John Cage night - Queen Elizabeth Hall - 14/09/2011
Programme
- 4'33
- Radio Music
- Child of Tree for solo percussion
- Concert for piano and orchestra / Fontana mix
- String Quartet
- Music for eight
- 0'00
An evening left mostly to chance, but precisely how John Cage wanted it, with Apartment House performing a selection of Cage's works opening the Southbank Centre's International Chamber Music series. Throughout his life, Cage was at the forefront of Avant-Garde music, pushing the boundaries and developing a very unique style. With everything from cactus playing to stage clearance, the selection of works presented gives us a glimpse into his influences and ideas. Arguably his most well know work, 4'33 opens to, well, silence. Composed to allow us to just hear what is around us, last night’s performance seemed a fitting start. Our chance encounters begin in Radio Music, where each player has a radio and tunes between 55 and 156kHz. The silences, static and snippets of broadcasts we hear lead almost to a sense of expectation and excitement at what could come next. A cactus isn't something you'd see miked up every day, but for Child of Tree for solo percussion, a piece that uses 10 natural instruments from the world around us such as plants, we hear it’s spines plucked or rubbed in an improvisation decided by one of Cage’s favourite devices, the I Ching principles. The piece becomes an exploration in nature, as we hear sounds that we so often miss from the natural world. Cage's String Quartet begins a more intense second half, his attempt at representing silence without silence. It's very effective; the first three movements seem to slow down before we're launched into an up tempo forth. The quartet are concentrated, focussing us the audience on the works progression. Cage's work may seem quite haphazard, yet clear structural principles are define, as in Music for eight and Concert for piano and orchestra / Fontana mix, where the players decide on which parts to play and the order, an interesting concept and one which produces some fantastic textures. Apartment House are very visibly respectful of Cage's work, and while most of the audience seemed to just they were just clearing the stage, they were in fact performing the disciplined action required for 0'00, something which seemed to pass the audience by.












