Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Ralph Lichtensteiger <>]

By Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times Music Critic - Reporting from New York —

In fall 1986, as part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival, John Cage delivered, in his uniquely spoken-sung fashion, poetic texts he had derived from James Joyce's readably unreadable comic novel "Finnegans Wake." Irish musicians played and sang traditional Irish music. An electronic collage of sounds and ambient noises indicated in the "Wake" ran throughout the performance sometimes drowning out all else. Merce Cunningham added invented Irish dances — jigs and reels and the like — abstracted and combined into a Cubist Irish dance canvas.

(...)

Restoring "Roaratorio" is a crazy idea, but maybe not so impossible or inappropriate as it first seems. I still recall the presence in the performance of Cage, Cunningham and the Irish musicians. The soundscape I know well, since it has long been available on recording. The actual choreography has mostly faded from my memory, however.

(...)

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-ca-merce-cunningham-20100530,0,77059.story

Best,

Ralph Lichtensteiger

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