John Cage: Works for Prepared Piano

On this CD:

1. Mysterious Adventure, for prepared piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

2. A Room, for piano or prepared piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

3. Tossed As It Is Untroubled, for prepared piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

4. Primitive, for string piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

5. Music for Marcel Duchamp, for prepared piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

6. Totem Ancestor, for prepared piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

7. A Valentine out of Season, for prepared piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

8. Spontaneous Earth, for prepared piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

9. Root of an Unfocus, for prepared piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

10. The Perilous Night, for prepared piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

11. Daughters of the Lonesome Isle, for prepared piano solo
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

12. And the Earth Shall Bear Again, for prepared piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

13. Triple-Paced no. 1, for piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

14. Bacchanale, for prepared piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

15. Prelude for Meditation, for prepared piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

16. In the Name of the Holocaust, for prepared piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

17. Our Spring Will Come
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

18. Pastorales, (2) for prepared piano
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Markus Hinterhauser

Tracks:

Five Songs For Contralto
Metamorphosis
Bacchanale
A Valentine Out Of Season
Tossed As It Is Untroubled
Root Of An Unfocues
Music Walk - Joshua Pierce/Adria Firestone/Joseph Kubera/Myra Melford/Fumiko Miyanoo
Jazz Study
Music Walk - Joshua Pierce/Adria Firestone/Borah Bergman/Adria Firestone/Joseph Kubera/Myra Melford
Experiences: I. Duo For Two Pnos - Joshua Pierce/Adria Firestone/Dorothy Jonas
Experiences: II. Solo for voice - Adria Firestone

Cage: Works for Piano & Prepared Piano, Vol.1

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Cage: Works for Piano & Prepared Piano, Vol.1

Manufacturer: Wergo
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000005WBB
Release Date: 1993-12-08

Tracks:

Works For Piano & Prepared Piano Vol.1: A Room - She Is Asleep
Works For Piano & Prepared Piano Vol.1: Duet For Voice & Prepared Piano
Works For Piano & Prepared Piano Vol.1: Quartet For Twelve Tom-Toms
Works For Piano & Prepared Piano Vol.1: A Room
Works For Piano & Prepared Piano Vol.1: In A Landscape
Works For Piano & Prepared Piano Vol.1: Seven Haiku
Works For Piano & Prepared Piano Vol.1: Totem Ancestor - Two Pastorales
Works For Piano & Prepared Piano Vol.1: No.1
Works For Piano & Prepared Piano Vol.1: No.2
Works For Piano & Prepared Piano Vol.1: And the Earth Shall Bear Again
Works For Piano & Prepared Piano Vol.1: Waiting
Works For Piano & Prepared Piano Vol.1: For M.C. And D.T .

Amazon.com essential recording

Joshua Pierce brings to John Cage's music an almost uninhibited classicism, but that only bolsters the compositions. He opens A Room and emphasizes its shifts with the attention of a concert pianist, rather than someone who follows Cage's directions to play the piece very quietly. Pierce, in fact, takes each of these dozen works, all of them dating to the 1940s and '50s, and draws from them the resonant Cagean oddness--phrases of weird shapes and all. But he adds a ton, too. In a Landscape sounds almost wholeheartedly minimalist in its tone colors, and She Is Asleep sounds both drummerly (on the artfully flat prepared piano) and jazzy, with Jay Clayton dropping some scat vocals in ever so subtly. This is, after all, the period when Cage was discovering the closeness between percussion and motion, on the one hand, and percussion and the modified piano, on the other hand. So these pieces blurt out chunky phrases, build with shaded drama, and rumble delicately along. It's a difficult assessment making suggestions when it comes music so notoriously open to interpretation. But Pierce has played all the Cage piano and prepared-piano stuff, creating a Wergo series that any lover of the piano repertoire should own in full. Here, anyway, is an excellent introduction, perfect for the Cagean neophyte and still inventive enough to energize owners of Roaratorio or Frances Marie Uitti's Works for Cello. --Andrew Bartlett

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Grete Sultan, The Legacy, Volume 1

Manufacturer: Concord Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Etudes | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0000006T7
Release Date: 1996-06-11

Tracks:

Funf Klavierstucke, Op. 23: Sehr langsam
Funf Klavierstucke, Op. 23: Sehr rasch
Funf Klavierstucke, Op. 23: Langsam
Funf Klavierstucke, Op. 23: Schwungvoll, massige
Funf Klavierstucke, Op. 23: Walzer
Klavierstuck, Op. 33a
Music Of Changes, Part I
The Perilous Night
Douze Etudes, Book II: No. VII - pour les degres chromatiques
Douze Etudes, Book II: No. VIII - pour les agrements
Douze Etudes, Book II: No. IX - pour les notes repetees
Douze Etudes, Book II: No. X - pour les sonorites opposees
Douze Etudes, Book II: No. XI - pour les arpeges composes

Tracks:

