• Monday 12 December 2011 - 20h30

IN MEMORY OF A UNIQUE ARTIST

The final performances of the Merce Cunningham company provide the opportunity for a concert dedicated to John Cage with works from his third period (1095-1991).The texts for Four Solos were chosen at random from the composer’s  personal library. This composition to manifest a return to harmony as redefined by Cage: “The sounds make love with to each other, or at least they accept each other, whatever their combination”. Ear for EAR is an untrimmed response. Filtering a collection of religious anthems resulted in Hymns and Variations, the hymns turned into a Calder mobile. The almost unplayable Freeman Etude for violin are a tribute to instrumental virtuosity. Whenever too many notes are to be played at once, John Cage indicates: “Play as many as you can! ” One9 is a piece for sho, the mouth organ of the Japanese gagaku. Cage scatters sounds and divides time into “flexible portions. A music, so to speak, meant for resisting earthquakes, in which I seek something I have not yet found. I compose to hear the music that I have not yet heard”.

Martin Kaltenecker