• Symphony

This is Internet Archive Avant Garde Project installment agp118 'John Cage, Lejaren Hiller et al.' For the previous Internet Archive Avant Garde Project installment,.

For the next Internet Archive Avant Garde Project installment,. Take me (to the Internet Archive Avant Garde Project), Morpheus. NOTE: HPSCHD by John Cage has been deleted at the request of the. AGP118 is a complete transcription of two LPs released on the Nonesuch label in 1970 (H-71224 and H-71231).

The first includes HPSCHD for harpsichords & computer generated sound tapes by John Cage and Lejaren Hiller, and String Quartet No. 2 by Ben Johnston. Both works are available in other recordings, but two different AGP partisans specifically requested these original recordings of the works, which I've been assured differ materially from the recordings currently available on CD. Johnston's string quartet is one of his microtonal works, more of which can be found in AGP9. The second features The Nude Paper Sermon: Tropes for Actor, Renaissance Consort, Chorus, and Electronics, by Eric Salzman. I remember listening to this latter work repeatedly in my youth, but I hadn't heard it in years before transcribing it for this installment. It is noteworthy among other things for being one of the earliest art works to be described as 'post-modern' (in the LP liner notes).

While the use of that term in 1970 pre-dates the eventual meaning of the term, the description is apt in that the texts recited by the actor are not offered in earnest but merely as examples of the ongoing cultural chatter of the time. Both LPs are in excellent condition, with only very occasional light tracking distortion in some of the louder vocal passages in track 3. The installment includes a PDF file with scans of the liner notes of the two LPs.

John Cage: The Complete String Quartets, Volume 2 Arditti Quartet (Mode 27) With nearly 50 discs devoted to Cage’s music thus far and more to come later this year, Mode.

I've also scanned an insert with HPSCHD on old-style computer printout paper with 1 of 10,000 sets of computer-generated instructions for producing one's own version of HPSCHD by adjusting volume, treble, and bass controls in each stereo channel every five seconds. That is, the liner notes say there were 10,000 such sets, but mine is numbered 12024. NOTE: This week's installment is one minute too long for an 80-minute CD. If you are burning to CD, I recommend leaving out the Johnston string quartet and including it with. To download AGP118 files, right-click on each of the following links and select SAVE LINK AS. 01 - Cage/Hiller, HPSCHD 21:04.

(1912-1992) mode 17 Vol.3: The Complete String Quartets Vol. Music for Four (1987, revised 1988) 30:03 2. Thirty Pieces for String Quartet (1983) 30:23 The Arditti Quartet This first volume of Cage's String Quartets marked Mode's beginning of an association with the exceptional Arditti Quartet-and the largest selling record in Mode's catalog! Cage worked extensively with the quartet in preparing the pieces for the concert and recording which was recorded live at Wesleyan University's JOHN CAGE AT WESLEYAN festival in 1988. Cage was so pleased and impressed with the Arditti's interpretations, that it was decided to release the concert performances, documenting the event and their dynamic playing.

Volume 2 of the Quartets can be found on mode 27. Liner notes by John Cage and Irvine Arditti are included. The cover art is an original etching by Cage. Released 1989. REVIEWS 'The two works on this disc document part of a concert of John Cage's string quartet music the Arditti Quartet played at Wesleyan University last year. In both pieces, the players sat far apart from each other, whether displaced on stage for 'Music for Four' (the work's premiere) or scattered in odd locations around the hall for '30 Pieces for String Quartet' (1983), prompting one audience member to ask whether the players liked each other.

Liking doesn't matter, though, with Mr. Cage's chance-derived music; only independence does. And the surprising result of music made from separated, unrelated contrapuntal voices is serenity. Cage's expertly made musical chaos happens to be just as good at producing beautiful patterns as the various forms of natural chaos are, especially when aided by an ensemble as good as this one.' -Mark Swed, The New York Times, Sept. 17, 1989 'The mode of playing is predominantly anti-romantic, as befits the relatively fragmented material, but there is tenderness as well as ferocity in both works, and despite the half-hour length of each composition the succession of short segments is well balanced to keep fatigue and monotony at bay.

As the booklet explains, the recording cannot reproduce the wide spatial separation of the players, but close-miking has the virtue of strengthening the sense of their equality: it also provides close-up evidence of virtuosity of rare distinction.' -A.W., Gramophone 'The spatial separation of players reflects Cage's interest in creating 'a multiplicity which is characteristic in nature' and enables the listeners to choose their own points of focus within the complex web of sound. Cage has commented that the music's flexibility of structure makes it 'earthquake-proof.' However, this analogy also captures the salient qualities projected by this music: those of calm, tranquillity and immense speciousness.'

-Roger Sutherland, The Wire '.these two compositions for string quartet have many moments of magical convergence of musical line which even my traditionally oriented ears can both admire and enjoy. The most laudatory thing that I can say about these compositions is that they seem far shorter than their respective timings of 30:03 and 30:23. In each case, Cage provides a profoundly musical experience.

Symphony

The Arditti Quartet takes the problematical intonation and timing complexities of these works in stride. These are both expert and committed performances which make a persuasive case for this music.

The recording, despite its live performance origins, is excellent, as are the accompanying notes.' -William Zagorski, Fanfare '.there were some late gems.

Two were for string quartet: Music for Four (1987) and Four (1989), both of them restrained, elegiac studies in sustained tones reminiscent of, and perhaps a tribute to, Cage's old friend Morton Feldman. When performed as plainly and devoutedly as the Arditti Quartet performs them they are sublime lullabies, gloriously realizing not only the quietism of Zen as Cage professed it, but the qualities of 'naive poetry' as described by Schiller: 'tranquillity, purity and joy.' -Richard Taruskin, The New Republic 'The Arditti Quartet's playing, supervised in all of these works by the very benign Mr. Cage, is remarkably fine, whether in the extraordinary virtusoso demands of the Thirty Pieces for String Quartet (1983)-a work written for the Kronos-or the apparent extreme simplicity of FOUR (1989), a music of unique, still, lovliness. It is significant that they (the Arditti Quartet), and not an American ensemble, should have produced the first comprehensive Cage quartet document, as Cage, ever the prophet, was welcomed, honored and performed in Europe far more than his home country.' -Raymond Chapman Smith, London Times Related Resources: John Cage Arditti Quartet on Mode: John Cage: The Complete String Quartets Vol. 1 (mode ) The Complete String Quartets Vol.

2 (mode ) Vol.