Goldberg Variations: Aria
Goldberg Variations: Keyboard Etude
Goldberg Variations: Free Imitation
Goldberg Variations: Canon At The Unison
Goldberg Variations: Free Imitation
Goldberg Variations: Keyboard Etude
Goldberg Variations: Canon At The Second
Goldberg Variations: Alla Siciliana
Goldberg Variations: Keyboard Etude
Goldberg Variations: Canon At The Third
Goldberg Variations: Fughetta
Goldberg Variations: Keyboard Etude
Goldberg Variations: Canon At The Fourth (In Contrary Motion)
Goldberg Variations: Andante
Goldberg Variations: Keyboard Etude
Goldberg Variations: Canon At The Fifth (In Contrary Motion) Andante
Goldberg Variations: French Overture
Goldberg Variations: Keyboard Etude
Goldberg Variations: Canon At The Sixth
Goldberg Variations: Free Imitation
Goldberg Variations: Keyboard Etude
Goldberg Variations: Canon At The Seventh
Goldberg Variations: (Fugato) Alla Breve
Goldberg Variations: Keyboard Etude
Goldberg Variations: Canon At The Octave
Goldberg Variations: Adagio
Goldberg Variations: Keyboard Etude
Goldberg Variations: Canon At The Ninth
Goldberg Variations: Keyboard Etude
Goldberg Variations: Keyboard Etude
Goldberg Variations: Quodlibet
Goldberg Variations: Aria - Da Capo

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John Cage: Works for Percussion

Manufacturer: Wergo Germany
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Percussion | Instruments | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Classical | Imports | Stores | Music
Similar Items:

John Cage: From Zero
Penderecki: Anaklasis; Threnody; etc.

ASIN: B000025RWV
Release Date: 1992-09-10

Tracks:

Second Construction
Imaginary Landscape No.2
Amores: I
Amores: II
Amores: III
Amores: IV
Double Music
Third Construction
She is Asleep: I
She is Asleep: II
First Construction (in metal)

Margaret Leng Tan: Sonic Encounters: The New Piano - Works of John Cage / Alan Hovhaness / George Crumb / Somei Satoh / Ge Gan-Ru

Average customer rating:

The New Piano is a Sonic Encounter
Definitely recommended.

Margaret Leng Tan: Sonic Encounters: The New Piano - Works of John Cage / Alan Hovhaness / George Crumb / Somei Satoh / Ge Gan-Ru

Manufacturer: Mode
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

Musical Theater | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Litania - Margaret Leng Tan plays Somei Satoh
John Cage - The Seasons / Leng Tan, Russell Davies, et al
Henryk Gorecki: String Quartet No. 3...songs are sung
Misterioso
The Departed (Two-Disc Special Edition)

ASIN: B000000NYB
Release Date: 1995-01-30

Tracks:

Primitive
In the Name of the Holocaust
Orbit No.2, Op.102, No.2
Jhala, Op.103
Five Pieces for Piano: l:
Five Pieces for Piano: ll:
Five Pieces for Piano: lll:
Five Pieces for Piano: lV:
Five Pieces for Piano: V:
Cosmic Womb
Gu Yue (Ancient Music): l:
Gu Yue (Ancient Music): ll:
Gu Yue (Ancient Music): lll:
Gu Yue (Ancient Music): lV:

Customer Reviews:

The New Piano is a Sonic Encounter.......2003-10-25

Margaret Leng Tan plays prepared piano works from John Cage (the father of the prepared piano), Alan Hovhaness, George Crumb, Somei Satoh, & Ge Gan-Ru with this highly original & well recorded CD. The prepared piano was created by John Cage in the 1940's to save space & cost from hiring several percussion musicians while at the same time creating new sounds with inserted items or re-tuning the piano. In the later 20th century, several composers took up the practice to create certain tonalities or soundscapes with the prepared piano. In this recording Alan Hovhaness & George Crumb are west meeting east, while Somei Satoh & Ge Gan-Ru are east meeting west, all creating a multi-cultural modern classical expression not to be missed.

Definitely recommended........2000-08-24

Two Cage works for prepared piano, George Crumb, Alan Hovhaness and Somei Satoh. Besides all being pieces that are less frequently recorded, the four composers provide a fine overview of experimental piano techniques, and Tan's playing is, of course, excellent. All in all, a fine collection of 20th century classical piano, and a good introduction to any of the composers.

Average customer rating:

Piano Works 2

Manufacturer: Mode
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000000NZ3
Release Date: 1996-04-23

Tracks:

Sonata I
Sonata II
Sonata III
Sonata IV
First Interlude
Sonata V
Sonata VI
Sonata VII
Sonata VIII
Second Interlude
Third Interlude
Sonata IX
Sonata X
Sonata XI
Sonata XII
Fourth Interlude
Sonata XIII
Sonatas XIV & XV 'Gemini'
Sonata XVI

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John Cage: Works for Prepared Piano

Manufacturer: Col Legno
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

Musical Theater | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00000DFHQ
Release Date: 1998-11-01

John Cage: Complete Piano Music, Vol. 10

Average customer rating:

Unusual Cage, but interesting

John Cage: Complete Piano Music, Vol. 10
John Cage , and Steffen Schleiermacher
Manufacturer: MD&G Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Soundtracks | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00006IWUW
Release Date: 2002-11-26

Tracks:

Opening Dance
Furniture Music Etcetera
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
I.
II.
Four3

Customer Reviews:

Unusual Cage, but interesting.......2003-11-30

Steffen Schleiermacher's series of John Cage's piano works was originally scheduled to reach an end after volume nine. However, while Schleiermacher was recording this series, he received word of other, previously undiscovered Cage pieces, and decided to record them. This disc contains them, plus some miscellaneous fill-up pieces, thus entirely justifying its subtitle, 'Etcetera'.

