Pasión
Beatriz Boizán
Galano Records GLO–2813 
www.beatrizboizan.com

Latin American piano music is not commonly found on record. Even the Brazilian master, Hector Villa-Lobos, only sometimes gets acknowledged for his piano output. How refreshing then, that the Cuban-born Canadian pianist Beatriz Boizán has decided to change this on her debut disc. Oh, sure, there is an occasional Soler and Albeniz here, but the spirit of this album is an unbridled fiesta. The pianist has a light, precise touch that serves her well in the break-neck pace of some of the pieces, and infuses the whole with a sense of fun.

Most of the pieces will be both unfamiliar and very familiar at the same time, as they reflect the region’s tradition of rhythmic dance. Whether filled with carnival fervor or moments of whimsy, the music of Lecuona, Cervantes and Ginastera shimmers with light and colour — and of course, the “Passion” of the title. This delightful disc is a musical equivalent of sangria— a perfect accompaniment to a hot summer evening. Muy caliente!

English Recorder Concertos
Michala Petri; City Chamber Orchestra Hong Kong; Jean Thorel
OUR Recordings6.220606

Of the many works written for the recorder over the last century, few of the neo-classical or neo-impressionist examples ever make it onto concert programs or CDs, so it’s good to see the release of this recording. Opening the program is Richard Harvey’s Concerto Incantato, written for soloist Michala Petri in 2009. Using a variety of sizes of recorder over five movements, Harvey writes beautifully for the instrument and the piece also sweetly reflects his sensibilities as a composer for film and television. Here’s hoping that the piece receives more performances by recorder players around the world!

Following the Harvey is Malcolm Arnold’s diminutive Concerto Op.133, written for Petri in 1988, and his inclusion of winds in the orchestration makes for a welcome colour change. Gordon Jacob’s exemplary seven-movement Concerto for alto (and sopranino) recorder and strings closes the program. Written in 1957 for Carl Dolmetsch, it blends the strengths of both string and recorder worlds and is given a definitive and expressive reading here.

Conducted by Jean Thorel, the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong is superlative throughout, and Michala Petri, one of the recorder’s leading figures of the past 40 years, is completely at home in this repertoire.

Accordion Concertos
Bjarke Mogensen;
Danish Chamber Orchestra; Rolf Gupta
Dacapo6.220592

Danish accordionist Bjarke Mogensen is the rising young star in the accordion world. Here he performs concerto works representing four decades of composition. This is really is a “coming of age” release for both the performer and the instrument. Mogensen and the colourful Danish National Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Rolf Gupta are brilliant both in their interpretations and tight ensemble nuances.

Any serious student/performer of accordion will have tackled the accordion works of the late Ole Schmidt. Symphonic Fantasy and Allegro, Op.20 is a very early work for classical accordion. The 1958 piece draws its inspiration from Bartók and Stravinsky. Its rhythmic pulse cries out for a modern dance interpretation. Per Nørgård’s Recall (1968/1977) is a happy rhapsodic work with its many popular music harmonic and groove references.

The remaining two concertos were composed for Mogensen. The underlying “tick tock” idea in Anders Koppel’s Concerto Piccolo (2009) sets the mood in a work clearly rooted in the film score idiom. Martin Lohse’s In Liquid (2008/2010) is one of the most original works for accordion I have ever heard. Mogensen makes his brutal technical part sound so easy in this quasi minimalistic exercise in shifting fluid breathtaking sounds.

Mogensen’s strength lies in his great independence of line in the contrapuntal sections. Occasionally the higher pitches could use some added bellows support to create a fuller colour but this is a moot point. Mogensen is an artist to experience!

Games and Improvisations
Katharina Weber; Barry Guy; Balts Nill
IntaktCD 203
www.intakrec.ch

More than mere child’s play, this significant CD expands some of Hungarian composer György Kurtág’s performance pieces to evocative chamber improvisations. Taking 11 miniatures for solo piano from his eight-volume Játékok series, which translates as “Games” in English, the trio’s intuitive skills create nine exciting tracks that refer both to Kurtág (born 1926) and the wider musical world.

The high quality shouldn’t come as a surprise. Besides a career as an improviser, Bern-based pianist Katharina Weber has won many awards for interpreting notated music by contemporary composers. Swiss percussionist Balts Nill moves easily among improvised, notated and even pop music, while British bassist Barry Guy has been exploring the relationship between instantly composed and composed music for years, most notably with his London Jazz Composer’s Orchestra.

