Cage Edition 23- The Works for Violin 3

The Complete John Cage Edition, Volume 23

Irvine Arditti, violin

Two⁴  (1991)  30:16
for violin and sho
Mayumi Miyata, sho

Two⁴  (1991)  (30:18)
for violin and piano
Stephen Drury, piano

Cage’s Two⁴ is special among the Number Pieces because it uses the same score (with instructional differences) for both the piano and sho parts. This is the first time that both versions of Two⁴ appear on a single disc.

One of Cage’s preoccupations in his later years was with the question of a composition’s “identity”, and how that identity is maintained through radically different performances. In the two performances of the single piece recorded here, that question is raised in ways both subtle and obvious. The choice of piano or sho will fundamentally alter the sound of the music.

The sho is a wind instrument used in the gagaku ensemble, which provided the traditional court music of Japan with a mysterious, reedy sound – distantly comparable to an accordion, harmonica and harmonium. The sho sustains and breathes, the piano chimes and begins to fade immediately after being played. The piano sounds a chord with a single ictus, the sho attacks its chords gradually, notes fading in one at a time. When performed with sho rather than piano, the music gives the impression more of blending than diverging. The violinist is asked to differentiate six microtonal notes between each chromatic step, resulting in a scale of eighty-four tones to the octave! Cage’s explicit intention is not a precisely microtonal music; rather he uses this notation as a way of creating uncertainty in the pitch field. In addition, the violin can be asked to sustain its single pitches as long as necessary – for up to a minute and forty seconds. The piano or sho, having more limited sustaining ability (the piano sound dies away, the sho’s chords last no longer than the player’s breath), must move through its material much more rapidly, sometimes having as many as eleven chords to move through in no more time than the violin has to hold a single note. The two instruments thus play contrasting roles throughout, in the fields of both pitch and time – the violin generally exploring the infra-chromatic cracks between the piano or sho’s tempered scale; long, single tones against changing harmonies. The experience of time – the listener’s experiencing of time – is fundamental to the late pieces. The static, suspended, sustained tones of the violin and the unchanging volume of the piano or sho reinforces more strongly than ever Cage’s interchangeable use of sound and silence.

The score consists of a set of materials in six categories, three for each instrument, one of which is silence. Both the violin and sho are encouraged to make extremely long held notes, often with microtonal shifts. The pianist can choose to play from a set of ascending pitches, as well as “extended lullabies” which are modified from Satie’s Vexations. The result is music that is mysteriously magical.

Irvine Arditti, of the incomparable Arditti Quartet, continues his ongoing series of Cage’s Complete Works for Violin on Mode with this release. Mayumi Miyata is the sho’s leading New Music interpreter, and Cage wrote this version especially for her. Stephen Drury, a highly regarding New Music and Cage specialist, has appeared on many Mode discs (as pianist and conductor). The liner notes (some of which are excerpted above) are by Stephen Drury.