This is the latest in Wergo’s extensive Cage series, which also contains the Joycean extravaganza Roaratorio (10/94) and the legendary 25-Year Retrospective Concert of Cage at Town Hall, New York, in 1958. We now have the luxury of being able to compare several realizations of some of Cage’s indeterminate works. Three years ago I welcomed Ryoanji (Hat-Hut, 2/96) since I had just been to the Zen garden in Kyoto and realized that its random placing of rocks in raked gravel was exactly what Cage had in mind. One listens to the music in exactly the same way as one looks at the garden. The Ives Ensemble’s 19-minute version on Hat-Hut is a different proposition from the hour-long version on the same label, but they are recognizably the same process because of the percussion beat and the glissandos in the pitched instruments.
The same sort of comparison can be attempted with Music for Two, which gets a half-hour realization here, another on Wergo in a version for cello and accordion, and a shorter violin and piano treatment on Mode. Connections are much less easy to establish but they have long sustained notes in common. One distinctive feature about Goldstein and Kaul is the use of glass harmonica, a particularly pure sound, and varied percussion. Near silences in Variations II at 5'01'', 8'49'' (almost a minute) and 13'27'' are landmarks. The short Eight Whiskus is a shock, since Cage decided to realize one of his text manipulations (mesostics) as music and chose the scale of F minor, including its key signature. The original vocal version (four-letter words and all) is more charming with Joan La Barbara (Music & Arts, 9/91). But ultimately, in spite of opportunities for comparison, this new release would not be high on my list of Cage purchases.'