Throughout this CD, Weber outlines the minute-or-so composed lines in appropriately intense, solemn or staccato fashion. Immediately following are group improvisations which, without losing the underlying sentiment, stretch the motifs with techniques encompassing hypnotic glissandi or methodical isolated key strokes from Weber, rim shot pop and woody reverb from Nill and Guy’s rapid string rappelling or percussive stops.

A prime instance of this occurs with Kurtág’s Playing with Infinity that’s followed by Improvisation VI. The former is built around a descending line that radiates overtone coloration as it fades away. The latter evolves at a speedy clip as the pianist’s hunt-and-peck variations evolve into a bouncy line that almost spirals out of control until steadied by Guy’s thumps and Nill’s clanks and clatter. Finally the percussionist’s metallic rim shots and the bassist’s staccato rubs presage a finale of linked arpeggios from the keyboard. Elsewhere these contrapuntal musical salutes evolve in different ways, as flapping cymbals meet intense low-pitched piano reverb; or a tremolo build up of passing piano chords is balanced with squeaking bass lines or hard objects reverberating on drum tops.

All and all the three manage to honour an underappreciated composer’s music while simultaneously creating noteworthy sound statements on their own.

Ruggles – The Complete Music of Carl Ruggles
Buffalo Philharmonic;
Michael Tilson Thomas
Other Minds OM 1020/21-2

Long out of print, this double CD re-issue of the 1980 Columbia vinyl LPs of the complete music of the American iconoclast Carl Ruggles (1876–1971) makes a welcome return to the fold thanks to the efforts of the San Francisco Symphony’s Other Minds project. Michael Tilson Thomas, long-time conductor of that admirable ensemble, was also music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic from 1971–79, continuing a golden age for contemporary music in Buffalo dating back to the tenure of his predecessor, the composer-conductor Lukas Foss (1963–71).

Ruggles struggled mightily with his compositions, publishing only a dozen complete works from 1918 to 1944, amounting to a mere 90 minutes of music. Strident, granitic and densely chromatic, Ruggles’ powerful music attracted the attention of the avant-garde of the time who greatly admired his uncompromising vision. Edgard Varèse (none too prolific himself) was a major enthusiast, and used his influence to arrange high-profile performances and solicit new commissions for him. Alas, the cantankerous Ruggles was more fascinated with the process of composition than its termination and left the majority of his projects unfinished. His colleague Henry Cowell recalled overhearing Ruggles pounding out the same crystalline sonority relentlessly for hours on end, and when he gently questioned him about it Ruggles bellowed, “I’m giving it the test of time!”

Ruggles’ distinctive music has indeed passed that test with flying colours, and 32 years after their initial release these performances remain compelling despite the comparatively dated sonics. The voicing of the glowing, closely-packed harmonies in the isolated moments of quiet repose are expertly balanced and the orchestra projects the stentorian passages with chilling conviction. Excellent documentation is included. This is a landmark collection that should not be missed.

Schulhoff – Piano Works 1
Caroline Weichert
Grand Piano GP604

Weinberg – Complete Piano Works 1
Allison Brewster Franzetti
Grand Piano GP603

Music of Erwin Schulhoff (1894–1942) and Miecyslaw Weinberg (1919–1996) raises consideration of totalitarianism’s effects. Jewish composers escaping the Nazi terror transformed and elevated our western musical world, but what about the ones who looked eastward? New discs enhance our awareness of these wonderful artists. Born in Prague, Erwin Schulhoff developed early as a significant pianist and composer. Attempted emigration to the Soviet Union was overtaken in 1939 by Germany’s occupation of Czechoslovakia and his arrest; he died in a concentration camp. Weinberg grew up between the wars in Poland, barely escaping the Nazi invasion while the rest of his family perished in the Holocaust. He settled successively in Minsk, Tashkent and Moscow in 1943, adapting as best he could to the Soviet regime.

