Grand Auditorium - Philharmonie Luxembourg

Journée portes ouvertes / 

Tag der offenen Tür 

«The Big John Cage Extravaganza» 

& «Toy Piano World Summit» 

Dimanche / Sonntag / Sunday 

02.12.2012 15:00–22:00 

Philharmonie 

Vous trouverez pages suivantes tous les événements, présentés par salle et 

par ordre chronologique. / Alle Veranstaltungen finden Sie auf den folgenden 

Seiten jeweils pro Saal in chronologischer Reihenfolge aufgelistet. 

Grand Foyer 112–120 

Grand Auditorium 121–132 

Salle de Musique de Chambre 133–142 

Espace Découverte 143–153 

Salle de répétition I 154–159 

Autres lieux / Sonstige Orte 160–161 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 

Les concerts, présentations d’ateliers, etc. du «Toy Piano World Summit» 

sont indiqués en bleu. / Die Konzerte, Workshop-Präsentationen etc. des 

«Toy Piano World Summit» sind jeweils in blauer Farbe gekennzeichnet. 


Les concerts, performances, installations, etc. de la «Big John Cage 

Extravaganza» sont indiqués en violet. / Die Konzerte, Performances, 

Installationen etc. der «Big John Cage Extravaganza» sind in violetter 

Farbe gekennzeichnet. 


Tous les ateliers, performances, installations, etc, indiqués en orange sont 

accessibles en continu. Pour les autres événements, l’accès a lieu peu 

avant l’heure de début indiquée. / Alle in oranger Farbe gekennzeichneten 

Performances, Workshops, Installationen etc. sind jederzeit zugänglich. Bei 

den anderen Veranstaltungen ist Einlass jeweils kurz vor der angegebenen 

Beginnzeit. 


Abréviations / Abkürzungen 

DIY pour participer / zum Mitmachen / do it yourself 

(7–100) pour tous les âges / für alle Altersgruppen / for all ages 

(18–XXX) à partir de 18 ans / ab 18 / explicit lyrics 

UA création / Uraufführung / world premiere 

* Œuvres sélectionnées par le jury de Call for scores pour le 

«Toy Piano World Summit» / Juryauswahl der Werke des Call for scores für 

den «Toy Piano World Summit» 

Page de gauche / Linke Seite: 

John Cage 

playing toy piano (1961) 

Photographer: Ben Martin / 

TIME & LIFE Images 

© Getty Images 

111

112 

Grand Foyer 

15:00–22:00 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII TOY PIANO EXHIBITION (7–100) 

15:00–22:00 Grand Foyer 

Toy Piano Exhibition at the Toy Piano World Summit 

The toy pianos presented in the Philharmonie’s Grand Foyer are part of the 

collection of Paweł Romańczuk from Wroclaw, Poland. The instrument collection 

started with his idée fixe about «small instruments»: he is the founder and leader 

of the band and artist group «Małe Instrumenty» (Small Instruments) which 

explores new sounds using a wide array of small instruments. He is also the author 

of what is probably the first book ever about the history of the toy piano. His 

growing collection counts at the moment over 180 different toy pianos from the 

USA, Germany, Brazil, France, Czechoslovakia, USSR, Poland, Spain, Bulgaria, 

Japan, United Kingdom and other countries, as well as archival photos, press 

clippings, posters, CDs and toy piano memorabilia. Paweł Romańczuk is planning 

to run a specialised Toy Piano Gallery in order to popularise toy piano culture. 

The presentation of this collection during the Toy Piano World Summit has been made possible by the support of the 

Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Warsaw. 

.......................................................................................................................... 

A Very Short History of the Toy Piano 

The story of toy piano begins at end of the 19 th century, when the Schoenhut family 

started to produce toy pianos in Germany. The source of sound in these toys was 

glass plates hit by wooden hammers. When shipped to the USA, the glass often 

got damaged during transportation, and the Schoenhut family decided to commission 

the young Albert Schoenhut to repair the toy pianos in the USA. In 1872, Albert 

started his own brand, the Schoenhut Piano Company in the USA, using metal 

plates instead of glass. The metal plates were quite similar to those used in modern 

glockenspiels. Their range varied from 4 to 37 keys (three octaves). The first instru- 

ments were diatonic, with black «keys» painted on the wooden white keys. Some 

of the other makes and models of toy pianos produced before World War II origi- 

nate in Spain and France. Some of them were based on a different way of producing 

sound, using strings instead of plates, more like zithers with a hammer system. 

