This is another CD issued as part of the John Cage Edition on Wergo. The original recordings were made in 1975. Peter Roggenkamp's performances of a single sonata for prepared piano and the Music for Marcel Duchamp are marred by noises off—they sound, in fact, like live recordings. Then comes the first selection from Song Books, a version for vocal ensemble, with Empty Words superimposed and spoken by the master himself. Empty Words is a series of what Cage calls writing through various texts of Thoreau, a technique he has also applied to Joyce's Finnegans Wake. In this performance it's hard to hear many of the words—the voice is just another layer in a combined montage, as in Roaratorio, an Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake given at the Proms a few years ago. In the first of the Song Book pieces (track 3) we start with Cage's mumbling voice and then (at 2'28'', right-hand channel) a typewriter chips in, gradually becoming quite agitated. About a minute later another one (left channel) joins the fray. Then the voices enter and we are launched into a typical Cage extravaganza. Like most of these pieces, the interest waxes and wanes. There's some magnificent bird-song at the opening of the second Song Book extract (track 4)—nightingales, surely, and a reminder of their artistry and the satisfaction to be gained from listening to bird-song. But we don't need to buy the disc for that!
The real disappointment about this CD transfer is that no effort has been made to offer more than 42 minutes playing time, which makes it distinctly poor value. The Cage performances are obviously of interest from a documentary point of view but that is all. And, further, there has again been no effort made by Wergo to provide proper information in the booklet about the works and performances. Dieter Schnebel's interesting essay is about general matters. Cage's best interests are not served by this sloppy approach.'