As a retrospective of an influential and controversial (not to mention inventive and charismatic) artist, The Barton Workshop Plays John Cage, a 3CD set on Etcetera, could hardly be improved upon. There seems to be an indication among people who write about John Cage to concern themselves with composition rather than the actual music. This is ironic considering Cage's personal viewpoints and revolutions on the relationship between sounds/listener and score/composer. It is certainly easier to relate Cage's nifty ways of assembling music than to describe what it sounds like. I certainly have been guilty of this otiosity in the past, but will try to refrain from it here. The 3 1/2 hours of this set present a bit of everything from Cage's long and prolific career. But it is not so much the diversity or selections of material that is important in this set, but rather the performances. The lengthy “Atlas Eclipticalis” consists of long and short single notes from five breath instruments, including bass clarinet and contrabassoon, and a contrabass. What interests me in this piece is the juxtaposition of the long drones against each other, and how one drone will suddenly stop, isolating the other instrument(s). Because of Cage's not-to-be-mentioned composition, the timbres, combinations, entrances and exits of each instrument all happen unexpectedly. “Five” and “Seven2” also deal with droning instruments, the latter delightfully so with its bass-heavy selection of instruments (bass varieties of the flute, clarinet and trombone, as well as cello and contrabass). All of these pieces are quiet, meditative and absolutely captivating. Also extra-notable are “Hymnkus,” with a somewhat nervous, jumpy quality to it, the two prepared piano pieces (which I adore in general), and the three clarinet pieces, two of them composed in 1933. This collection would make the perfect (albeit expensive) introduction to Cage's work, so masterfully performed.
I have been keeping track of every instance I see of those meta-movie guys at Mystery Science Theater 3000 poking fun at, let's face it: mocking, John Cage. So far, I have observed three separate instances (for those of you not in the know, MST3k is a show about two mad scientists who send an innocent guy into space and force him to watch cheesy movies. The guy rebels by building robots who assist him in launching a tirade of abusive comments at the movies as they watch).
1) A mummified alien is hiding in the boiler room of a college campus. A guy goes down to the boiler room and hears the mummy knock over some boxes. COMMENT: “I didn't realize they were having the John Cage concert in the boiler room!”
2) A jazz pianist, who has murdered his sweetie, is distraught over her ghost coming back to haunt him. At one point he violently slams his fist on his piano keyboard, producing a dissonance. COMMENT: “Oh, so you studied under John Cage.”
3) As a guy is looking at some records on a bookshelf, alien creatures hiding in the basement begin to make odd chirping/buzzing noise. COMMENT: “Maybe if I find something catchy they will take off the John Cage record...”