I raved about the first volume in this series which contained all Cage’s music for prepared piano performed to the highest standards in every way (Dabringhaus und Grimm, 3/98). I expected that the next volume would go back to the beginning and follow Cage’s progress in works for the conventional piano but instead this two-CD set is devoted to the Music for Piano series almost entirely written in the 1950s. Schleiermacher’s recording of the Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano is one of seven currently obtainable but the whole Music for Piano series is neglected and even unavailable, apart from the second piece in a version made by Margaret Leng Tan.
One can see why performers have found these pieces less attractive. After Cage’s crisis year of 1952, which saw him produce the so-called silent piece 4'33'', he was obsessed with removing his own tastes and desires from his compositions. Before he became fully committed to the I Ching’s random numbers he marked out blotches and imperfections in the manuscript paper he was using as a way of getting the notes. Cage said he looked at his paper and suddenly realized that all the music was there. This procedure also settled the density of notes on the page. In the whole series the performer is left to decide dynamics and pace in a continuity dominated by single notes.
If this sounds austere, we are reckoning without the ingenuities of Schleiermacher. Cage specifies various types of sound production, apart from the use of the keys: primarily plucking the strings from inside or muting them. As in Schleiermacher’s prepared piano recordings, the quality of sound has been most carefully considered. A muted low note or a single plucked string can be marvellously evocative in conjunction with conventionally produced pitches. The ambience of the prepared piano is not far away. Further, instead of simply going through the entire series, Schleiermacher avails himself of Cage’s provision for several of these pieces to be played together, which he does at intervals in the series. Since we have heard the same pieces solo, the superimposed versions bring back familiar material in a fascinating way.
There are discoveries too, since Music for Piano 85 is not listed in Grove, and Electronic Music for Two Pianos extends the palette refreshingly at the end of the second CD. Schleiermacher’s realization uses several levels of sound input, including some attractive bird-song.
This volume is as well produced as the first and just as fastidiously researched and performed. Schleiermacher says he has taken the pieces seriously. This shows, and as a result he has begun a new chapter of virtually unknown Cage.'