Cage: Music for Prepared Piano, Vol. 2

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The twelve works featured on this disc were all composed over a six-year period, 1942 to 1947 The Perilous Night (1944) features an enormous range of timbres with each of its six movements possessing its own distinct mood, such as the moto perpetuo second movement or the fiendish rhythmic complexities of the concluding sixth movement. The changing metrical stresses and melodic characteristics of Tossed as it is Untroubled (1943), dedicated to Merce Cunningham, endows it with a peculiar folk-like quality. For the nineteen continuous sections of the ghostly Daughters of the Lonesome Isle (1945) the piano requires a particularly complex preparation involving a total of thirty-nine pitches. The work was composed for Jean Erdman, and the intermittent use of spread chords and glissandos is extremely effective. The singular Root of an Unfocus (1944), again dedicated to Cunningham, is followed by Primitive (1942), whose beguiling legatissimo opening melody of which could not provide a starker contrast to the orgiastic climax. The extraordinary sound world of Mysterious Adventure (1945) evokes any number of instruments including woodblock, marimba, xylophone and steel pan. The turbulent And the Earth Shall Bear Again (1942) demonstrates a close kinship with the explosive Primitive composed the same year. The Unavailable Memory of (1944) represents its polar opposite: static and contemplative, it is written entirely in the bass clef and consists of various arpeggiations of the same five pitches. In Music for Marcel Duchamp (1947), written for the Duchamp sequence of the film 'Dreams That Money Can Buy' (Hans Richter), silence assumes an almost thematic function, whilst the repeating melodic cells and ostinato patterns of Totem Ancestor (1943) and A Room (1943) offer an intriguing foretaste of Minimalism. This remarkably varied collection is rounded off by the crystalline beauty of the tiny Prelude for Meditation (1944).

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John Cage abdicated his role as composer around 1950 to become a bystander as random sounds went by. Before that, he wrote some of the most fascinating music produced in America. Some of Cage's best early music was written for percussion ensembles. When the limited space at a dance performance forced him to become an inventor, he thought up a one-man percussion ensemble: the "prepared piano," a standard piano altered by clamping objects onto the strings. The music on this disc covers a wide range of moods and temperament, from the ghostly "Daughters of the Lonesome Isle" to the aggressive "And the Earth Shall Bear Again." Most of the pieces are imaginative enough to stand up to repeated listening. Boris Berman, a Russian-born pianist who now runs Yale's piano department, is better known for playing music like Scriabin and Prokofiev. But he seems completely in command of this radical idiom, with only a bit of rushing here and there keeping him from perfection. With its vivid sound and fascinating repertoire, this disc is another notable Naxos bargain. --Leslie Gerber