Prom 47 (17.8.12): Cage Centenary Celebration

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  • Eine Alpensinfonie
    Host
    • Nov 2010
    • 20570

    Prom 47 (17.8.12): Cage Centenary Celebration

    Friday 17 August at 7.45 p.m.
    Royal Albert Hall

    CageL 1O1 (12 mins)
    Cage: Improvisation III (12 mins)
    Christian Marclay: Luggage 2012 – improvisation for orchestra (c5 mins)
    Cage: Atlas eclipticalis/Winter Music/Cartridge Music (30 mins)
    Cage: Concerto for Prepared Piano and Orchestra (20 mins)
    Cage: Four2 (7 mins)
    Cage: But what about the noise of crumpling paper ... (15 mins)
    Cage: Experiences II (3 mins)
    Cage: ear for EAR (Antiphonies) (2 mins)
    David Behrman, Takehisa Kosugi, Keith Rowe & Christian Wolff: Quartet – improvisation (c25 mins)
    Cage: Branches (20 mins)

    John Tilbury piano, prepared piano, Frank Denyer piano, Aki Takahashi piano, Christian Wolff piano, David Behrman live electronics,Takehisa Kosugi live electronics
    Keith Rowe,Vicki Bennett,Steve Beresford,Adam Bohman,Jonathan Bohman,John Butcher,Karen Constance
    Angharad Davies,Rhodri Davies,Patrick Farmer,Ram Gabay,Christoph Heemann,Lina Lapelyte,John Lely,Anton Lukoszevieze,Dylan Nyoukis, Mariam Rezaei, Robyn Schulkowsky
    BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
    Exaudi
    Ilan Volkov conductor

    To mark the centenary of John Cage's birth, Ilan Volkov has created a programme that reflects the composer's iconoclastic thinking, fertile imagination and arresting humour. John Tilbury, who has for decades been associated with Cage's work, tonight plays the exquisitely beautiful Concerto for Prepared Paino and Orchestra. Cassette players and plucked cactuses are just two examples of the blindingly original, yet almost naively simple thinking that saw Cage - wittingly or otherwise - upturn practically every musical rule in the book.
    Last edited by Eine Alpensinfonie; 01-08-12, 21:36.
  • Eine Alpensinfonie
    Host
    • Nov 2010
    • 20570

    #2
    Did John Cage inspire "The Who"? They smashed their guitars in front of the audience. John Cage orders the musicians to damage a grand piano in order to play this concerto.

    Comment

    • Bryn
      Banned
      • Mar 2007
      • 24688

      #3
      Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

      Comment

      • heliocentric

        #4
        Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View Post
        John Cage orders the musicians to damage a grand piano in order to play this concerto.
        Really? I've seen it performed a couple of times and didn't see any damage done. Maybe Cage's "order" somehow wasn't carried out, but, not having a score at home, I can't really check. Can you throw any light on this?

        Comment

        • JohnSkelton

          #5
          Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View Post
          Did John Cage inspire "The Who"? They smashed their guitars in front of the audience. John Cage orders the musicians to damage a grand piano in order to play this concerto.


          As the first book to explain this "delicate topic," WPP shows how piano preparations can be safely applied to a piano without any damage whatsoever to the instrument, and without putting it out of tune.

          "Ordering" musicians to do anything doesn't really seem Cage's style, somehow.

          Comment

          • heliocentric

            #6
            Originally posted by JohnSkelton View Post
            piano preparations can be safely applied to a piano without any damage whatsoever to the instrument
            Of course. I mean, you can twist the bell of a trombone while putting in or removing a mute if you don't do it properly and with care.

            For those wishing to make up their own minds about the Cage/Who connection, here's the first movement of Cage's Concerto, one of his most delicate and beautiful pieces:

            Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.


            And here are The Who performing "My Generation" and destroying their instruments:

            Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

            Comment

            • Bryn
              Banned
              • Mar 2007
              • 24688

              #7
              Be fair. If the preparations are applied without wearing suitable glove, sweat etc. from the fingers might easily get on the strings and that would lead to corrosion. To that extent, the instrument could be damaged, but I can find no sign in the score of a prohibition re. the wearing of gloves while making the preparations.