Schulhoff has received considerable attention in recent years; his piano works show a tasteful master integrating musical influences into original and deeply felt works. The affecting Variations and Fugue on an Original Dorian Theme (1913) reveals an already-mature composer commanding compositional forms and devices towards his expressive ends. Carolyn Weichert brilliantly captures the idioms of both modernism and jazz in Partita (1922) where 1920s dances replace Bach-era ones. Transcending clichés of decadent Weimar Germany, the depth and seriousness of its jazz scene during the 1920s and ‘30s are evident; I love the charm, quirky humour, fleeting pensive moments and glimpses beyond the ordinary in the Tango-Rag. Schulhoff’s harmony is never just “bi-tonal” or “wrong-note.” Weichert balances chords and brings out subtle voice-leadings in music evocative of the era and more. The Third Suite for the left hand is a work of pianistic genius. Weichert’s fingers crawl “multi-legged” over the keyboard; as her thumb sings out one of Schulhoff’s exquisite long melodies in the Air, fingers carry on a canonic invention below! After the harmonically-adventurous Improvisazione, she delivers the mixed-metres perpetual-motion Finale with flair but without bombast.

Miecyslaw Weinberg’s major piano works are ably performed by Allison Brewster Franzetti, some in premiere recordings. Weinberg was an excellent pianist whose creative leanings showed in his Lullaby composed at 16, which carries the genre to remarkable heights. Nazi totalitarianism threw him towards the Soviet sphere and he was strongly affected upon hearing Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5. His First Sonata (1940) retains adventurous musical possibilities: bi-tonal passages, extreme registers, stark and dissonant sonorities. Franzetti’s performance of the magical close of the Andantino is touching, seemingly wandering into the distance before the fearsome Finale emerges. Official pressure against Shostakovich’s experimentalism forced him towards the Symphony No.5’s more “positive” idiom; comparing Weinberg’s Second Sonata (1942) to the first shows similar movement. Harmony is organized around familiar scales, the music lilts and sings. Franzetti builds perfectly towards the slow movement’s climax, and the quiet return of the opening mood is breathtaking. Again in 1948 Stalinism reared up, demanding folk-like themes and simple forms. In the Sonatina (1951) Weinberg incorporated some of these changes; unsatisfied, he revised it in 1978 as Sonata Op.49A. The effects of totalitarianism can be long-lasting.

Overheard – Music for Oboe and English Horn
Michele Fiala; William Averill;
Martin Schuring; Donald Speer
MSR Classics MS 1403
www.msrcd.com

Overheard is a refreshing disc of contemporary music for oboe and English horn, by composers born between 1952 and 1986. A professor of oboe at Ohio University who has performed internationally, Michele Fiala’s playing on this, her second recording, is certainly “world class,” in both display of solid technical facility and musical expression, with equally able piano accompaniment provided by William Averill and Donald Speer; but congratulations are also in order on the choice of repertoire which covers a gamut of styles from jazz to the incorporation of electronics.

One of three commissioned works on this disc is by Toronto composer Beverly Lewis — her Fundy Temperaments for English horn and piano is a dramatic work evoking the landscape of the Bay of Fundy, including a foghorn depicted through the use of multiphonics. Another commission, Peaches at Midnight, is a delightful work by Theresa Martin evoking the playfulness of childhood. Sheer technical brilliance is displayed in Gilles Silvestrini’s Three Duos for Two Oboes, in which Fiala is joined by Martin Schuring; the movements are named for works by French impressionist painters.

The concluding work on the disc is a personal favourite — Mark Phillips’ Elegy and Honk for English horn and electroacoustic music uses only processed English horn sounds for the background soundtrack of the slow and moody first segment, while Honk employs manipulated sounds of geese, ducks and a bicycle horn as a rhythmic backdrop to the live instrument. I found myself chuckling along with this last track on what is a thoroughly enjoyable and important contribution to the recorded repertoire for oboe and English horn.

After You, Mr. Gershwin
André Moisan; Jean Saulnier
ATMA ACD2 2517

I used to like jazz. Then something happened. Perhaps I’ve heard too many similar versions of the standards. Maybe I just realized that none of it was necessary after Monk. I also used to enjoy clarinet music but now too often I just curl up from over-exposure.

Nevertheless, there is hope for others, and it comes in the form of this wildly impressive collection of jazz-influenced repertoire performed by the estimable clarinettist André Moisan together with his frequent collaborator Jean Saulnier. Good lord these two can play, and have fun while at it too!

Odd that the disc opens with a recital encore, one of Béla Kovác’s Homages series. It is of course the title track, but in its sparkling brevity it delivers what might be the final word for the whole compilation. The next cut is the highly effective Cape Cod Files, a sonata by Paquito D’Rivera, the most substantial selection. For the first while my jaded ear was persuaded to attend, especially during the beautiful unaccompanied third movement. The conventional finale suggests the composer wanted to get on with other things.

