JOHN CAGE The Seasons

The first appearance of the work of John Cage on ECM is cause for celebration. This recording goes beyond the artistic-nihilistic gestures and the anarchic-Zen gags to get at the essence of Cage's musical thought. Cage's playfulness can't be - and shouldn't be - muzzled, of course, but here one also experiences the beauty and the sensuality of the compositions, thanks to the input of two musicians who worked closely with the composer: conductor Dennis Russell Davies and pianist Margaret Leng Tan. The album includes a premiere recording of 'Seventy-Four' which Cage wrote especially for the American Composers Orchestra. (ECM Records)

Who would ever dream of arranging John Cage's tinkly little Suite for Toy Piano from 1948 for full symphony orchestra? Probably no one but Lou Harrison, whose virtuosic arrangement provides the most surprises on this already surprising album. Harrison not only perfectly renders the toy piano's unique timbre through combinations of plucked strings and mallet instruments, but he veers far from the toy sound while retaining the suite's spirit: he opens the second movement, for instance, with a majestic fanfare of brass and gongs. His orchestration is so adept that you forget the extremely limited pitch range of this inventive suite. Pianist Margaret Leng Tan provides a poetic rendition of the original.
We hear a dizzying range of Cage here, from the Stravinskian palette of The Seasons to 1992's Seventy-Four (in two versions) which sounds like it could be a Mahler slow movement slowed down to the extreme. Dennis Russell Davies matches Tan's pointillistic precision in Cage's Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra, and invests each performance with kaleidoscopic brilliance and full-blooded conviction. (Sarah Cahill /Classics Today)

PHILIP GLASS / DAVID BOWIE / BRIAN ENO Heroes - Low Symphonies

The "Low" Symphony, composed in the Spring of 1992, is based on the record "Low" by David Bowie and Brian Eno first released in 1977. The record consisted of a number of songs and instrumentals and used techniques which were similar to procedures used by composers working in new and experimental music. As such, this record was widely appreciated by musicians working both in the field of "pop" music and in experimental music and was a landmark work of that period.

I've taken themes from three of the instrumentals on the record and, combining them with material of my own, have used them as the basis of three movements of the Symphony. Movement one comes from "Subterraneans," movement two from "Some Are" and movement three from "Warszawa."

My approach was to treat the themes very much as if they were my own and allow their transformations to follow my own compositional bent when possible. In practice, however, Bowie and Eno's music certainly influenced how I worked, leading me to sometimes surprising musical conclusions. In the end I think I arrived at something of a real collaboration between my music and theirs. (Philip GlassNew / York City, 1992)

Heroes, like the Low Symphony of several years ago, is based on the work of Bowie and Eno. In a series of innovative recordings made in the late 70's, David and Brian combined influences from world music, experimental avant-garde, and rock and roll and thereby redefined the future of popular music.

The continuing influence of these works has secured their stature as part of the new "classics" of our time. Just as composers of the past have turned to music of their time to fashion new works, the work of Bowie and Eno became an inspiration and point of departure of symphonies of my own. (Philip Glass)