              Comment

              • Serial_Apologist
                Full Member
                • Dec 2010
                • 37617

                #8
                Originally posted by Bryn View Post
                Be fair. If the preparations are applied without wearing suitable glove, sweat etc. from the fingers might easily get on the strings and that would lead to corrosion. To that extent, the instrument could be damaged, but I can find no sign in the score of a prohibition re. the wearing of gloves while making the preparations.
                I remember similar excuses being made at the Henry Moore sculpture exhibition at the "old" Tate quite a few years ago. When some of us wanted to experience the tactile qualities referred to by the artist we were told off by an attendent. How quickly - (unless you happen to be a Bible fundamentalist) - would it take the billions of years of resistence in that rock sculpture to be undone by a few millimicrons of possible human sweat? And even if we're talking about soiling polished surfaces, what were Spontex cloths created by God for?

                We had Keith Tippett and Stan Tracey down in Bristol for a duo session in a music club which happened to possess two grand pianos in one room. Afterwards the caretaker said he would report us for "damage" to one of the pianos. All Keith had done was to move a small pebble and some woodblocks around on the strings to create varous effects comparable to "preparation"; nevertheless we received a letter from said music club, debarring us from further use of the premises.

                Comment

                • Bryn
                  Banned
                  • Mar 2007
                  • 24688

                  #9
                  Last year I attended a concert at the RCM which included the Cage/Hiller HPSCHD along with such iconic works as Cowell's The Banshee and The Aeolian Harp. Green cotton(?) gloves were worn for all activity inside the piano. Hardly what one might call authentic, what? I bet Henry did not wear gloves while experimenting as part of the process of composition.

                  A piano tuner friend and ex-colleague gets very heated re. the subject of piano preparation. His ex-wife was fond of preparing his best instrument (one of his pianos, that is) and he blames her for ruining it.

                  Now reinforcing a Strad. That's what I call damaging an instrument.

                  Comment

                  • Bryn
                    Banned
                    • Mar 2007
                    • 24688

                    #10
                    In preparation[sic] for the 17th I have been spinning recordings of some of the Cage Uncaged concerts from 2004. Listening to the first of these, I wondered whether EA might have got John Cage mixed up with his mentor Henry Cowell, whose Concerto for Piano and Orchestra certainly is something of a piano breaker. Philip Mead, the soloist at that concert, mentioned how he had broken six strings and done other damage to his own piano while rehearing the piano part. He was putting off getting the piano tuner in until after the performance itself. I wonder what the bill was for restoring the piano used on the night?

                    Not Philip Mead here (this one is a bit more gentle on the instrument) but is should act as and illustration:

                    Henry Cowell (1897-1965): Concerto per pianoforte e orchestra (1928) -- Stefan Litwin, pianoforte -- Radio Symphony Orchestra Saarbrücken diretta da Michael ...

                    Comment

                    • prokkyshosty

                      #11
                      I wonder if Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele are busy Friday night. Seems like 2 1/2 hours of John Cage might be right up their alley.

                      ~runs away~

                      Comment

                      • JohnSkelton

                        #12
                        Originally posted by prokkyshosty View Post
                        I wonder if Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele are busy Friday night.
                        Who they?

                        Comment

                        • Bryn
                          Banned
                          • Mar 2007
                          • 24688

                          #13
                          Originally posted by JohnSkelton View Post
                          Who they?
                          A shady pair of actors.

                          Comment

                          • JohnSkelton

                            #14
                            I get the sense I'm missing something here.

                            (Google is your friend ...

                            ... still not much wiser. Why would spending Friday evening listening to John Cage be right up their alley?)

                            Comment

                            • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                              Gone fishin'
                              • Sep 2011
                              • 30163

                              #15
                              Originally posted by JohnSkelton View Post
                              I get the sense I'm missing something here.
                              Characters from the soft-porn S&M bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey. I think the intended witticism might be that only Sado-Masochists could enjoy such a programme?

                              Interesting, though, that an enthusiast for Sergei and Dmitri should be the only contributor to this Thread who seems actually to have read the aforementioned text!
                              [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

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