainly is anything but boring. I would say these compositions (ranging between 1935 to 1948) certainly deserve, if not already to be classics.

While its hard for me to comment on the accuracy of Henck's preformance (though I heard he captures Cage's essence perfectly), I will say the engineering captures Henck's sound perfectly. The sound quality is crystal clear, and has a certain lonely piano room quality to it. If going simply by that, I would say that they certainly hit the mark in this catagory.

Cage is(was) a highly controversial figure in the classical music world. He would later begin testing the sounds of instruments, household objects, radios, and even silence itself. All of this can be hard to swallow for those unprepared or unknowning of what they could be getting themselves into. What makes Early Piano Music wonderful is its a great stepping stone in not only getting to know John Cage and his musical methods better (with a detailed description of his work in the liner notes), but a chance to expand your horizons with music in general. On this note, I highly recommend Early Piano Music.





So, how did I do?

8 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Real music for the genuine internal martial artist, November 10, 2006

By 

Let's go deep! "Let's go deep!" (New England) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: John Cage: Early Piano Music (Audio CD)

Give it a chance and it will awaken you reptilian brain. This is music only the chosen few will appreciate.