John Cage
American composer, philosopher, writer and printmaker. He was educated in California and then made a study tour of Europe (1930-31), concentrating on art, architecture and music. On his return to the USA he studied music with Richard Buhlig, Adolph Weiss, Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg; in 1934 he abandoned abstract painting for music. An interest in extending the existing range of percussion instruments led him, in 1940, to devise the 'prepared piano' (in which the sound is transformed by the insertion of various objects between the strings) and to pioneer electronic sound sources.
American composer, philosopher, writer and printmaker. He was educated in California and then made a study tour of Europe (1930-31), concentrating on art, architecture and music. On his return to the USA he studied music with Richard Buhlig, Adolph Weiss, Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg; in 1934 he abandoned abstract painting for music. An interest in extending the existing range of percussion instruments led him, in 1940, to devise the 'prepared piano' (in which the sound is transformed by the insertion of various objects between the strings) and to pioneer electronic sound sources.
Electronic music for piano
Agostino Di Scipio (computer e live electronics), Ciro Lombardi (piano).
The Piano Works 9
'Haiku' (1950-51), 'Sixteen Dances' (1950-51), 'Alternate versions for piano & percussion'. Jovita Zhl, piano. Thomas Meixner, percussion. 'It is rare to discover a previously unknown work by John Cage today. So, what are the chances to discover two major piano pieces from the same period of 1950-51? Thanks to the dedicated work of Don Gillespie (who was Cage's contact at his publisher, C. F. Peters Corp.) and composer Walter Zimmermann, we have the two works recorded here. Both works were disco…
The Works for Organ
This release is the first complete recording of all of Cage's works for organ, plus 4'33' (on the DVD version only). Gary Verkade, organ of Gammelstad Church, Sweden. 'Some of 'The Harmony of Maine' (Supply Belcher)' (1976). 'Souvenir' (1984). 'ASLSP' (1985). 'Organ2ASLSP' (1987). Bonus Track on DVD only: 4'33' (1952). The organ is ideally suited to Cage's aesthetic - its multitude of stops make it the ultimate 'prepared' instrument. The fact that sound emanates from a number of pipes placed at …
Sonatas & Interludes
How rare, and valuable, it is to be able to experience one composer’s masterwork through the sensibility of another significant, stylistically distinct composer – via a performance that reveals unexpected aspects of both. that is to say, an approach to performance not as an act of self-conscious, flamboyant or dramatic interpretation, according to the concerns of technique, expression, and projection that are at the heart of an instrumentalist’s presentation of a musical score to an audie…
Music Of Changes
The title is a double pun. The score is the first that John Cage devised allowing the hexagrams of the I Ching to fully determin e how the music would procee d, event by event, gesture by gesture—the musical details (pitch, duration, dynamic s, density, tempi) being painstakingly, albeit fortuitously, derived through point-by-point con sultation from charts of possi bilities designed by the composer. (Christian Wolff, Cage’s young friend and musical associate, had presented Cage with a co…
Variations V
This is the first commerical release of John Cage’s Variations V, from the legendary studio production made by NDR German Television, Hamburg, in 1967. It marks an early pinnacle in recorded Cage/Cunningham collaborations, and is one of the few available films of a Cunningham Dance Company performance from the 1960s. With music for an orchestra of electronic soundproducers by John Cage performed by Cage with David Tudor and Gordon Mumma to choreography by Merce Cunningham performed by Cun…
How To Get Out Of The Cage
From 1982 to 1992 Frank Scheffer worked with John Cage on many different occasions, which resulted in a unique archive of historical audio-visual material. Based on this unique archive, including interviews, musical performances and images of different locations related to his life and work—filmed on 16mm—the filmmaker Scheffer created How to Get Out of the Cage—A Year with John Cage. Frank Scheffer wrote: "The famous artist Marina Abramovic introduced me to John Cage. She thought it woul…
Journeys in Sound
This documentary by Oscar-winner Allan Miller and Emmy-winner Paul Smaczny pays tribute to the most fascinating American avant-garde composer John Cage. Shot in America, Germany and Japan, the program premieres rare archival footage; presenting concert excerpts and a set of short episodes, featuring associates of Cage and contemporary artists, playfully delineating different aspects of John Cage. The documentary features interviews with Yoko Ono, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, Steffen Schleiermac…
Cartridge Music
Cartridge Music was composed in 1960 and is one of Cage’s earliest attempts to produce live electronic music. Sounds are produced using cartridges from record players. Performers insert different objects into the opening of a cartridge, and manipulate them in a variety of ways (scraping, touching, striking etc) so that the sound of the object is picked up by the cartridge and then fed to an amplifier and speaker. The choice of objects and means of manipulation are left entir…
John Cage 100
