Henry Cowell & John Cage: Amiable Conversation

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Liebner is a persuasive performer, creating an anthology which is ideal for introducing either composer and containing surprises for those who know the work of both — Gramophone Magazine, January 2016 More…

Release Date: 11th Dec 2015
Catalogue No: WER73262
Label: Wergo
Length: 77 minutes

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Cage: Tossed as it is Untroubled

Work length2:55

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Sabine Liebner

Cowell, H: Sinister Resonance

Work length3:48

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Sabine Liebner

Cage: Soliloquy

Work length2:58

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Sabine Liebner

Cowell, H: Aeolian Harp

Work length3:01

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Sabine Liebner

Cage: Dream

Work length7:01

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Sabine Liebner

Cowell, H: Irish Legend I.

Work length3:21

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Sabine Liebner

Cowell, H: Irish Legend II.

Work length3:12

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Sabine Liebner

Cowell, H: Irish Legend III.

Work length4:50

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Sabine Liebner

Cage: In the Name of the Holocaust

Work length7:06

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Sabine Liebner

Cowell, H: The Banshee

Work length4:27

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Sabine Liebner

Cage: Two Pieces for Piano I.

Work length4:33

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Sabine Liebner

Cage: Two Pieces for Piano II.

Work length5:08

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Sabine Liebner

Cowell, H: Vestiges

Work length3:10

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Sabine Liebner

Cage: The Perilous Night I.

Work length2:32

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Sabine Liebner

Cage: The Perilous Night II.

Work length0:51

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Sabine Liebner

Cage: The Perilous Night III.

Work length4:17

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Sabine Liebner

Cage: The Perilous Night IV.

Work length1:11

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Sabine Liebner

Cage: The Perilous Night V.

Work length0:42

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Sabine Liebner

Cage: The Perilous Night VI.

Work length3:22

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Sabine Liebner

Cowell, H: Encore to Dynamic Motion, No. 2

Work length1:03

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Sabine Liebner

Cage: Primitive

Work length4:09

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Sabine Liebner

Cowell, H: The Snows of Fujiyama

Work length4:16

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Sabine Liebner

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The piano works by Cowell and Cage on this CD cover the period from 1912 to 1948 and document not only the emergence of experimental American music, but also depict a very fruitful teacher-student relationship. Before John Cage began his brief and informal studies with Arnold Schoenberg, he studied composition with Cowell. If one compares Cowell’s piano pieces with those John Cage composed up to the end of the 1940s, their common features are as clear as the differences. For one thing, there is a shared interest in extending the sound possibilities of the piano through preparations of the strings and the use of Irish subject matter, as in Cage’s The Perilous Night, whose title can be traced back to an Irish folktale.

On the other hand, it is unmistakable that Cage follows a concept of abstraction that emphasises the objective character of the sound, while Cowell, with his powerful cluster towers and the gentle 'string piano' pieces, creates a surreal but, in the end, almost romantic sound world. A title like Aeolian Harp unavoidably recalls the famous John Keats poem Ode on a Grecian Urn from 1820 (‘Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter ...’). With Cage, on the other hand, the preparation serves to disturb and distort the listener’s awareness. The keys pressed down and the sound that emerges no longer form a unity. What sounds real is ultimately the acoustical fingerprint of the respective preparation object and of the sound produced when the keyboard hammer strikes the blocked strings. And while Cowell wrote his piano music specifically for that instrument, Cage was inspired in his prepared piano pieces by the sounds of percussion instruments, which he transferred to the piano.

Reviews

January 2016

Liebner is a persuasive performer, creating an anthology which is ideal for introducing either composer and containing surprises for those who know the work of both

March 2016

Liebner employs a wonderfully nuanced control of dynamics to subtly enhance this spectrum of strangely beautiful sounds, her poertic touich extending from the eerie shrieks of Cowell’s The Banshee to Cage’s hushed Dream

Henry Cowell & John Cage: Amiable Conversation

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