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NOTE: AGP18 has been deleted at the request of the copyright holder.


AGP18 features two of John Cage's indeterminate works. Both works are available on CD in other recordings, but Cage's scores are so open-ended that each performance of one of these works is in many respects a unique composition. 

27'10.554" for a Percussionist calls for sounds made by four categories of instruments: metals, woods, skins, and "all others". In the recording included in this installment, Donald Knaack uses a range of new and altered percussion instruments, and the sounds in his "all others" category come from a Moog Percussion Trigger. BTW, this is an exceptionally detailed and intimate recording of percussion instruments. 

The recordings of 26'1.1499" for a String Player that are available on CD are played on cello, while the one included in this installment is played by Bertram Turetzky on contrabass. In keeping with one of Cage's suggestions, Turetzky overlaps parts of the score so that he plays the entire work in just over 16 minutes. 

The included text file contains the LP liner notes pertaining to these three performances.

The LPs from which these recordings were transcribed are in excellent condition but do of course have some low-level pressing noise. This is epecially audible in 27'10.554" because that work includes periods of silence, in keeping with John Cage's fascination with the relationship between sound and silence. Since one of Cage's points was that complete silence is never possible (even, he found, in soundproof rooms in recording studios), I think he would appreciate the interaction between the light pressing noise of the LP and the recorded sounds of the percussionist.

Note: AGP18 originally also included a recording of Variations II performed by David Tudor, using the various parts of a piano to make sound that was then amplified by contact microphones and phonograph cartridges. This track has been deleted because it is available on a Japanese CD release that can be bought through Forced Exposure. My thanks to the AGP partisan who let me know about this release. What remains of AGP18 will now fit on one CD with AGP16.

To download AGP18 files, right-click on each of the following links and select SAVE LINK AS.

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01 - 27'10.554" for a Percussionist, side 1 [6:10]

02 - 27'10.554" for a Percussionist, side 2 [21:00]

03 - 26'1.1499" for a String Player [16:18]

Liner notes from LPs

AGP18 description

FLAC fingerprints

 

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