JOHN CAGE: Dream – Stefano Scondanibbio, contrabass/ Fabrizio Ottaviucci, piano/ Ensemble Nextime – Wergo

by | Jan 29, 2010 | Classical CD Reviews | 0 comments

JOHN CAGE: Dream – Stefano Scondanibbio, contrabass/ Fabrizio Ottaviucci, piano/ Ensemble Nextime – Wergo WER 67132 (Distr. By Harmonia mundi). 65:00 ****:

“You’re not a composer,” said Arnold Schoenberg to John Cage. “You’re an inventor.” Cage only smiled. He took it as a compliment.

Not in recent memory have I heard a CD that reveals as many inventive sides of John Cage as this one. The five pieces range from the bizarre to the placid. Yet even after hearing them, you walk away still wondering what he’s trying to convey. Nevertheless, here we go. First, the modernistic Cage: Concert for piano and orchestra opens with a snap on the contrabass and for the rest of its fifteen minutes it’s filled with tone shards, shouts, disjointed janglings on the piano (not a prepared one, it seems, although its strings do get strummed), foot stompings, shrill flute and one high register trombone. There’s no development of course, and it’s equally entertaining to start in the middle, play for a few minutes, then jump somewhere else.

The slapdash Cage: The Freeman Etudes Nos. 1-5 introduce the considerable virtuosity (and patience) of contrabass player Stefano Scodanibbio. (They were named for the patron Betty Friedman, sort of a Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter of new music.) No staccato note logically follows another in Cage’s sonic universe, and to him that’s part of the fun. While they are challenging pieces to hear, listen for the distinct personalities in these etudes, which alternate from the frenetic and the contemplative.

The beauteous Cage: Apart from one detail, if someone played Dream for you, you’d never guess it was composed by Cage. A mellifluous melody begins on the piano and never changes its mood. It sounds like a ballet school exercise by the callow Alexander Scriabin. For ten minutes, a pianissimo melody gracefully traverses the keys. Once in a while there are slight variations, but most of the time it’s not only tame, it’s sweet. But Cage can’t resist throwing a wrench into it. The contrabass cynically tumbles in, as if warning “watch out, watch out!” Its sporadic droning suggests all’s not well in the realm of the pretty and simple.

The scary Cage: Ryoanji, for contrabass and tape, first makes you think you’re in a Buddhist monastery, with its ringing bell (the “tape”) and contrabass, which fills the hall like a Tibetan horn. But no, the contrabass notes are so long, deep and loud they sound more like anguished groaning Château d’If prisoners in The Count of Monte Cristo. Either that or the fog horns of stranded ships off the coast of Gibraltar with the clanging of nearby buoys. No matter what Ryoanji suggests, you can’t escape the impression that it is one creepy piece. I intend to play it next Halloween–over and over.

The impish Cage: I didn’t care much for Radio Music the first time I heard it, then I played it in the car and it all made sense. Cage is fascinated by the sounds of old-time AM radios, preferably ones miles away from decent reception. He loves the squeals of frequency modulation and those shards of melody and speech, all blanketed by fuzzy static. Eight radios were used. The piece doesn’t end as much as just stop, and suddenly you realize you’re no longer driving a ’56 DeSoto through Arizona’s White Mountains.

TrackList:
1. Concert, for piano & orchestra, for piano & 13 other instruments in any combination
2-6. Freeman Etudes Book I, for violin solo     
7. Dream, for piano     
8. Ryoanji
9. Radio Music, for 8 performers & 8 radios

— Peter Bates

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