The rest of the material ranges from heart-on-the-sleeve sentimentality (Daniel Mercure’s Pour mon ami Leon) to the clear and incisive Time Pieces by Robert Muczynski. This one is probably the least overtly jazz-inspired, but it’s got that crazy syncopated rhythm goin’ on. Joseph Horowitz’ Sonatina starts off sounding like watery British recital literature until the flashy third movement makes its argument for inclusion.

The playing is fine to fantastic. On occasion Moisan allows his tone to get thin and reedy, edging sharp in the higher range, but generally his sound is lovely, warm and expressive when it needs to be, and fluid and free for the assured passage work. I was glad to hear the clicking of his keys on some of the tracks, an effect as charming as close-miked guitar.

Terrestre
Claire Chase
Focus Recordings, FCR 122 DDD

Despite the cover image — Claire Chase, flute on her shoulder, staring directly into the camera — this CD is not all about Chase. It is an exhilarating ride through the music of five “modernist” composers; it is all about the music, which the high-voltage interpretations of Chase and her five equally capable collaborators render incandescent.

The title track, Terrrestre by Kaija Saariaho, moves from twitchy virtuosic bird songs in the opening movement, L’oiseau dansant, to luminous dreaminess in the second, Oiseau, un satellite infime. In both, the contribution of percussionist Nathan Davis must be mentioned.

Franco Donatoni’s Fili (Threads) and Elliott Carter’s Esprit Rude; Esprit Doux are both series of rhythmically erratic conversations, the first between the flute and the piano, played by Jacob Greenberg, the second between flute and clarinet, played by Joshua Rubin, with effortless ease and rhythmic agility equal to Chase’s.

Chase and Greenberg navigate Pierre Boulez’s now classic (ground-breaking at the time — 1946) Sonatine Op.1 with aplomb: it sounds as new as if it had been composed yesterday.

Kai Fujikara’s Glacier for bass flute concludes the CD. Chase plays the bass with exceptional fluidity and a lovely shakuhachi-like sound. The ending, a haunting figure repeated more and more quietly until it disappears, is exquisite.

The superb technique of the performers and their commitment to the “modernist” musical genre give us the opportunity to hear this very difficult music as (I imagine) the composers would want it to sound.

Kagel – Das Konzert; Phantasiestück; Pan
Michael Faust; Sinfonia Finlandia;
Patrick Gallois
Naxos 8.572635

Throughout his life the Argentinean-German composer Mauricio Kagel (1931–2008) explored every aspect of the evolving musical language of his time, including free improvisation, open form, electronic music, music theatre and purely instrumental music. He taught and organized forums for new music and was a masterful conductor of his own works. He also held an exceptional interest in broadcast media, completing several thought-provoking films in the 1960s for German television and producing radio programs of new music. His appearances in Toronto with New Music Concerts are fondly remembered by all who experienced them.

In his later years Kagel’s music took on an aspect one might call “post-modern,” freely incorporating the extended instrumental techniques of the 20th century in a frequently ironic dialogue with traditional musical conventions. These shadows of the hallowed past occur frequently in the late period works on this disc. Kagel’s 1988 Phantasiestück, a quasi-Schumannesque work that devolves from an atonal to a purely diatonic realm, appears in two versions, one for flute and piano with pianist Paulo Alvares and an expanded version with string quartet and two clarinets performed by Michael Faust’s own Ensemble Contrasts conducted by Robert HP Platz. The brief and delightful Pan for piccolo and string quartet (1985) is a pastiche on Papageno’s pan-flute solo from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. Das Konzert is a theatrical work that was written at the request of Michael Faust and premiered by the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in 2003 with a dozen performances in Duisburg and Düsseldorf. It is a schizophrenic “anti-concerto” for flute and chamber orchestra expertly performed here by the Sinfonia Finlandia Jyväsklä, sympathetically led by fellow flutist turned conductor Patrick Gallois. This is an entertaining yet thought-provoking disc that repays repeated listening.

Editor’s Note: As a long standing friend of the composer, Canadian flutist Robert Aitken was invited to share the soloist’s role in the creation of Kagel’s Das Konzert, alternating the first performances with Michael Faust and giving the Düsseldorf premiere. Aitken went on to give the world premiere performance of the concert version of the work with Esprit Orchestra in Toronto in January 2004.