In the 1930s, the first chromatic toy pianos appeared, and – what’s even more 

important – the source of sound was changed to metal rods, set together in one 

metal frame. The sound is rather different due to the fact that the vibration of 

each rod is transmitted to the others, generating many uncontrolled sympathetic 

tones. In America, toy pianos with rods continued to be produced by Schoenhut 

and other brands like Jaymar and Grand Pianos. The most important brand in 

Europe at the time was Michelsonne, produced since 1939 by Victor Michel in 

France, famous for its high quality, deep sound and precise mechanics. However, 

the story of Michelsonne was cut short in 1970 by a fire that destroyed the factory. 

After World War II, toy pianos were made in Italy (Bontempi), Germany (Goldon, 

Hohner), France (Michelsonne, Pianocolor, Opera) Spain (Reig), Japan (Kawai), 

USSR and Poland, although these instruments were sometimes of a very basic 

quality. Schoenhut in Florida, founded 140 years ago, is still producing a large 

offer of different toy pianos. 

The toy piano is a truly multifaceted object. It varies greatly in size, shape, design, 

colour, material, construction and sound. It is still a toy (and never was intended 

to be produced as a professional instrument, although many professional composers 

and performers work with it today). But ever since John Cage wrote his Suite for 

Toy Piano in 1948, it is being used in concert as a fascinating musical instrument. 

(Paweł Romańczuk) 

.......................................................................................................................... 

The first Toy Piano World Summit on December 2, 2012 is part of the «rainy days» festival at Philharmonie Luxembourg. 

We would like to thank the Schoenhut Piano Company (www.toypiano.com) for their cooperation.


15:00–15:30 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII CONCERT PERFORMANCE (7–100) 

15:00 Grand Foyer 

Orchestre d’Harmonie des Jeunes de l’UGDA 

James Clarke: 2012‑L for woodwind and brass orchestra 

(2012, commande / Kompositionsauftrag Philharmonie Luxembourg, 

création / Uraufführung) – 30’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

2012‑L has been commissioned by the Philharmonie Luxembourg and is written 

for a large orchestra of woodwind and brass instruments, positioned in the 

building’s foyer. The intention is that the audience should move about during 

the performance, preferably with a glass of wine (or beer), hearing the various 

musical events from different perspectives. These events range from still, quiet 

sounds to dense chords (such as one might enjoy in a southern Italian traffic jam); 

they range from single notes travelling through the space to huge sound textures 

sparkling from everywhere in the hall. The work lasts 30 minutes. (James Clarke) 

