Autumn season: Life and Legacy of John Cage

[french frank]

Details of Radio 3's programmes, 15-22 September released.

[MrGongGong]

Yes yes yes yes indeed
this is spot on IMV

[Bryn]

Details of Radio 3's programmes, 15-22 September released.

Fair old bit of repetition in what is a fairly short press release. Does nobody proof these things? Come to think of it, quite a bit of repetition regarding the works chosen to represent his oeuvre. A lot of overlap with the Cage Prom and the Tectonics Festival given in Iceland earlier this year. Still, I suppose it costs less to put on the same pieces time and again, and they will be quite different performances in many cases.

[handsomefortune]

thanks for the tip french frank!

[heliocentric]

"Highlights include Aphex Twin’s take on the prepared piano" ... which isn't that different from Cage's except that the pieces are less interesting, although I guess it's a name to drop if you want to attract people about ten years behind the cutting edge of electronic dance music...

[handsomefortune]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphex_Twin

Stockhausen commented:

I heard the piece Aphex Twin of Richard James (sic) carefully: I think it would be very helpful if he listens to my work "Song of the Youth," which is electronic music, and a young boy's voice singing with himself. Because he would then immediately stop with all these post-African repetitions, and he would look for changing tempi and changing rhythms, and he would not allow to repeat any rhythm if it varied to some extent and if it did not have a direction in its sequence of variations.

Aphex Twin, a fan of Stockhausen, responded:

"I thought he should listen to a couple of tracks of mine: "Digeridoo", then he'd stop making abstract, random patterns you can't dance to".

[heliocentric]

Much as I like Mr James I'm basically with Mr Stockhausen on that one.

[MrGongGong]

Much as I like Mr James I'm basically with Mr Stockhausen on that one.

I remember all that coming out in the Wire etc
It did make Stockhausen seem more than a little foolish (but probably the way it was set up in the first place)

As for "Song of the Youth" I think he should listen to the mice from Bagpuss

[heliocentric]

I remember all that coming out in the Wire

Me too. I heard somewhere else that KS was asked very specific leading questions and was then very selectively quoted so as to invoke exactly the kind of response that RDJ is supposed to have made, which makes for good copy of course. Why they didn't play him a Bagpuss video I can't imagine.