John Cage - Early Piano Music - ECM: 4761515 - CD or download

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…Cage's notoriety was derived from his more overtly radical ideas, but he was equally capable of more subtle kinds of subversion. This sonically immaculate CD is packed with such eminently approachable,... — BBC Music Magazine, September 2005, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 18th Jul 2005
Catalogue No: 4761515
Label: ECM
Series: New Series
Length: 69 minutes

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Cage: The Seasons

Work length16:33

$7.65

$10.35

Herbert Henck (piano)
Recorded: 2002-12-10
Recording Venue: Festeburgkirche, Frankfurt/Main

1. Prelude I

Track length2:01

$0.85

$1.15

2. Winter

Track length1:27

$0.85

$1.15

3. Prelude II

Track length0:48

$0.85

$1.15

4. Spring

Track length2:26

$0.85

$1.15

5. Prelude III

Track length1:44

$0.85

$1.15

6. Summer

Track length3:36

$0.85

$1.15

7. Prelude IV

Track length0:53

$0.85

$1.15

8. Fall

Track length2:30

$0.85

$1.15

9. Finale (Prelude I)

Track length1:08

$0.85

$1.15

Cage: Metamorphosis

Work length16:15

$4.25

$5.75

Herbert Henck (piano)
Recorded: 2002-12-10
Recording Venue: Festeburgkirche, Frankfurt/Main

Track length2:06

$0.85

$1.15

Track length2:40

$0.85

$1.15

III

Track length7:15

$0.85

$1.15

Track length1:16

$0.85

$1.15

Track length2:58

$0.85

$1.15

Cage: In a Landscape

Work length12:48

$0.85

$1.15

Herbert Henck (piano)
Recorded: 2002-12-10
Recording Venue: Festeburgkirche, Frankfurt/Main

Cage: Ophelia

Work length6:46

$0.85

$1.15

Herbert Henck (piano)
Recorded: 2002-12-10
Recording Venue: Festeburgkirche, Frankfurt/Main

Cage: Two Pieces for Piano (1935)

Work length3:40

$1.70

$2.30

Herbert Henck (piano)
Recorded: 2002-12-10
Recording Venue: Festeburgkirche, Frankfurt/Main

I Slowly

Track length2:19

$0.85

$1.15

II Quite fast

Track length1:21

$0.85

$1.15

Cage: Quest

Work length1:49

$0.85

$1.15

Herbert Henck (piano)
Recorded: 2002-12-10
Recording Venue: Festeburgkirche, Frankfurt/Main

Cage: Two Pieces for Piano (1946)

Work length11:21

$1.70

$2.30

Herbert Henck (piano)
Recorded: 2002-12-10
Recording Venue: Festeburgkirche, Frankfurt/Main

Track length5:42

$0.85

$1.15

Track length5:39

$0.85

$1.15

Reviews
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Reviews

September 2005

…Cage's notoriety was derived from his more overtly radical ideas, but he was equally capable of more subtle kinds of subversion. This sonically immaculate CD is packed with such eminently approachable, slightly puckish music which typifies Cage's work during the period, with Metamorphosis and Ophelia being further highlights. ...Henck is particularly adept at preserving the composer's unique musicality which is often over-sanitised by modern performance and production techniques.

2010

The shock here is that this is simply piano music – no preparations, nothing played from the inside, every detail notated. In a Landscape, with a dozen recordings already, tops Cage's greatest hits. It was written for dance, can be played on harp or piano, and again exercises its uncanny, mesmeric powers in this performance by Herbert Henck, who takes it much more slowly than the marked tempo. But Henck's performances throughout are fastidious in representing every detail of the scores.
The longest work, The Seasons (1947), was a ballet for Lincoln Kirstein which, like the Sonatas and Interludes, shows Cage's interest in Indian philosophy before he moved on to Zen.
At this period, perceptibly under the influence of Satie, Cage would assemble a collection of attractive sounds and then rotate them automatically, a procedure that became his trademark.
The Two Pieces (1946) use some of the same autonomous sonorities as The Seasons in a different context.
Some of these early pieces are not linked to dance but stem from Cage's study with Schoenberg and his development of his own kind of row technique. Late in life Cage liked his early key- board pieces but found A Metamorphosis the least interesting. These are fascinating documents, well recorded, which bring this part of Cage's enormous output quite naturally into the mainstream of 20th-century piano music.

John Cage - Early Piano Music

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