David Tudor’s dedication to Cage’s work at a crucial stage from the 1950s can only be described as saintly. He took enormous trouble to realise Cage’s often needlessly elaborate scores for performance at a time when nobody else would have struggled with them. Cage was fortunate to have found him. The hat[now]ART disc is the recording Tudor made of the Music of Changes (1951) for WDR in Germany in November 1956. He was on a European tour which covered six countries, including a recital in London three weeks later. However, the WDR recording still sounds well and is imbued with the excitement of a totally new approach to composition where every aspect of the music – pitch, duration and dynamic level – is decided by chance operations and the resultant frenzied piano-writing scintillates. You can compare Tudor with the fastidious Schleiermacher and there’s a neat realisation from Martine Joste. All these are vivid performances.

Written only three years earlier, the Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano are quite different – everything is conventionally notated except that the preparations will sound different according to the size of the piano and the objects used. In a Collection for the February 2007 issue I was able to compare 14 different recordings, so there’s competition for Cédric Pescia. The best of the available recordings, such as Schleiermacher’s, get the Stravinskian attacks in the opening sonata dead right with precise rhythm: Pescia is flaccid and some rests are not accurate, yet he says in the booklet that Cage’s rhythms should be strict. Furthermore, Cage has a number of notes that are unprepared; Pescia thought they were obtrusive so he has muffled them – not what Cage intended. There are some carefully considered and attractive preparations – and the last sonata is well gauged – but overall this release is not a competitor in a crowded field.