Customer Reviews

John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano

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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.