Cheap John Cage: One9 and 108 (Music) (John Cage) Price

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Customer Reviews of John Cage: One9 and 108

Late orchestral Cage
This disc contains simultaneous performances of two of John Cage's late "number pieces", One^9 for solo sho--a type of Japanese mouth-organ--and 108 for orchestra (108 players, hence the title). This procedure is as intended by the composer, however, who allows 108 to be played together with either One^9, One^8--for solo cello--or Two^3--for sho and water-filled conch shells. (Indeed, 108 is explictly crafted to work well alongside these works, the later stages of the work including several long silences that allow the soloist to come to the forefront.)

In Cage's "number pieces", the notes are specified by the score, but some flexibility is given as to when the notes are played. In the works for fewer performers, this creates interesting, unpredictable counterpoint between instruments, but obviously when as many as 109 instruments are playing, the effect is more of shifting sound masses. This does mean that over 42 minutes of music--the work actually is timed at 43'30, an obvious reference to a famous earlier piece, but the first 90 seconds are silent--a certain monotony of tone develops, though this is partly alleviated by the passages where the orchestra falls silent and the soloist is heard alone. (Being Cage, of course, these passages are the exact opposite of a solo cadenza: the sho part merely contains a slow succession of chords which continue on their peaceful path during the orchestral silences--which include the last minute or so of the work.)

I enjoyed this disc, but as with some other recordings in Mode's otherwise excellent Cage survey, it offers disappointingly short measure. Given that many of the orchestral 'number pieces' are unavailable on disc, it is a shame that Mode could not have coupled this with a performance of, for example, the so far unrecorded Eighty.