Prepared Piano?

[hollyking]

To be honest I don't know much about John Cage (Wikipedia) other than he composed 4'33". Today I was listening to the Naxos Classical Music Spotlight podcast and the subject was John Cage and his Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (Naxos 8.559042). So now I know quite a bit more about Mr. Cage and his compositions. I found the sonatas and interludes highlighted in the podcast interesting but I don't know if I would call them good music.

The sounds made by the prepared piano are very unusual. At first I would have said that there were musicians playing a piano and other percussion instruments. In fact it's one musician playing a piano. The piano has had nuts, bolts and other items attached to the strings which change the sound quite a bit. This led to some very interesting sounds during the performance.

I thought that some passages were very musical while others were just jumbles of random noise. A few times it sounded like the pianist was just banging on the keyboard. I won't say it wasn't music but I have to say it's not the kind of music that I normally enjoy. This piece was different because I spent most of the time thinking about the notes and how the music progressed. I think I'll have to get the CD and listen to the whole thing.

Thankfully Naxos has excellent recordings at great prices. I don't think I've ever seen one that was more than $10. That means I can collect and enjoy a lot more classical music because I'm more willing to experiment. That reminds me I need to find a music store with a good classical selection. Something like Classical Millennium but here in Seattle.