Orchestre à vent de l’École de Musique de l’UGDA 

Flûtes 

Adriana Adrovic 

Tessy Altmann 

Claire Arens 

Miriam Arnold* 

Julien Bast 

Anne Börgmann* 

Céline Bret 

Jessica Calcada Castilla 

Nathalie Da Costa Faria 

Lena Da Nazaré 

Madeleine Debes 

Eimear De Burca 

Elisabetta Diehl 

Astrid Drechsler 

Claudia Duarte 

Sally Eiffes 

Anastassia Eletskaïa* 

Laura Everad 

Lea Franck 

Robine Gillen 

Marion Gonner 

Kim Gubbini 

Lina Hedo 

Julia Jeblick 

Anna Kampisne Ambrusz* 

Anne Karier 

Isabelle Kayser* 

Eszter Keresztesi 

Lena Kimmes 

Julie Kinnen 

Anne Kruchten 

Lauréanne Kurt 

Delphine Lambert 

Joanne Lindé 

Lena Linden 

Claire List 

Vanessa Lombardi 

Aline Majerus 

Linda Manderscheid 

Nathalie Michel* 

Sally Milbert 

Maria Miteva* 

Lea Molitor 

Lea Muller 

Joëlle Nieuwenhuis 

Ana Olinger 

Natalja Orlova 

Charlotte Pahle 

Anne-Mie Poullig 

Hannah Prettenhoffer 

Carole Raus* 

Sabrina Rodrigues 

Martine Roster* 

Stefano Sabbatini* 

Katiuscia Santini Pontello 

Emy Santos da Silva 

Tilly Schaaf 

Sarah Schannes 

Sarah Schlossmacher 

Anja Schmit 

Tessy Schmit 

Pol Schons 

Anne Schwarz 

Julie Simon 

Carmen Soto* 

Roberta Spiteri 

Catherine Theves 

Lili Wagner 

Michèle Warnier* 

Laurence Warzee* 

Claire Weber 

Jill Weber 

Lynn Weyland 

Tammy Wiesen 

Jingya Zhang 

Aline Zirnheld 

Hautbois 

Françoise Bourgois* 

Carine Destrumelle 

Aida Horaniet 

Clarinettes 

Nicky Amado Ferrao 

Véronique Anciaux* 

Manon André 

Nathalie Berg 

Ann Biren 

Jean-Luc Blasius* 

Aline Brachtenbach 

Maëva Bragantini 

Pauline Bret 

Tanja Catani-Ewen 

Anouk Crochet 

Carine Defryn 

Dalilah Désirée Dias 

Céline Evrard 

Daisy Fernandes Andrade 

Muriel Fixemer 

Jil Friden 

Cindy Garofalo* 

Alessandro Gazzola Arias 

Lucie Gilson 

Joé Goelff 

Sophie Hansen 

Gordon Hoffmann 

Vicky Horn 

Julie Kayser 

Myriam Kirch 

Sophie Koch 

Bernadette Koch-Rotink 

Alexandra Kohn 

Fabien Kohnen 

Nora Kremer 

Isabelle Krier 

Claire Lallemand 

Julie Leruth 

Catherine Loos 

Joe Ludwig 

Chantal Moes-Pfeffer 

Annemarie Nagel 

Anne-Marie Nicolay 

Stephanie Nober 

Laurent Putz 

Thomas Radermecker 

Rayan Rafdy 

Aline Schiltz* 

Johanna Schmidt 

Francine Sosson* 

Marc Sosson* 

Candy Laura Steffen 

Danielle Thill 

Laura Thill 

Vanessa Trausch 

Claire Van Mechelen 

Vanessa Venturi* 

Liz Weiler 

Romy Wiesen 

Mandy Zwank 

Clarinettes basses 

Karin Ludivig 

Thierry Majerus* 

Annie Margue* 

Sonja Soons* 

Saxophones sopranos 

Magali Bossau 

Joy Clees 

Louis Donckel 

Saxophones altos 

Cindy Amado Ferrao 

Félix Bentz 

Daisy Bormann 

Maryse Boudlet* 

Jean-Claude Devigne* 

Vanessa Duprez 

Joé Fellens 

Loïc Fonseca 

Hui Yi Hang 

Félix Hennico 

Stanley Holcher 

David Jans 

Sascha Kroupchenka 

Zoltan Lacoste 

Pablo Martinez Soares 

Tim Munhowen 

Catherine Napoli-Kremer 

Pascale Neu* 

Michelle Nickels 

Rainier Radelet* 

Christiane Roeder 

Sarah Schmit 

Marlis Van Den Berg 

Saxophones ténors 

Jörg Benzmüller* 

Jérôme Gérard 

Claude Jungels 

Saxophones barytons 

Gilles Englebert 

Joëlle Wiseler* 

Cors en fa 

Pauline Bor 

Marc Bouchard* 

Anne-Sophie Duterme* 

Gilles Klein* 

David Lefevre* 

Sam Michels 

Laurent Molitor 

François Schammo* 

Bugles 

Max Grethen 

Jackie Kihn 

Chloé Martins 

Nicole Wantz-Thome 

Trompettes 

Paule Biren 

Charel Cannivé 

Alexandre Da Silva Louro 

Maurice Desquiot 

Noah Desquiot 

Félix Feider 

Jacques Feinen 

Alain Freymann 

Alain Gueben* 

Denis Heneaux* 

Patrick Yves Hengen* 

Philippe Keipes 

Fabrice Kohnen* 

Max Kraus 

Marc Loewen 

Charel Mercatoris 

Christian Napoli 

Nicolas Reyland 

Ramona Schuh* 

Michel Weber 

Jean-Marc Ziade 

Trombones ténors 

Edgar Becker* 

Josy Gilson 

Philippe Kremer 

Laurent Lemaire* 

Christophe Mertz* 

Claude Rasseneur* 

Jean-Marie Thein* 

Trombones basses 

Stefan Fricke 

Manuel Stoffels* 

Euphoniums 

Olivier Gravier* 

Felix Reiff 

Tubas 

Armand Barthel 

Gérard Close* 

Lex Glode 

Yves Schumacher* 

Cornet 

Eléonore Pottier 

Basson 

Inès Pyziak 

Baryton 

Constant Bret 

*Professeurs de stage 

113

114 


16:04’57.9862”–17:00 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII PERFORMANCE INSTALLATION CONCERT (7–100) 

16:04’57.9862”–17:00 Grand Foyer 

«Any other activities are going on at the same time» 

Atelier hasard / Zufallswerkstatt 

Katharina Bihler voix, performance 

Elisabeth Flunger percussion, performance 

Stefan Scheib contrebasse, performance 

John Cage: 

Variations III for any one or any number of people performing any actions 

(1962–1963) 

Variations IV for any number of players, any sounds or combinations of sounds, 

produced by any means, with or without other activities (1963) 

0’00” (4’33” N° 2). Solo to be performed in any way by anyone (1962) 

But what about the noise of crumpling paper which he used to do in order to 

paint the series of «papiers froissés» or tearing up paper to make «papiers 

déchirés?» Arp was stimulated by water (sea, lake, and flowing waters like 

rivers), forests. for percussion ensemble (1985) 

One 4 for solo drummer (1990) 

cC/ omposed Improvisation for snare drum alone (1990) 

27’10.544” for a percussionist (1956) 

59½ seconds for a string player (1953) 

Branches for percussion (any number of players) (1976) 

5 Mesostics from Sixty‑two Mesostics re Merce Cunningham (1971) 

Sonatas and Interludes (1948, extraits / Auszüge) 

Sonata I 

Sonata IV 

Song Books for solo voice (1970) 

Solo for voice N° 6: Theater (irrelevant). The actor will make a numbered list 

of verbs (actions) and/or nouns (things). 