Saariaho – Works for Orchestra
Various Orchestras
Ondine ODE1113-2Q

There must be something in the water in Helsinki. For a country of just over five million people, Finland seems to produce a disproportionate amount of musical talents — instrumentalists, vocalists, conductors and composers. Kaija Saariaho is no stranger to Toronto audiences: the COC produced the hauntingly beautiful L’amour de loin this season, along with notable performances by the TSO and Soundstreams.

In a sparsely populated Nordic country, an artist feels connected to nature and light (or the lack thereof). Many of the works on this compilation — Lichtbogen, Solar, Orion, Notes on Light — look to the cosmos, and Saariaho’s writing is starkly beautiful. Her use of electronics is meticulously intertwined and delicately masterful — undoubtedly the result of her time at IRCAM in Paris, and the influence of spectralism pioneers Tristan Murail and Gérard Grisey. But it is the diptych Du cristal and … à la fumée that confirms this composer’s inimitability: as in a crystal, macroscopically the structure seems complete, but upon closer inspection, we see not only detail, but growth. Her polymorphic textures progress like an ethereal sublimation.

Saariaho’s connection to the voice is mesmerizing: she integrates text into her orchestrations in a strikingly unique way. Cinq reflets de “L’amour de loin” revisits the music from the opera, but in her process, she has created a completely new work. Grammaire des rêves sets poems of French Surrealist Paul Éluard (not to be confused with her other great vocal work, From the Grammar of Dreams). The voice is treated as instrument, and the ensemble as voices in a texture that rivals (and perhaps surpasses) the great vocal works of Berio. Of all the fantastic singing, I would be remiss not to mention Mirage, featuring the powerful lyric soprano Karita Mattila, whose luminous sound is more often heard in the world’s leading opera houses.

For me, the highlight of the set is undoubtedly cellist Anssi Karttunen, who lends his acrobatic and nuanced virtuosity to four substantial works. But it is difficult to single out a star player on this Finnish powerhouse team that includes conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen (with the Los Angeles Philharmonic), Jukka-Pekka Saraste (with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra) and Hannu Lintu (leading the superb Avanti! Chamber Orchestra).

I could say that Saariaho’s orchestral writing fuses the stark grandeur of compatriot Sibelius, with the stratified texture of Stravinsky, with the slowness of process heard in Ligeti — but it would not do her music justice. Over 20 years of music on four discs reveals a distinguished voice in contemporary orchestral writing; I look forward to hearing the next 20. And she is welcome back to Toronto anytime.

Wachner, Julian – Triptych;
Concerto for Clarinet
Scott Andrews; McGill Chamber Orchestra; Julian Wachner
ATMA ACD2 2319

Sparked by multiple talents of composer-conductor Julian Wachner, this disc succeeds on all fronts! In Triptych, commissioned for the 100th anniversary of St. Joseph’s Oratory, organist Philippe Bélanger and Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain offer an exciting, insightful performance. Out of orchestral chaos the organ enters with chordal grandeur in the introductory “Logos.” An introspective two-part organ passage plus its aggressive string response become the bases for the following allegro. I was especially struck by the quiet return of the organ passage over a pedal note, now continued effectively with chimes. Bélanger and selected instrumentalists are beautifully reflective again in the middle movement “Agape,” the violins serene and inspired in the closing melody. The organist shines in the final “Angelus,” building steadily with the orchestra through tricky metre changes to a great, moving conclusion. Himself a virtuoso organist, Wachner has created long sonorities, repeated chords, and busy passages that are static harmonically to suit the highly reverberant space. Producer Johanne Goyette and engineer Anne-Marie Sylvestre deserve special mention for the sonic results.

On a lighter plane, Wachner’s eclectic Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra receives loving treatment from St. Louis Symphony principal clarinettist Scott Andrews and the McGill Chamber Orchestra. Andrews’ clarinet manages to be Coplandesque, jazzy, klezmerish and more in the expressive introduction and motoric allegro. Highly recommended.

Child’s Play – Stories, Songs and Dances
Kelly Johnson
Potenza Music PM1014
www.potenzamusic.com

The crossover set of American contemporary music which features solo clarinet and at the same time appeals to the young (the post-infant, pre-tween) crowd, must be very small indeed. To hold any appeal for wee ones, the music must have a degree of bounce and action. These qualities can be found in the more rhythmically intricate offerings on Child’s Play, a well-executed selection of challenging pieces recorded by Kelly Johnson.

