John Cage
Complete music for prepared piano

Issue no. 1: how to clear out Western music, especially of the "classical" tradition. Issue no. 2: how to do it using the very means of that tradition, dismantling it from within. John Cage brilliantly solves both issues with the extensive use of the prepared piano: a piano in which screws, nails, bolts, pieces of felt or rubber, paper are inserted "between the strings or hammers" to alter its sound profoundly.

Between 1940 and 1951 Cage wrote about twenty short pieces for prepared piano, a cycle of Sonatas and Interludes (another 20 short pieces), and a Concerto for prepared piano and chamber orchestra: pieces that we find all in this triple CD released by the low-cost label Brilliant Classics with the interpretation of the pianist Giancarlo Simonacci.

Many of these pieces were written for individual dancers or small dance companies: they are therefore pleasant to listen to and not particularly difficult. This is the case, for example, with "Spontaneous Earth," "Triple-Paced," "Mysterious Adventure," and others: all pieces characterized by a lively intertwining of rhythm and melody, being intended for the practical purpose of accompaniment music for a choreography. But at the same time, Cage achieves an important result: the cancellation of harmony. The piano is treated as a monophonic instrument, not polyphonic: chords are almost never played, instead favoring strongly characterized melodies and nervous, lively rhythms. It is a return to a primitive aesthetic, after the rhetorical excesses of romantic and post-romantic pianism. "Primitive," not by chance, is the title of one of these pieces.

The other incredible result achieved by Cage lies in the luxurious variety of sounds he manages to obtain with the preparation of the piano: evidenced by the "Sonatas and Interludes," 16 sonatas gathered in groups of four, separated by 4 interludes; 53 minutes in total that represent one of the highest legacies of 20th-century music.

Not written for dance, these pieces are less rhythmic, with less immediate melodies: here, attention is focused on the timbre and the phantasmagoria of sounds that can be obtained from the prepared piano, in Cage's words, "a percussion orchestra under the command of a single performer." Metallic, muffled, or strident sounds: if we did not know from the start that it was a piano, we would not recognize it.

The music of the Sonatas and Interludes is less singable than the pieces described earlier, more abstract, and it suggests in the percussive, metallic, or muted sounds, the world Cage wanted to evoke: the East, the Hindu and Zen philosophies that he would study in-depth throughout his life.

These splendid CDs include two pieces in which the prepared piano is set alongside traditional instruments: the percussion (the real ones) in "Amores" and a small instrumental ensemble in the "Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra." Noteworthy are the tributes to the father of conceptual art Marcel Duchamp and to the sculptor Alexander Calder in two pieces bearing their names.

Music of great charm and inventiveness, this. Music that is too little known, rare as precious things: and therefore all to be (re)discovered.