John Cage The Seasons

This is an enchanting CD, every item a sheer delight. Margaret Leng Tan worked with Cage in the last decade of his life and her earlier recordings (1/92; 7/95) show a special sympathy for the magical world of Cage's keyboard music. The second of her New Albion CDs included the piano solo version of The Seasons, and Cage was honest enough to admit to her that he had help from Virgil Thomson and Lou Harrison in making the orchestral version recorded here. The result is recognisably Cage at his most poetic, evoking each of the four seasons in lovely changing colours. There are two realisations of one of the last of what are called Cage's 'Number Pieces', Seventy-Four, written specially for the American Composers Orchestra a few months before his death in 1992. Several hearings have confirmed for me that this seamless garment of sustained sound in two overlapping parts is an immensely moving document from a unique human being at the very end of his life.

This astonishing disc is possibly the best collection of John Cage's music now on the market. It covers the gamut of Cage's radicalism as well as his humor, and as such there is something for everyone (newbies included). Of particular delight here is Suite for Toy Piano (1948), which employs only the white keys in a single octave, and the beautifully orchestrated version that follows (done by Lou Harrison, a friend of Cage, in 1963). But three of Cage's absolute masterpieces—each totally different from the other—are also here: the eerie Seventy-Four (1992), the ballet score for The Seasons (1947) and the riveting Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra (1950-51). Everything you need to know about John Cage is right here.

—Amazon.com

John Cage: Early Piano Music comes from Herbert Henck, an experienced hand with the work of Cage, having previously recorded Music for Piano, Music of Changes, and Sonatas and Interludes in addition to a mighty swath of first-tier twentieth-century literature for piano for various labels, most notably Wergo and ECM New Series. These are early works for standard, not prepared, piano, and some of these pieces will be as familiar to dyed-in-the-wool Cageans as "Happy Birthday." This puts the pressure on Henck to excel, and he does so spectacularly well here. The disc includes the two sets entitled Two Pieces for Piano, the piano version of The Seasons, Metamorphosis, In a Landscape, Ophelia, and the fragmentary Quest. The pieces date from 1935 to 1948, the same range covered by pianist Jeanne Kirstein in her pioneering 1967 survey of Cage's piano music for CBS Masterworks.

John Cage - Complete Piano Music, Vols. 1-10 - Steffen Schleiermacher (2004) {18CD Set MDG 613 1731-2 rec 1997-2002}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.95 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 2.73 Gb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 64 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1997-2002, 2004 Musikproduktion Dabringhaus Und Grimm | MDG 613 1731-2
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Piano

Steffen Schleiermacher's monumental traversal of the complete piano music of John Cage will be essential for the collection of any fan of the composer's, unless he or she has already purchased the previously released ten volumes (a total of 18 discs) that are boxed together here and reissued in recognition of the composer's 100th anniversary in 2012. The 20-hour compilation is a testimony to Cage's hugely prolific output, and certainly constitutes one of the most significant collections of keyboard music of the 20th century. There could hardly be a more sympathetic and skillful interpreter of Cage's oeuvre than German pianist/composer Steffen Schleiermacher.

Francesco Tristano - bachCage
FLAC, EAC, LOG & CUE | Lossless Artwork | Size: 320 MB + Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Deutsche Grammophon 0289 476 417-3 5 | Country/Year: Europe 2011
Genre: Baroque, Contemporary | Hoster: Filepost/Filefactory

Francesco Tristano Schlimé (born 1981) is a Luxembourg classical and modern jazz pianist who also plays the clarinet. He composes both classical music and jazz. He is a specialist in Baroque music. In 2001, Schlimé founded The New Bach Players ensemble, with which he recorded Johann Sebastian Bach's complete cycle of Keyboard concertos for Accord.Very involved in Contemporary music too, he has recorded Luciano Berio's complete piano works and collaborated with electronic music artists such as Carl Craig and Murcof. He won the 2004 Concours International de piano XXe siècle d'Orléans.