As judged by my own four year old, the more action the better. He lost interest quickly during the more languid pieces, and had no time at all for the cutesy revisionist nursery tales called Story Hour, by composer Phillip Parker. No wonder. Poet Sara Hay ought to know that irony is a tricky sell with children. Kids laugh at The Simpsons, but most only start really getting the humour when they leave childhood behind.

Johnson has a deft technical ability, her rhythm is tight and her tone fluid. She has a good stable of collaborators, notably Drew Irwin as the violinist in the opening duo. Another work by Phillip Parker, Merry Music sounds like Bernstein and Milhaud had drinks and then went dancing. Parker’s Grooves is also successful if once again derivative, this time of jazz and rock styles (Sultry Waltz should have been called “Take Five Plus One”).

Eric Mandat’s piece The Moon in My Window was inspired by one of the great understated works written for the disc’s target demographic: Harold and the Purple Crayon, by Crockett Johnson. Mandat’s music is direct and fun for kids, and danged difficult to boot. It features extended techniques that Johnson (the performer, not the children’s author) handles with only occasional trouble, mostly with impressive ease.

Packaging notwithstanding, this is not so much a children’s disc as it is a resource for clarinettists looking for new and difficult recital repertoire from the United States. Is it just me or does most of it sound the same?

Philip Glass; Michael Nyman –
Works for Saxophone Quartet
sonic.art Saxophone Quartet
Genuin GEN 11222

The second recording of sonic.art Saxophone Quartet (based in Germany) features minimalist music of Philip Glass and Michael Nyman.

Glass’ String Quartet No.3 “Mishima” is a suite of music from a film documentary about a novelist who — fearing an increasing Western influence in Japan — embraced a samurai life that ended in a ritual suicide. I do not find Glass’ music programmatic, but as concert music it exudes the “high minimalism” of the composer mid-career. The homogeneity of the saxophone quartet lends itself well to transcription, especially considering that the artists can circular breathe.

With writing that is much more idiomatic, and allows the individual players to diverge from the texture as soloists, Glass’ Saxophone Quartet is a reworking of the Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra. I find the lack of orchestral accompaniment to be more intimate, as the writing is more contrapuntal than we might normally expect from Glass. (I compared this with the Raschèr Quartet recording with orchestra, on Nonesuch).

Songs for Tony by Michael Nyman also features previously composed Nyman material, although the work is originally for saxophones. Again, the individuals shine in aria-like sections, and in the last two movements the alto switches to baritone; the deep sonority is haunting and mournful.

This is excellent saxophone quartet playing. Clean articulation and superb intonation help to explain sonic.art’s numerous accolades, including Best New Ensemble at Germany’s Jeunesses Musicales in 2010.

Concert Note: Reviewer Wallace Halladay is the featured saxophone soloist with Orchestra Toronto in concertos by Glazunov and Yoshimatsu on April 15 in the George Weston Recital Hall at the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts.

John Cage – Variations VII
John Cage
E.A.T. & ARTPIX
www.9evenings.org/variations_vii.php

In October 1966 the series “9 Eve­nings: Theatre & Engineering” took place at New York City’s 69th Regiment Armoury. A collaboration between ten New York artists and 30 engineers and scientists from Bell Telephone Laboratories, the performances featured dance, music and theatre. All were documented, and are now released in a series of ten DVDs.

Variations VII by John Cage is an important archival, educational and entertaining DVD release from this artistic happening. Cage wanted to use “only those sounds which are in the air at the moment of performance” so ten hooks-off telephones were positioned around the city to pick up the “music” and fed into a sound modulation system, along with six onstage contact microphones.

The resulting performance is filmed with sensitivity and detail. Watching Cage and his engineers manipulate, mix and alter the latest technology amidst the monstrous amount of cables on tables is a feat of coordination and a modern dance piece in itself. The power of the “soundscape” of musical sounds and lighting is reflected in the amazing clips of audience member facial reactions. Most amazing is how the sense of the vast space of the Armoury setting is captured on film.

A documentary section includes recent interviews with some of the participants and a lengthy audio-only track of the music.

Cage’s pants apparently started smouldering from the stage lights during this performance. This DVD is equally hot and smouldering in its successful documentation of the great John Cage.

Editor’s Note: This year marks the centenary of John Cage who was born on September 5, 1912, and we anticipate a wealth of recorded material and live performances celebrating the iconic composer/philosopher in the coming months.