“We made a conscious decision to play at the quieter end of what Cage suggests, adding a certain fragility of sound that invites you inwards. “No sudden fortissimo notes, no vibrato!” says Roche, laughing. In consultation with Reynell, Apartment House agreed there would be no emotional or theatrical styles in their Cage interpretations. “Most of these pieces haven’t been recorded for more than 15 years,” says the group’s chief clarinettist Heather Roche. Reynell’s record label, Another Timbre, has just released a four CD box set containing 13 Number Pieces for mid-size ensembles, performed by Anton Lukoszevieze’s British avant garde ensemble Apartment House, who take their name from one of Cage’s later compositions. “After all these years I am finally writing beautiful music.”Ĭage was referring to his Number Pieces, around 40 late works named after the quantity of performers involved (from 1 to 101) in which individual musicians could choose when and how long to play (within designated time brackets) resulting in often quiet and meditative pieces, a marked contrast to the previous, often abrasive compositions he’d built his 40-year reputation on.Īpartment House Photograph: Alicja Wróblewska/Black Shadow studio “I no longer consider it necessary to find alternatives to harmony,” he said. It was “a life spent … beating my head against a wall”, he announced. The then 76-year-old US composer announced that his philosophical ideas of freedom and collaboration, concepts built into his avant garde musical compositions since the 1950s, had failed to influence reality. I n the summer of 1990 John Cage gave a lecture at the International New Music gathering in Darmstadt, Germany, and effectively admitted defeat.
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