Sunday, July 19, 2015

Happy 100th, John Cage! - notes on Ryoanji : David Miller

Wed Aug 29, 2012

As mentioned in the previous post, on September 5 Tom Plsek and I are celebrating John Cage's 100th birthday with a free concert at the Berklee College of Music Practice Facility on Fordham Road in Allston. All through 2012, there have been concerts and festivals honoring Cage's centenary year, with more to come (see http://johncage.org/2012/events.html). But, as near as we can tell, on the birthday itself, this is the only Cage celebration happening in the Boston area. For fuller information, including directions: http://www.mobius.org/events/happy-100th-john-cage.

The previous post included some thoughts about Two5, a piece from John Cage's late period. We're also doing the later-period work, Ryoanji, in a version for trombone and percussion, as well as the middle-period Solo for Sliding Trombone from the Concert for Piano and Orchestra.

The title Ryoanji designates a set of related compositions for solo instruments or voice in different combinations; there is also a version for orchestra. It is inspired by the famous rock garden at the Ryōan-ji temple in Kyoto, consisting of fifteen rocks in a bed of raked sand. Sure, there’s a decent Wikipedia article about the temple and garden, but for variety: http://www.yamasa.org/japan/english/destinations/kyoto/ryoanji.html. “Put simply, this rock garden is acknowledged to be one of the absolute masterpieces of Japanese culture.”

Cage’s experience of this garden inspired a set of visual works beginning in 1983, featuring the outlines of rocks, and work on the music began afterwards. To produce the solo parts, Cage traced portions of the outlines of a set of stones – these curved line become complex, irregular glissandi. There are places where the contours overlap, creating multiple voices at the same time. The percussion part for Ryoanji remains the same regardless of which combination of solo players perform. It consists of a slow, irregular set of beats on two objects simultaneously – one metal and the other wood. Where the solo parts are inspired by the rocks themselves, the percussion part provides a bed, like the raked sand.

Because there are multiple “voices”, a typical performance of this piece requires a solo trombonist to prepare recordings of the other voices. In our case, we’re taking a different approach, with multiple live trombonists – a rare treatment of this work. We’re looking forward to hearing what this trombone choir will sound like, set against the steady, irregular striking of wood and metal.

And we hope you will be able to join us.