Concert | John Cage Event
Simultaneity and silence in the work of John Cage around 1952
90th birthday / 50 years 4'33‘’ / 10th anniversary of death
1952 marked a turning point in John Cage's work with the tacet piece 4'33". The withdrawal of the compositional subject with his likes and dislikes, which had already been underway, reached its climax in the shift of chance from the compositional process to the concert situation. Works created in the following years then re-established structures and procedures according to which any number of realisations could be developed (‘musical tools’), but which were potentially simultaneous with the original score. In addition, there were groups of works whose individual pieces could be performed simultaneously in any combination. They ushered in media performances in which sounds from different locations were transmitted and mixed live.
These aspects will be brought to life in the twelve-hour Cage event ‘si·mul·ta·ne·ous si·lence’. In addition to performances of Cage's works by internationally renowned musicians, there will be seven world premieres of commissioned ‘composed realisations’ of the graphic score ‘Fontana Mix’ (1958). In addition, there will be installations and performances by five younger composers in the aesthetic environment of Cage's experimental music.
All performances and installations will take place – partly simultaneously – in various rooms of a building complex of the former GDR radio station in Nalepastraße. Audio transmissions of the concerts to a central listening room refer to Cage's media performance ‘Variations IV’ without attempting a problematic reconstruction. The shuttle bus connecting the performance venue with Berlin-Mitte will feature an installation that uses photosensors to control sounds, thus also picking up on a motif from Cage's ‘Variations’ cycle.
John Cage
4'33" (1952)
in twelve different solo and chamber ensembles
Jens Brand
Stille Landschaft (2001/2002)
Premiere of the video installation with a video and sound recording of an absolutely silent nature situation. Playback in a soundproofed room of the radio play complex, WP
John Cage
Music for Piano 4-84 (1952–56)
The pieces can be played in any order, combination and overlapping, with or without pauses in between. Version with three pianists (Herbert Henck, Steffen Schleiermacher, Margaret Leng Tan)
Time Length Pieces (1953–55)
Simultaneous performance of 45‘ for a narrator, 31'57.9864’ for a pianist, 27'10.554’ for a percussionist, 26'1.1499 for a string player (Eberhard Blum, Steffen Schleiermacher, Robyn Schulkowsky, Frances-Marie Uitti)
One2 (1989)
for one pianist on one to four grand pianos (Margaret Leng Tan, dedicatee, on three grand pianos)
Listening room into which all concerts and installations are broadcast live
John Cage
Fontana Mix (1958)
Four-channel audio tape, live control according to WBAI (1960), itself a composed realisation by Fontana Mix (Volker Straebel)
Aria (1958)
Solo for female voice, composed realisation by Fontana Mix (Anna Clementi)
Water Walk (1958)
Music performance by a pianist, composed realisation by Fontana Mix (Margaret Leng Tan)
World premieres of composed realisations, up to six players, with or without tape and/or live electronics, works commissioned by MaerzMusik: Werner Dafeldecker and Boris Hegenbart (collaboration), Jürg Frey, Chris Mann, Matt Rogalski, Dieter Schnebel, James Tenney, Christian Wolff
John Cage
The City Wears a Slouch Hat (1942)
Radio play, tape concert of the historical recording
Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (1951)
for 12 radios (24 players and conductor)
Speech (1955)
for 5 radios and newsreader
Radio Music (1956)
for 1 to 8 performers with one radio each
John Cage
Lecture on nothing (1949?)
time-organised lecture (Frances-Marie Uitti)
Vortrag über nichts
Lecture on nothing in the German translation by Ernst Jandl (Dieter Schnebel)
Where are we going? And what are we doing? (1960)
Sound recording of John Cage’s lecture, performance instructions for four-channel superimposition realised in a sound installation (Volker Straebel)
Hans Richter
Dreams that money can buy (1946)
contains a film score by John Cage for the Duchamp sequence
Film documentation
Variations IV
Cage/Satie
Arrangements for accordion (Teodoro Anzellotti)
Sam Ashley
Ghost Detector (Installation) und Everyone Laughged when I Sat Down at the Piano (solo performance in the installation)
Maria Blondeel
B-V1080 / B-V1081 / B-V1109
Sound installation in the bus shuttle, WP
Michael Hirsch
Das Konvolut, Vol.1
for singer, piccolo flute, clarinet, tuba, bass drum, string trio and 3 CDs, commissioned by MaerzMusik
Hans W. Koch
arbeit/schönheit (labor)
Sound installation in the radio play complex, WP
Teodoro Anzellotti – accordion
Eberhard Blum – speaker
Anna Clementi – voice
Herbert Henck – piano
Margaret Leng Tan – piano
Steffen Schleiermacher – piano
Dieter Schnebel – speaker
Robyn Schulkowsky – percussion
Frances-Marie Uitti – violoncello, speaker
Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin
Martin Brandlmayr – percussion
Axel Dörner – trumpet
Jem Finer – electronics
Anne Wellmer – electronics
Volker Straebel, Matthias Osterwold – idea and concept
In collaboration with Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD