Paul Hillier on John Cage:
I have been performing, reading, looking at, and listening to John Cage’s work for years — I number myself amongst those who consider him to be an important composer and not simply an important influence. One of the earliest Theatre of Voices concerts, at London’s Almeida Festival in 1990, was devoted primarily to Cage’s music, and, since then, I seem to have been working toward this recording. After I moved to California in 1990, I began putting together the forever-fluctuating nucleus of the present Theatre of Voices, and this included working with Shabada Owens on text-sound compositions (by Cage among others) using electronics. Shabda has known the composer Terry Riley for some years (he tunes pianos in Just Intonation for both Terry and LaMonte Young) and made it possible for the three of us to get together at Terry's house in the Sierras and pre-record some of the materials used on this disc. The remaining material was recorded in Germany, though only after moving to Bloomington, Indiana, in 1996 was I in a position to bring the project to fruition. It now forms the first of a projected series of recordings of modern American music which Theatre of Voices will undertake over the coming years.
Compositions:
01. Litany for the Whale, for 2 equal voices (1980) 25:35
with Paul Elliott, Alan Bennett
For two equal voices, Cage has given a specific pitch to each letter in the word "whale." The original word-form provides the unchanging response to a series of variations using these letters/pitches (each variation, one presumes, is derived from chance operations). These calls and responses alternate strictly between the two singers, as if indeed partaking of some kind of ritual. (Cage once told me that the two singers should perform with their backs to the audience. When I pointed out that this was not, in fact, mentioned in the score, he seemed genuinely puzzled by the omission.)
I first performed this work al fresco one summer's night in a Renaissance cloister in Ferrara, Italy, accompanied by a thunderstorm!
02. Solo for Voice 52 (Aria No. 2), Song—Relevant 6:12
with Paul Hillier, Shabda Owens
Published in Songbooks as "Solo for Voice 52 (Aria No. 2)—Relevant." Very similar in style and construction to Aria, but this one is performed by just one singer, with sound effects and weather.
The text employs vowels and consonants from five languages: Armenian, Russian, Italian, French (Satie), and English (Thoreau).
Note: This performance utilizes a pre-recorded tape.
03. Five, for any 5 voices or instruments (1988) 4:50
with Paul Elliott, Allison Zelles, Alan Bennett, Shabda Owens, Andrea Fullington
One of the late "number" pieces, in which the title is designated by the number of parts. Each part consists of a group of pitches to be sung within certain time-frames. Cage instructs that the notes should be "brushed" into being.
04. The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs, for voice & closed piano (1942) 2:56
with Alan Bennett, Paul Hillier
This song is for voice, using three pitches and closed piano. The words are adapted from James Joyce's _Finnegan's Wake_. This was one of Cage's favorite books, and he frequently used it in many ways as source material for his own works written and musical.
05. Solo for Voice 22, Theatre with Electronics—Relevant (from Song Books Volumes I & II (Solos for Voice 3-92)) (1970) 3:40
with Paul Hillier, Shabda Owens, Andrea Fullington
This piece is designed in _Songbooks_ as "Theatre with Electronics—Relevant"—relevant, that is, to the statement "We connect Satie with Thoreau." It uses the sounds of breathing combined with electronic filtering. The score indicates quite precisely the particular combination of regular and irregular breathing through the nose or the mouth. The piece is performed as a duet.
06. Experiences No. 2, for voice (1948) 3:58
with Andrea Fullington
This piece was written for a Merce Cunningham dance (no. 1 is for two pianos). The last two lines have been omitted. Other lines and a word have been repeated or used in an order other than that of the original. The humming passages (not part of the poem) are interpolations.
Text: "III," _Sonnets—Unrealities, Tulips and Chimneys_ (1923), e.e. cummings
07. 36 Mesostics re and not re Marcel Duchamp, for solo voice (any range) (1970) 11:33
for Shigeko Kubota
with Terry Riley (spoken word), Paul Hillier (sung text), Shabda Owens
A mesostic is like an acrostic, but with the theme-word running down the middle. (Norman O. Brown invented the term.) These mesostics were originally published in _Vogue_ in 1972 and were collected in Cage's third book _M: Writings '67-'72_. Cage also set 15 of these melodics, in the same three-note style as "The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs," which were published in _Songbooks_ as "Solo for Voice 91, Song With Electronics—Irrelevant."
Note: This performance utilizes a pre-recorded tape.
08. Aria (for Cathy Berberian), for solo voice (any range) (1958) 10:10
with Theatre of Voices, Shabda Owens
Originally written for the late Cathy Berberian, this piece has become a mainstay for any singer interested in new music. Different colors in the score indicate the use of different vocal styles, while the notation consists basically of wavy lines for the singing voice and 16 black squares denotating "non-musical" noises. It has always seemed to me that the number of different vocal styles called for—10—can never quite be managed by one singer alone, although some wonderful attempts have been made. This has led me to reinterpret the work and to construct a version for six vocalists, thus providing a far greater range of style and colour. We had quite a lot of fun in the process—I hope Cage devotees will forgive me; perhaps, they should regard this as "Cage, arranged by Hillier."
The text is Armenian, Russian, Italian, French, and English.
09. The Year Begins to Be Ripe (1970) 1:20
From _Songbooks_, "Solo for Voice 49, Song With Electronics—Relevant: The Year Begins to Be Ripe" uses text from Henry David Thoreau's _Journal_.
with Alan Bennett, Paul Hillier
"The birds seem to delight in the first fine days of the fall in the warm hazy light (robins, bluebirds, in families on the almost bare elms, phoebes and probably purple finches). Now the year itself begins to be ripe, ripened by the frost like a persimmon."
Theatre of Voices:
http://www.paulhillier.net/ph_tov.htm
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Amazon's "essential" recording write-up:
John Cage's vocal music helped free the voice from strictly narrative—and strictly tonal—roles. Reaching as far back as 1942, and as far forward as 1990, this anthology of Cage's vocal works brilliantly shows the full range of shapes the composer wanted for musical voice. The title piece is the most recent and relies heavily on two voices shifting pitches in a rich, polyphony-tinged flow. So much here is vital Cage: from his adaptation of phrases from Finnegan's Wake to Riley reading the "36 Mesostics re and not re Marcel Duchamp," to the outlandish, electronics-infused Aria originally written for Kathy Berberian. Paul Hillier performs these works with his Theatre of Voices ensemble, drawing richly on their early music chops and textural acuity. — Andrew Bartlett
