Friday 11 March 2011

I was at a hugely enjoyable concert last night with John Tilbury, Rhodri Davies and Michael Duch playing a programme of things by and inspired by Cage.  Particularly enthralling were the Cardew Solo with Accompaniment (their closely-miked recording doesn't really convey the same atmosphere as a performance in a high Gothic chapel) and Morton Feldman's Durations 2 which followed it. Most of the skinny, earnest young men in the audience seemed to have a rather solemn response to Cage's Variations III, which instead made me grin a lot. But it wasn't all earnest young men: Alison and Catriona Mackay were there too.  The last time I'd heard Rhodri he'd been pinging harpsichord wire with a blowlamp until the charred remains of a concert harp fell from where they were suspended, and landed on the stage - this was a bit different. And John Tilbury is wonderful to watch in action: so calm and gentle and precise.

It was my second Cage gig of the day: at lunchtime Red Note were performing the Concert for Piano and [small] Orchestra, & Aria simultaneously.  The big musical gestures, no matter how grand or extreme, were stripped of their emotional intention by Cage's structure, so that no matter how wild the event was, it was relatively easy to accept it as just another thing that happens. A bit like someone screaming abuse in your face and it having no effect on your calm mood whatsoever. Fascinating. And the concert was in the university concert hall where I met Cage in 1992 (was it '92?). Somewhere in BBC Scotland's archive there is a shot of me sitting in the audience while the Whistlebinkies play 4'33" (and the piece goes on for over seven minutes).

And now back to matters of compression and running orders and booklet notes and our new website design which I haven't even looked at yet ...