On Wed, Mar 27, 2002 at 06:19:16AM -0800, aaron chua wrote:
> i'm a bit of a novice myself, but i found the cage
> piece on sonic youth's _goodbye_ to be highly
> enjoyable leading me to investigate the piece as
> recorded by the arditti qtet on mode.
If you're referring to the Sonic Youth recording of Four^6, it's not
the same piece as "Four", which the Arditti recorded on Mode. (At
least I don't know of an Arditti Mode recording of "Four^6", and I
tend to keep up on these things.) Cage wrote several piece for four
players in the Number Series. The first (the string quarte) was simply
named "Four"; the rest have additional numbers (Four^2, Four^3, etc)
in order of composition.
I don't care for the Sonic Youth "Four^6" (though I like their "Six"
and muchof the rest of the set) and don't consider it a valid
recording of the piece. The score calls for four performers, and the
recording has eight (two of the six listed players recorded multiple
tracks), so that the piece is twice as dense as the score
specifies. Each of the sounds made by the performers is supposed to be
a steady-state unchanging sound, like a single tone or a drumroll. The
SY recording including bits of storytelling, IIRC, and other stuff
that doesn't apply. (OTOH, while I disagree with the repeating riffs
that William Winant does at points, I notice that he did the same when
performing the piece *with* Cage, as recorded on "John Cage at
Summerstage", which I think you'd enjoy.)
> o frm memory quartets i-viii on hathut and string
> qurtet in 4 parts ... ( i'll admit i don't listen to
> these v often;--->
> which leads me to ask; i find that i don't usually
> listen to pieces that i enjoy very often; spending my
> time either w/ newer pieces or perhaps ( at least this
> used to be the case) pieces i didn't _get_.
> does anyone else find this in their listening habits?
I listen to different pieces in different circumstances, listening to familiar pieces in situations where I can apply less concentration. I also find that I can get to the point where I know a recording well enough that i can play it in my head, and don't need to actually spin the CD. I tend to use opportunities for more concentrated listening for the newer or more challenging recordings.
