John Cage Steve Reich: Three Dances & Four Organs Angel S-36059 NM ’73 US LP

John Cage: Steve Reich

Three dances & Four organs

Original US LP released in 1973 on Angel Records. Cat:S36059.  

Angel released this inspired pairing in 1973. The first side is devoted to John Cage's extraordinary Three Dances for two amplified, prepared pianos, certainly one of his most accessible works and arguably one of his most sensuously beautiful. By carefully placing all manner of "debris" inside the body of the pianos (including screws, bolts, pieces of rubber, felt, etc.), the instrument becomes less a piano and more a kind of off-kilter gamelan orchestra. Gamelan and other music of Southeast Asia is clearly an inspiration for these dances in both the sonorities expressed and the rhythms employed. Indeed, listeners who know only Cage's chance-based compositions may be amazed at the sheer rhythmic vitality and melodic cadences found here. The first and third dances are driving, propulsive scores, the second serenely meditative for the most part. A youthful Michael Tilson Thomas and Ralph Grierson perform the work with an evidently joyful passion. Steve Reich's Four Organs (also recorded around the same time for the more obscure Shandar label) has one simple but deep idea. Take a dense electric organ chord and then, with extreme patience and slowness, gradually lengthen each note that makes up the chord so that one journeys from the rigorous exactitude of the opening statement (with regular rhythmic accompaniment by maracas) to a languorous sonic cloud where each of the constituent elements has been freed to waft away on its own. 

Tracks: Three dances/ Four organs.

There is a small sticker on label. Record is in Near Mint condition. Cover has some ring wear and tiny tears around edges and is in VG+ condition.

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