"And what is your purpose in writing music? - I do not deal with purposes, I deal with sounds. - What sounds are those? - I make them just as well by sitting quiet still looking for mushrooms." (John Cage, 1958)
When discussing John Cage's music, the word "anarchy" is never far away. But, however iconoclastic John Cage's thoughts and actions might seem, the open universe that he preached was always precisely surveyed.
In "Variations II" (presented here in a version prepared by Malcolm Goldstein for violin and glass harmonica), the material provided by Cage consists of five small sheets with a point each, and six larger ones each with a line. The sheets can be superimposed in any way imaginable; the lines represent different parameters of the sound event: pitch, volume, timbre, duration, and point of entry. When perpendicular lines are drawn through the points from five lines, they give values, distances to be measured or simply observed, while the sixth one determines the number of tones. Nevertheless, in response to all questions or problems that might arise in working out the musical text from these givens, the composer emphasizes: "If questions arise regarding other matters or details [...] put the question in such a way that it can be answered by measurement."
"Measure and comply" is also the motto behind "Ryoanji" (1983/85), written more than twenty years after "Variations II" (Malcolm Goldstein's adaptation is based on the version for voice and percussion, but reinterprets the phonemes of the text as various violin timbres and forms of articulation.). The meticulously raked, white sand of the Japanese Ryoanji monastery is represented by the regular pulse of the percussion part. "These sounds should be played quietly but not as background. They should even be imperceptibly in the foreground. They should have some life as though the light on them is changing." (Cage)
Malcolm Goldstein, composer and violinist, has been active in the presentation of new music and dance since the early 1960s in New York City, with co-operations with, among others, John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Matthias Kaul began as a rock and jazz percussionist and then turned to new music. The focus of their collaboration is on improvisation or compositions that give the performers a great deal of free play.