The disc starts off with a brief Opening Dance, an early-1940s dance piece. This is in a similar style to his Sonatas and Interludes, though it is for piano rather than prepared piano. Following this is a second previously unknown work, Furniture Music Etcetera, from 1980. This work is barely more than a sketch for realisation by the performer: it consists of instructions on when to play fragments of Satie and when to play fragments of Cage. Schleiermacher's reconstruction, thus, is necessarily speculative, but it entertains for its 20 minute duration.

Schleiermacher continues with the Suite for Toy Piano, from 1948. He had previously recorded the version for piano, but for this disc he bought a toy piano and recorded on it. This is a minor work, almost inevitably, but one recorded several times: I found Margaret Leng Tan's ECM recording marginally preferable.

Tan has also recorded the music for 'Works of Calder', a film about the mobiles of Alexander Calder. Her rendition scores over Schleiermacher in that she also includes the percussion music and narration from Burgess Meredith that appeared in the film itself. (Cage had intended to create the entire soundtrack with percussion and electronics, but ran out of time and had to supply 15 minutes of prepared piano music instead.) The music isn't Cage at its best, and I found little to separate Tan and Schleiermacher's readings in terms of desirability.

Lastly, Four^3, a work for the rather extraordinary combination of piano, offstage piano, violin (or oscillator) and twelve rainsticks. This is one of Cage's late number pieces, and thus the part for each performer indicates single notes or brief phrases, and a range of times between which the performer may start and stop playing them (in the case of the violinist, (s)he plays only one single tone for the whole piece). This is a more effective work than might be expected, the rainsticks providing an aural backdrop against which brief fragmentary melodies appear in the two pianos, with the high pianissimo violin tone flickering in and out of the texture.

Tracks:

Mysterious Adventure
TV Koeln
Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle
Dream/The Perilous Night
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
Nocturne/Three Dances
#1
#2
#3

Customer Reviews:

My introduction to John Cage.......2007-05-20

As a fan of progressive rock, I take great enjoyment from exploring a wide variety of experimental music and found my introduction to John Cage to be especially rewarding. Cage was an early composer of what is referred to by musicologists as aleatoric music, which introduces the element of chance into a given composition. Although Cage would flip coins to determine a particular sequence (a binary outcome seems an odd choice), he eventually went so far as to formally model probability in his compositions using more sophisticated approaches including a computer program. I am curious though, as to how he incorporated stochasticity into this computer model, e.g. whim of the performer. It is worth noting however, that the whim of the performer was taken into account without statistical modeling by providing performers with graphics on paper and allowing them to interpret the images and subsequently determine pitch, duration etc.

At any rate, the works generated from 1946-48 are widely seen as Cage's greatest for prepared piano and The Perilous Night (1944) is considered as one of his greatest compositions for prepared piano. Based on what I have read, prepared piano involves placing screws, bolts, strips of rubber, and other objects between the strings of the piano to change the character of the instrument. There are even times when the outside of the piano is played! The resulting sound is extremely percussive and the notes are somewhat damped (they are not very vibrant).

The musicians on this recording (made between 1983 and 1987) include Joshua Pierce (piano/prepared piano); Dorothy Jonas (piano/prepared piano); and Frank Almond (violin). The musicians are all extremely highly trained and are well respected classical performers. Their performances on this recording are breathtaking to say the least.

Many of the pieces on this compilation were composed during the 1944-1948 timeframe, although there is one piece from 1958 (TV Koeln). In large part, the prepared piano compositions are extremely percussive and are almost oriental sounding (somewhat reminiscent of a Balinese gamelan). Melody is absent from this music and the compositions are comprised of noise, which can be either pitched or unpitched, and arranged rhythmically. The one piece that stands out from this approach is Dream (1948), which is the only non-prepared piano piece on the album and consists primarily of a single (and very odd sounding) melody played with the piano soft pedal depressed the whole time, allowing each note to blend in with adjacent notes. The effect is very...well...dreamy.

Well, there you have it. This is very challenging music for serious listeners and I personally found the experience extremely rewarding. I am now on a mission to explore other prepared piano works from the period explored on this album along with his other compositions.

Great performance, but not a very good recording.......1999-08-01

The performances on this disc are very well executed. All of the preparations seem to be well done. Unfortunately, the quality of the actual recording is slightly sub-par. The prepared piano sounds are dry and almost toneless. This is most likely due to a poor recording job. The works that don't involve the prepared piano (TV Koeln and Dream) turned out flawlessly. I would still recomend this recording if for nothing else than the only recording of "Mysterious Adventure" which, although drier than intended, is performed with an exquisite touch.