Cage, John

Roaratorio - An Irish Circus on 'Finnegans Wake'

Label: Wergo Country: Germany

"John Cage's famous radio production "Roaratorio - An Irish Circus on 'Finnegans Wake' ". In addition to his musical works and closely tied to them is a body of extensive poetic-philosophical work wich he published successively in his books. Beginning in the 1940s Cage was occupied with the epochal work of James Joyce, particularly with the hermetic and difficult "Finnegans Wake".

With "Roaratorio. An Irish Circus on 'Finnegans Wake' " Cage realized a work which within months of its premiere in 1979 at the WDR in Cologne became an international sensation and must be ranked as one of the key works of Ars Acustica in this century. In "Roaratorio" Cage's experiences with music and poetry, oral recitation and tape montage, and his close association with Zen Buddhism, lead to an all-inclusive cosmology built out of human voices, natural sounds, sounds coming out of the immediate environment, noises, singing, and music."-Wergo