The Squid's Ear Magazine


Cage, John / Domencio Scarlatti: Changes (Hat [now] ART)

Pianist Pi-Hsien Chen performs both the playful and quirky sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti juxtaposed to John Cage's I Ching developed compositions, "Music of Changes", which complement each other in unexpected and sublime ways.
 

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Personnel:



Pi-Hsien Chen-piano

John Cage-composer


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UPC: 752156018827

Label: Hat [now] ART
Catalog ID: Hat[now]ART188
Squidco Product Code: 16615

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2012
Country: Switzerland
Packaging: Cardstock gatefold foldover
Recorded on April 2nd, 3rd, and 5th, 2012.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Surprising encounter between two revolutionary flouters of rules and lateral thinkers. John Cage's, Music of Changes is framed by quicksilver-capricious sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti, composed some 200 years earlier. Spontaneity and boldness, delight in experiment and the play of coincidence."-Harry Vogt, from the liner notes


Artist Biographies

"John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 - August 12, 1992) was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher, and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.

Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4′33″, which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not "four minutes and 33 seconds of silence," as is often assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. The work's challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage was also a pioneer of the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by objects placed between or on its strings or hammers), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces. The best known of these is Sonatas and Interludes (1946-48).

His teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933-35), both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage's major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951. The I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text on changing events, became Cage's standard composition tool for the rest of his life. In a 1957 lecture, Experimental Music, he described music as "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation of life - not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living"."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Sonata K 214 2:12

2. Sonata K 226 2:18

3. Music of Changes I 4:44

4. Sonata K 149 1:25

5. Sonata K 24 2:17

6. Music of Changes II 22:13

7. Sonata K 235 2:21

8. Music of Changes III 12:29

9. Sonata K 215 3:28

10. Sonata K 216 2:58

11. Music of Changes IV 13:18

12. Sonata K 366 2:03

13. Sonata K 29 2:47

Related Categories of Interest:


Compositional Forms
Avant-Garde
John Cage
Hat Art
Solo Artist Recordings

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Hat [now] ART.


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