HENRY COWELL (1897-1965): Sinister Resonance, Aeolian Harp, 3 Irish Legends, The Banshee, Vestiges, Amiable Conversation, The Snows of Fuji-yama, JOHN CAGE (1912-1992): Tossed as it is Untroubled, Soliloquy, Dream, In the Name of the Holocaust, 2 Pieces, The Perilous Night, Primitive.
Catalogue Number: 01R053
Label: Wergo
Reference: WER 7326
Format: CD
Price: $23.98
Description: Offered primarily for some rare Cowell: no other recording is available of the four-minute tone-picture The Snows of Fuji-yama of 1922, a quasi-impressionistic piece employing clusters with pentatonic, diatonic and chromatic variants. It’s also a useful look at a teacher and pupil relationship (Cage having studied with Cowell in 1933-34) and one can see Cage taking the next step after Cowell’s mostly still-tonal output (all of the latter’s works here date from 1912-c.1930) with his invention of the “prepared piano” and elevation of rhythmic organization to the equal of pitch organization. Sabine Liebner (piano).