John Cage

The first of two volumes in which the flautist Katrin Zenz records the complete flute music of John Cage spans fifty years, from the Three Pieces for Flute Duet of 1935 to Ryoanji of 1984. Between them come two late works. Two (1987), for flute and piano, is the first of the Number Pieces, and Music for Two (1984/87) is drawn from the seventeen instrumental parts without score that Cage left to be combined in any way. Zenz's own version of the latter for flute and piano is a world premiere recording, which she describes as a new piece for that pairing. The order of the disc runs backwards and forwards in time, so that the early duets sit between the late works.

The recordings were made at the Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens on 26 March and on 8 and 9 May 2013, produced by Zenz with Zafiris Kontogeorgis as engineer and editor; Richard Whitehouse and Zenz wrote the booklet notes. The cover shows a detail of the rock garden at the Kyoto temple of Ryoanji. The piece is heard in its version for flute, percussion and tape, with Maxim Mankovski on percussion, while pre-recorded flutes and percussion build dense, intricate layers around the live line. At almost nineteen minutes it opens the programme. Two follows with the pianist Ludovic Frochot, ten minutes that the label calls "edgily ruminative". The Three Pieces, played with Uwe Grodd as second flute, are short chromatic studies from Cage's early twenties, the first lasting under a minute and the other two marked Andante cantabile and Grave adagio. Music for Two, with Chara Iacovidou at the piano, closes the disc at 28 minutes, its two instruments moving through the same open, slow-paced material that Cage gave to any pair of players.

Naxos CD 8.559773 in the American Classics series, released in 2015. The second volume is on 8.559774.