John Cage — Winter Music
It’s fair to say I’m not the biggest fan of much of Mr. Cage’s output- sure I understand it’s importance, it’s influence, and his innovation- but more often than not it seems his compositions seem to lack any kind of atmosphere, depth or reason. Much of what I’ve heard seems to be experimenting for the sake of it, and not coming out the other end with a focus, point or much structure. I guess you could argue that’s the point of much of his work is to push the limits, experiment & break conventions- and I’m for all of that- it just has to have some sort of impact on me- be it create a mood, unbalance me, amuse, or challenge me…and more often than not I just come away from his work bored & frustrated. So that brings us to the work at hand, and I must say it’s one of the most enjoyable & attention grabbing works I’ve heard from Cage.
As mentioned early this work was composed in 1957 by Cage for 1 to 20 pianists- the score for the piece consists of 20 unbound pages and can be performed in any order. The whole idea/ point of the piece is to investigate chance in composition. For the recording on this CD- we have four highly respected modern pianist- Mark Knoop, Catherine Laws, Phillip Thomas, and John Tilbury. Each of the pianists was given 5 pages, each agreed on a length of 40 minutes and then prepared their parts independently. Then there where no rehearsal and the piece was played just once- with the whole thing been captured with wonderful balance & layer depth by Simon Reynell.
The above description may suggest that the work could be random, shape-less & deliberately difficult. But instead, it’s invigoratingly urgent & often jarringly angular sonic experience- with very fleeting moments of melancholic beauty. The recording of this work is clearly key to it working so well- as each piano is captured at the same clarity & depth. The piece is a taut sonic tapestry that shifts from sudden darts & slams rapidly cut cascading tinkles, sly semi harmonic wonders, to brief barren flits. Through-out ones attention is perfectly held, awaiting the next pattern or shift in the occur- sure there is little in the way of firmly discernable repeating patterns, or structure here- like say a Feldman composition, but there’s a real feeling of danger, flair & urgency here, which keeps pulling me back to work again & again
If like me you’ve been unimpressed with Cages work you’ve heard in the past, but do enjoy modern composition for the piano. Then I’d really say give this release a go- as I think you may to be pleasantly surprised.