This year, on 5 September, the music world is going to celebrate the 100th birthday of the American composer John Cage. WERGO very early turned to the oeuvre of the avant-garde musician and to the release of his most important works on LP or CD – including “Etudes Australes”, “Roaratorio” or “Sonatas and Interludes”, his “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra” or his “Diary: How to improve the World (You will only make Matters worse)”. The label now presents outstanding productions of the compo…
I Want the Beatles to Play at my Art Center
Music From the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter Archives 1968-2011. This 2LP presents seminal works of music from the nearly 50-year history of Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (HOK). When HOK founder Sonja Henie exclaimed that she wanted The Beatles to play at her art center, in essence she expressed its founding ambition to produce and stage a lively cross-artistic program that captured the contemporary spirit of the day in live form. This release is filled with previously-unreleased material recorded at H…
Sonatas and Interludes
The recordings of John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes (1946-48) with Yuji Takahashi on preparated piano was originally made in 1965 and released on two LP:s 1966.They were Fylkingen Records' first releases with the intention to make documentations of Fylkingen's concerts in public, and a test of the sound expert Stig Carlsson's thoughts about recording techniques.The Sonates and interludes are an attempt to express in music the "permanent emotions" of Indian tradition: the heroic, the erotic, the …
Song Books
Works for voices & electronics, performed by Lore Lixenberg, Gregory Rose, and Robert Worby. Recorded in 2012. "This year, 2012, the maverick American experimental composer John Cage would have been 100 years old. He defined experimental music in the 1930s and, since that time, his ideas, his music and his work have been copied by hundreds of other composers and musicians time and time and time again. Anybody who claims to make experimental music today has to acknowledge their debt to John …
John Cage Shock Vol. 2
Volume 2 in EM Records' John Cage Shock series lifts off with a fiery example of David Tudor's piano virtuosity, his mastery of dynamics well-evident in a performance of Klavierstücke X (1961) by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The titular shock of this series is delivered even more forcefully with the next piece, John Cage's 26'55.988" for 2 Pianists and a String Player (1961), which was first performed the year before in Darmstadt by Tudor and Kenji Kobayashi, a combination of two of Cage's solo piece…
John Cage Shock Vol. 3
The final CD of the John Cage Shock series features John Cage's 0'00" (1962), also referred to as 4'33" No. 2, performed by the composer, with daily activities such as writing and drinking coffee amplified by contact microphones into sonic abstraction, following the score's directions: "with maximum amplification (no feedback), perform a disciplined action." Next is Composition II for 2 Pianos (1960/1961) by Michael von Biel, lovely and sparse, performed by David Tudor and Toshi Ichiyanagi. …
John Cage Shock Vol. 1
In October 1962, John Cage and his great interpreter/co-visionary David Tudor visited Japan, performing seven concerts and exposing listeners to new musical worlds. This legendary "John Cage Shock," as it was dubbed by the critic Hidekazu Yoshida, is the source of this series of releases -- three CDs and a "best hits" double LP compilation. Recorded primarily at the Sogetsu Art Center in Tokyo on October 24, 1962 (with two performances from October 17 at Mido-Kaikan in Osaka), all recordin…
Shock
Special 2LP version of EM Records' John Cage Shock series, compiled from the three CD releases. Featured works: 26'55.988" for 2 Pianists and a String Player, Piano Music #7, 0'00", Variations II. Performers include: David Tudor, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Kenji Kobayashi, Yoko Ono and John Cage. Includes rare photos and liner notes in Japanese and English, plus commentary by Toshi Ichiyanagi. In October 1962 John Cage and his great interpreter/co-visionary David Tudor visited Japan, performing seven …
Empty Words (Part III)
When John Cage took to the stage at Milan’s Teatro Lirico on 2 December 1977 to read from a portion of his not yet published book, Empty Words, little did he know that he was about to incite one of the great art riots of the twentieth century! As Cage reads aloud in what sounds like a nonsensical language (the result of using the I-Ching to extract a series of sounds and syllables from the Journal of Henry David Thoreau), the Italian audience (many of whom did not really know who Cage was …
Cheap imitation
Recorded at Mills College in Oakland, CA in March 1976, this LP represents one of the very few examples of John Cage performing his own work. Actually written in 1969, Cheap Imitation, composed for solo piano, is based on Erik Satie’s symphonic drama “Socrate”. An example of one of Cage’s indeterminate pieces, here Satie’s “Socrate” undergoes a series of variations based on the random extraction of hexagrams from the I-Ching. Inside pocket gatefold sleeve with liner notes.
The Number Pieces 6
New York based ensemble Essential Music had a strong relationship with John Cage in his later years. This experience gives these recordings a special authority. Recorded in 1993-94, they are being released for the first time. In 1987 John Cage began writing his “number” and “time-bracket” compositions, which became his primary compositional method for the remainder of his life. These works are named for the number of musicians participating, consist of the number of parts with no com…