[The following review appeared in the June 2000 issue of 21st Century Music.]

John CAGE: Seventy-Four; The Seasons; Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra (1950-51); Suite for Toy Piano (original version & orchestration by Lou Harrison). American Composers Orchestra, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, with Margaret Leng Tan (prepared and toy pianos). ECM New Series {no further label info provided}.

Not often does one find a CD recording that actually utilizes all of its space, but it is found in ECM's new release, 7he Seasons, with more than 76 minutes of John Cage's music. To add to the wonderfully full meal the contemporary music listener will consume, are pages of beautiful photographs of John Cage, rehearsals of Davies, and rare pictures of Margaret Leng Tan in the act of preparing her instrument. The entire experience is documented, not only aurally, but also visually.

The first piece on this recording is Seventy-Four, for orchestra, composed the year of Cage's death 1992. This piece was commissioned by the performers, Dennis Russell Davies and the American Composers Orchestra; Cage died before its first performance. This music seems to be Cage's swan song in some respects, for it is similar emotionally to Barber's Adagio, but somehow more profound. One would never guess upon only listening that this piece “consists of separate orchestral parts without any score. Each part is simply a sequence of single notes,” played within “flexible time-brackets” (taken from Keith Potter's liner notes). A clock takes the place of the conductor. Is this Cage or Fellini? Dynamics as well as other musical ideas are left up to the discretion of the performer.

With all of the freedom Cage gives, one might expect the classically trained musician to crawl in a hole clutching fiendishly his fully composed Beethoven score. However, this is not the case on this recording; the performance is extraordinarily confident and heartfelt. The performers give a second performance of the piece, later on the recording, which lacks the profundity of the first. There is such a concept as too much of a good thing.
Seventy-Four is certainly one of Cage's most insightful works for orchestra. It is, perhaps, that through this utter sadness, Cage was predicting his own death.

The Seasons, composed in 1947, is a four-movement work for orchestra (also arranged for solo piano by Cage, himself). In the words of the composer, taken from the liner notes, this work “is an attempt to express the traditional Indian view of the seasons as quiescence (winter), creation (spring), preservation (summer), and destruction (fall). It is based on a number sequence using the Cageian “gamut” of sonorities. Each of the movements, which is accompanied by a prelude, is extremely characteristic of its season, fall being the wonderful dance of death.

This work is too non-Cageian on the surface to be fully appreciated. The liner notes only give a brief hint to Cage's composition techniques, which is all it really can give since the notes are the size of a small Tolstoy novel. The performance, although seemingly traditional in sound, is true to the composer's complex genius.

The Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra (1950-51) is again a piece directed by a number sequence. In three parts, it is a mix between “fixed” music organized by a chart and “free” music. Performances of this piece vary greatly from performing group to performing group, and this performance seems to have captured all of the human emotions, ranging from amusement to haunting fear. With the preparation of the piano, one may often question what instrument he is experiencing, and may need to allow time for his disorientation to subside. What other composer can pull forth such uneasy emotions? This piece also allows for the listener to hear the serious side of pianist Margaret Leng Tan.

The final two pieces, or one piece and its orchestration, sum up Cage in a wonderful nutshell. The piece is the Suite for Toy Piano. No Cage recording would be complete without a charming performance of Margaret Leng Tan on her toy piano. With over an hour of grown-up music, hearing this piece is like finding a lollipop in a bowl of Brussels sprouts. One no longer needs to long for the relief of being an adult!

The second version of the Suite, orchestrated by Lou Harrison, seems too forced, perhaps similar to the vision of an adult attempting to recapture the joys of childhood by tumbling recklessly down a hill: artificial, awkward, and somewhat embarrassing. The performance itself is magnificent, but, perhaps, the back to back recording of these two versions reminds one of the loss of childhood not the celebration of such as the toy piano does.

If it were to stand on its own, that is without the title Suite for Toy Piano and not directly after the original Cage version, Harrison's orchestration would certainly be viewed differently. Extracting this piece from the recording to listen to it not as an orchestration, but as an orchestral composition is suggested in order to obtain a more pure experience. Harrison seems to have taken this simple piece too seriously. In the words of Freud, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” This is Cage at his simplest. There is no defining him in this piece, for his intentions are as clear as crystal. Where is the simplicity of childhood to be found in the harmonized, colorful, precisely-tuned, mature orchestra? The performance is highly romanticized, and one might take a few guesses before realizing the composer is Cage.
As a whole, this recording will more than likely become one of the classic Cage recordings. Thank ECM for allowing all of this wonderful music to be recorded on a single CD!

Laurie Hudicek