Cage: The Choral Works I / Ars Nova, Veto

Cage: The Choral Works I / Ars Nova, Veto

On this CD:

1. Four2, for chorus
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Ars Nova Ensemble
Conducted by Tamas Veto

2. Living Room Music, for 4 percussionists
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Ars Nova Ensemble
Conducted by Tamas Veto

3. ear for EAR (Antiphonies) for widely spaced single voices
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Ars Nova Ensemble
Conducted by Tamas Veto

4. Four2, for chorus
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Ars Nova Ensemble
Conducted by Tamas Veto

5. Four Solos for Voice, for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor & bass (Solos for Voice 93-96)
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Ars Nova Ensemble
Conducted by Tamas Veto

6. Five, for any five voices or instruments
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Ars Nova Ensemble
Conducted by Tamas Veto

7. Hymns and Variations, for 12 amplified voices
Composed by John Cage
Performed by Ars Nova Ensemble
Conducted by Tamas Veto

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Spanning five decades, these vocal works by the eminent John Cage are widely variable in sound dynamics, energy level, and textual dynamics--even more so than Paul Hillier's spectacular Litany for the Whale. The earliest work, Living Room Music, seems an early (composed in 1940) comment on the "cult of domesticity" that gathered steam in the U.S. during the 1950s. The piece transforms the home into a concatenation of musical instruments, none of them specified. Living Room's "percussion" provides a thumping, irregular nonpitched framework for voices moving rhythmically through spoken parts before the "Melody," played on a vaguely electronic keyboard. More tried-and-true vocal methods emerge too: especially on ear for EAR, which flowers from the higher registers downward, settling into a chant-like drone and then bursting into the tenor range and upward in singly syllabic lines. Four, in two versions, serves the same seamless end, ranging upward with piercing sheerness. Magnificence ensues with Five and the lengthy Hymns and Variations, which give off an endless ring with their long-toned takes on polyphony and subtle oscillations. The latter piece is Cage's 1979 riff on William Billings's 18th-century psalmody compendium and sounds delightfully assertive in rounding tones taken by each Ars Nova vocalist in turn, stretching density to its thinnest points without ever sounding thin. --Andrew Bartlett

Cage: The Choral Works I / Ars Nova, Veto, Music, John Cage, Tamas Veto, Ars Nova Ensemble, Chamber, Choral, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Classical Vocals, Miscellaneous, Music for Assorted/Unusual Instrumentation, Percussion Chamber Music, Secular Choral Music, Secular Choral Music a capella, Two Solo Voices (with or without Keyboard/Continuo), Vocal

Cage: The Choral Works I / Ars Nova, Veto

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