John Cage - The Seasons / Leng Tan, Russell Davies, et al

Cage (Artist, Composer), American Composers Orch (Artist, Performer), Davies (Artist, Conductor), Margaret Leng Tan (Artist), Dennis Russell Davis (Artist), American Composers Orchestra (Artist)

Product Details

• Performer: American Composers Orch
• Conductor: Davies
• Composer: Cage
• Audio CD (June 13, 2000)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Ecm Records
• ASIN: B00004RKK4
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #52,200 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This astonishing disc is possibly the best collection of John Cage's music now on the market. It covers the gamut of Cage's radicalism as well as his humor, and as such there is something for everyone (newbies included). Of particular delight here is Suite for Toy Piano (1948), which employs only the white keys in a single octave, and the beautifully orchestrated version that follows (done by Lou Harrison, a friend of Cage, in 1963). But three of Cage's absolute masterpieces--each totally different from the other--are also here: the eerie Seventy-Four (1992), the ballet score for The Seasons (1947) and the riveting Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra (1950-51). Everything you need to know about John Cage is right here. --Paul Cook

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars hallucinatory, September 26, 2000

By	Julian Grant (London, Beijing, New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

How times change! Cage seems to have gone from being regarded in some circles as anti-musical to being regarded as a classic. This CD concentrates, with one exception on music written in the late 40's, early 50's, just on the cusp of when he moved into his 'aesthetic of non-intention', or techniques of chance. He moved on from a beguiling sound world indeed: 'The Seasons' has real melodic appeal, try the Spring movement (track 3) - or relish the enigmatic and somewhat protean gestures of the Concerto for Prepared Piano, which seems to become more disembodied as it progresses. The Suite for Toy Piano is ingenious, and a great idea to follow it with contemporary Lou Harrison's orchestration of it, which makes it sound very beefy indeed: a delicious contrast. My personal jury is still out on the one late piece, dating from Cage's last year: Seventy-Four, 2 versions of which are recorded here. It is indeterminate, with parts allotted to just high and low instruments. It has a floating and ethereal quality, certainly, but I miss the more bracing and personal invention of the early pieces, which sound more revolutionary. Exemplary performances and vivid recording: a very stimulating anthology.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Absolute Best of Cage!, March 17, 2003

By	Christopher Forbes "weirdears" (Brooklyn,, NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I have been recently revisiting the work of John Cage, from the early experiments with timbre and rhythm, through his aleatoric period and beyond. While at one time I would have dismissed him as a poser...or a philosopher at best, now I am more and more convinced of his singular genius. This genius is beautifully represented on this amazing CD with Magaret Leng Tan and Denniss Russell Davis. Nearly every phrase in the composer's career is represented.

The earliest music on the disc is the ballet score for The Seasons. This is an amazing work...it almost sounds like one of the Sonatas and Interludes orchestrated. Cage has moments of almost Stravinskian clarity, oriental filligree and yet the work is dominated most by beautifully proportioned juxtapositions of sound blocks. It is a haunting and mesmerizing work. As is the suite for Toy piano, presented both in it's original form and orchestrated by Lou Harrison. Cage manages to create a lush and elaborate rhythmic scheme out of very limited means.

The Concerto show Cage moving into his next phase of work. The language is more abstract and dissonant...almost like Webern. In fact, this is a transition work into Cage's later aleatoric style. The third movement contains some of Cage's first forays into chance procedures. The result it intensely colorful, dramatic, and fascinating.

The two other pieces on the disc are two realizations of 73, one of Cage's computer generated number pieces, which dominated the last few years of his life. 73 refers to the number of instrumentalists in the piece. There is not score to the work. Each instrumentalist is given a series of notated events and a time frame for the events. Timbre, effects, and timing are left up to the performer to some extent. 73 is particularly interesting in that there are only two series of events split between orchestra members...one series for higher instruments and one for lower instruments. The result is a work which slowly evolves from droning note to droning note...almost resembling the late work of Nono or Scelsi. Both versions of the piece are hypnotic.

Margaret Leng Tan is a marvelous pianist, particularly in contemporary repertoire. And Russell Davies conducts with clarity and an ear for balance. If you've been afraid of Cage, this is the disc to get. The sound world is marvelous.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine, well-varied Cage collection, December 17, 2003

By	Edward Wright (Toronto, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This disc includes three major Cage works and two versions of a minor work. With performers such as the Cage expert Margaret Leng Tan on piano, and that stalwart of contemporary American music, Dennis Russell Davies conducting, the performances are excellent, and one work, Seventy-Four, is not available elsewhere in any version.

Seventy-Four is one of Cage's late 'number pieces' for orchestra. In it, the each performer is given a range of time in which to start and stop playing individual notes in their part. The orchestra (of seventy-four players) is split into two groups--one half plays one part and the other half plays the other; because of the playing technique the sounds are blurred and one note merges into another before the first note has stopped sounding. The performers are permitted to microtonally bend their notes, casting a shimmering harmonic aura over the already meditative music, and evoking memories of Scelsi or 60s Ligeti, though in a more austere manner. The disc contains two performances of this work; what perhaps might surprise listeners in that they--despite the apparent randomness involved in performing the piece--really sound very similar.

The Seasons--heard here in the orchestral version rather than the alternative version for solo piano--is a ballet score from 1947, and one of the most important pieces from Cage's early period. It is charmingly written in a faux-naďf modal style similar to that of the String Quartet in Four Parts, with movements representing each of the seasons separated by brief interludes. The interlude that precedes the entire work is repeated at the end, giving a satisfying circular feel to the work. This work feels very much of a piece with a lot of the Americana of the 1930s and 1940s, though it is more restrained (Appalachian Spring it ain't). It represents a side of Cage that should perhaps be better known.

More fragmentary is the Concerto for Prepared Piano and Orchestra, written in 1950 and 1951. This uses basically the same harmonic ideas as The Seasons, but the musical design itself is much more fragmentary and radical. The first movement is slow, almost pointillistic at times, with the percussive sounds of the prepared piano alternating with the orchestral part. The second movement is more lively; again the soloist and orchestra play only separately. The finale is a key moment in Cage's career--it's the first time where he consciously used chance procedures (in this case coin-tossing and hexagrams from the I Ching) to create some of the musical material. In this movement, the soloist and orchestra do play together, but the musical material is even more fragmentary than in the opening movement. This is a fascinating work, and the performance on this disc is very strong.

The disc ends with the Suite for Toy Piano--a piece of fluffy frivolity from 1948, played both in the original version and in the rather superfluous orchestral version by Lou Harrison. This is the only piece on the disc that I don't return to.

This is an excellent disc and might serve as a good introduction to Cage for those interested in exploring the music behind the myth.