And, of course, I'll be looking at it Tom's way!
Another idea I had when I play it again -
I did it all soft, knowing of the Ellsworth letter
(although I didn't go as far into 'inaudible'
as the letter suggests). I thought that when
I played it again I would try mostly very,
very soft, but with some 'p' or even 'mp'
tones.
Louie
=======================================
On 11/15/2010 10:40 AM, Thomas Moore wrote:
Yes, isn't that letter to Ellsworth
beautiful? I asked John something about One5 one day (I don't
recall what), and he started to reply, then got up and
returned with a copy of that letter, which he said he had just
sent to Ellsworth. He remarked that when he had first heard
Ellsworth play the piece he hadn't thought it worked very well
-- Ellsworth had played it with many dynamic levels, and John
had then concluded that it needed to be played very quietly.
I visited Ellsworth in Madison not long before he passed away,
and I wish I had thought to ask him about his way of playing
One5. ("My piece!" he said with a great smile.) It's such a
beautiful work. I've always allowed the hands to assist one
another, playing the vertical collections of notes within
individual time brackets as simultaneities, and will go back
now and look at it from your (Louie's) perspective. I haven't
thought of it as similar to the Etudes Australes in that
respect (was just working on AE #X last night!).
Best regards,
Tom Moore
On 11/14/10 2:01 PM, "Louis Goldstein" <>
wrote:
The division between right and
left hands creates a kind of choreography of arm movements
for the performer,
like the extremely difficult Etudes Australes.
The instructions for One5 do not say one hand may assist the
other. And they also do not say that the notes in each
bracket must be played as chords. When I worked on this
piece, I kept the division of hands strictly as indicated,
but freely played one note at a time. I think in the end I
played almost all of the notes one at a time within their
brackets, even the notes that were within an easy reach.
This approach also assists in realizing this written
statement of Cage's - I think Rob brought this to our
attention
at some point. From the Cage Collection at Northwestern U.
Library, from a letter to Ellsworth Snyder:
"I have had an idea about One5. I think it
should be played hermetically (which I think you could do
superlatively). That is, it should be basically
inaudible. So that the actually inaudible, the silences,
would be thick with sounds that are not heard or the sounds
that are touched are the tips that project from a sea of
silence. So that people listening would not be sure whether
they were hearing anything. You would have to listen very
hard. And fail to hear. (The music.)"
Louie
===========================================================================================
On 11/14/2010 1:06 PM, Dionisis Boukouvalas wrote:
I don't believe this to be
canonical. Moreover, One does not follow the same logic as
One^5.
Date: Sun, 14 Nov
2010 12:16:25 -0500
From:
To: ;
Subject: [silence] Re: RE: One^5
Ah . . . probably that's in One. But that's common for
Cage. He assumes you know all of his performance
instructions, I believe.
2010/11/14 Dionisis Boukouvalas <>
The indication "one hand assists the other" is not to
be found here (I mean in the instructions of the piece).
You must be referring to another piece.
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2010 12:06:58 -0500
From:
To:
CC:
Subject: [silence] Re: One^5
I think of it as two columns of events, not left
hand/right hand. Many of the events in both columns can
only be played by two hands, thus "one hand assists the
other."
Many silencers have played this piece--I hope they will
weigh in.
Rob
2010/11/14 Dionisis Boukouvalas <>
Same old, I guess, but what is the meaning of
dividing between the two hands, since the material
given cannot usually be played by one hand alone?
Would it make sense to play the material with one hand
arpeggiando? Or, should one pick some of the notes for
each case?
--
Rob Haskins, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and
Coordinator, Graduate Studies
Department of Music, College of Liberal Arts
University of New Hampshire
M-105, Paul Creative Arts Center
30 Academic Way
Durham, NH 03824
603-862-3987 (office)
603-862-3155 (fax)
<http://unh.edu/music/>
<http://robhaskins.net>
<http://musicandmiscellaneous.blogspot.com/>
--
Rob Haskins, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and
Coordinator, Graduate Studies
Department of Music, College of Liberal Arts
University of New Hampshire
M-105, Paul Creative Arts Center
30 Academic Way
Durham, NH 03824
603-862-3987 (office)
603-862-3155 (fax)
<http://unh.edu/music/>
<http://robhaskins.net>
<http://musicandmiscellaneous.blogspot.com/>
--
Thomas Moore
UMBC
1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, MD 21250
410-455-3370
|
