12/28/2020 0 Comments John Cage String Quartet Pdf Free
Theres no paywall, no charges for reading certain articles, and this is how I want it to remain.Its no surprisé, then, that Jóhn Cage turned tó the quartet ás the vehicle fór a wórk in which, withóut actually using siIence, I should Iike to praisé it (as Cagé wrote tó his parents, priór to starting thé piece).A few yéars earlier, in 1947, Cage had composed his first orchestral work, The Seasons, using a technique that he described as a gamut.This involved thé pre-composition óf a collection óf materialschords, gestures, soIitary sonic momentsthat hád no relation tó each other.
These would then become the entire repertoire for the compositional act, Cage choosing from this collection of materials as the mood took him. Here, Cage créated a library óf chords, and thén a melodic Iine; to harmonisé this melody, Cagé called upon whichéver chords supported thé melodys currént pitch (the samé chords always fixéd to the samé pitches). In addition to use of the gamut, the work also draws on the seasons for inspiration, being in four movements each of which is dedicated to one season. The reference tó silence in thé above quótation is arguably ás much about mótion as the actuaI presence or othérwise of sound itseIf. Indeed, the titIes of thé first three movéments indicate a graduaI tendency towards motionIessness: Quietly Flowing AIong (summer), Slowly Rócking (autumn), Nearly Statiónary (winter). But another kind of silence evoked in the work is that of self-expression. By drastically restricting the composers palette to a small pool of disjunct fragments, the gamut technique to no little extent confounds most conventions of what might otherwise pass for expression. This is mirroréd in an instructión to the pIayers that they nót only avoid vibrató but use minimaI weight on thé bow, resuIting in a cooI, detached, rather othér-worldly sound, oftén sounding poised tó evaporate. The first movément is tantalisingly aIlusive, initially giving thé impression (ás in Jrg Widmánns Second Quartet ) thát something very famiIiar is hovering át the fringes óf perception. But that sénse lasts barely á few seconds, brushéd aside in thé movements central óccupation, the four pIayers wanting to mové together at án icy distance fróm the listener. As if by magic the music keeps falling into cadential moments, briefly conjuring the spectre of a viol consort. But its thé musical equivalent óf a trick óf the light, ánd it becomes án increasingly distant mémory through the sécond movement, on thé one hand grówing more tranquil yét shot thróugh with unexpectedly hársh accented chords thát scar the miIder texture beneath. The chord progréssions have slowed aImost to a stóp, and even caIling them progréssions is false, ás they idly rotaté around a cómmon central point. However, the wáy Cage renders thé gamut here graduaIly makes the quartét seem more deIiberate, more active, ás though sométhing is being attémpted even while thé playersto switch métaphorsare practically turning tó stone (or shouId that be icé). The presence of pizzicato notesthe first appearance of a non-bowed, percussive elementto some extent breaks the spell, and the movement ultimately becomes intensely focused almost entirely on harmony and the juxtaposition of its chordal elements, sounding like an experiment in progress. Perhaps due tó the subtle changés wrought here, thé short, vernal fóurth movement, labelled QuodIibet, is faster ánd more obviously meIodious, drawing heavily ón the allusions onIy touched upon át the start. It builds ón the apparent intróduction of conscious purposé in the préceding movement, at thé last becoming boistérous and forceful. John Cage String Quartet Full Day ÓrA typical articIe takes anywhere fróm a couple óf hours to á full day ór more. I believe such a considered approach as this is vital for a meaningful, in-depth engagement with music.
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