Solo for voice N° 7: Theater (relevant). A series of verbs and nouns… 

may be performed completely or in part. 

Solo for voice N° 8: 0’00” Theatre using electronics (irrelevant). In a situation 

provided with maximum amplification, perform a disciplined action… 

fulfilling in whole or part an obligation to others. No attention to given 

the situation (electronical, musical, theatrical). 

Solo for voice N° 9: Theater (relevant). See Solos 6 and 7. 

Solo for voice N° 10: Theater (irrelevant). See Solo 6. 

Solo for voice N° 15: Theater using electronics (relevant). 

Statement by Erik Satie 

Solo for voice N° 22: Theater with electronics (relevant). 

Regular and irregular breathing 

Solo for voice N° 23: 0’00” N° 2. Theater with electronics (irrelevant). 

Play a game with others. 

Solo for voice N° 26: 0’00” N° 2B. Theater with electronics (irrelevant). 

Play a game of solitaire. 

Solo for voice N° 27: Song (relevant) 


Solo for voice N° 36: Theater (irrelevant). Number given is number of things 

eaten or drunk. «I can drink without eating, but I certainly can’t eat 

without drinking.» 


Solo for voice N° 41: Theater with electronics (irrelevant). 

Produce feedback three times. 

Solo for voice N° 42: Theater with electronics (irrelevant). 

Produce feedback twice. 

Solo for voice N° 43: Theater with electronics (relevant). Improvise a 

melody using the following text by Erik Satie recording it meanwhile.

Solo for voice N° 44: Theater (irrelevant). Go off-space at a normal speed, 

returning somewhat later also at a normal speed. 

Solo for voice N° 46: Theater (irrelevant). Prepare something to eat. 

Solo for voice N° 50: Song with electronics (irrelevant) 

Solo for voice N° 55: Theater (irrelevant). Leave the stage and return 

by means of wheels. 

Solo for voice N° 57: Theater (relevant). Immobility (interior, exterior) 

Solo for voice N° 61: Theater (relevant). See Solos 6 and 7. 


Solo for voice N° 78: Theater (irrelevant). What can you do? 

«I can take off my shoes and put them on.» 

Solo for voice N° 81: Theater with electronics (technology) (relevant). 

Project four slides relevant to Thoreau. 

Solo for voice N° 82: Theater with electronics (relevant). 

Using a Paris café cognac glass… drink. 

Solo for voice N° 86: Theater with electronics (technology) (relevant). 

Project twenty-two slides relevant to Thoreau. 

Solo for voice N° 88: Theater (irrelevant). Leave the stage through the 

audience returning to the stage without leaving the theater. Do this 

very slowly. 

Solo for voice N° 89: Theater (relevant). Intersection of lines locates 

theater seat. Make a gift of an apple or some cranberries. 

George Brecht: Comb Music (1959–1962) 

Earle Brown: Folio (1952) 

Roman Haubenstock-Ramati: Sonans (1973) 

Roman Haubenstock-Ramati: Speload Mc (1971, extrait / Auszug) 

Dieter Schnebel: réactions (1960–1961) 

Howard Skempton: Fish Talk (1969) 

Christian Wolff: Edges (1968) 

Christian Wolff: Drinks (1971) 

.......................................................................................................................... 


Der Titel dieser «Zufallswerkstatt» ist ein Zitat aus Variations III von John Cage. 

Nach einer sehr genauen und gleichzeitig mehrdeutigen Anleitung, auf welche 

Weise der Interpret sich anhand von Zufallsoperationen seine Version des 

Stückes ausarbeiten möge, führt Cage gegen Ende des Textes einige zusätzliche 

Unbestimmtheitsfaktoren ein und erweitert so das Möglichkeitsfeld der Aktionen: 

«Manche oder alle der zu spielenden Aktionen können durch Vorkommnisse in der Umgebung 

(Umweltveränderungen) gespielt werden, entweder durch bloße Wahrnehmung derselben oder 

durch Reaktion auf sie. Nicht alle Faktoren […] sollten vorausgeplant werden, es sollte Raum 

für Unvorhergesehenes bleiben. Irgendwelche anderen Aktivitäten passieren zur selben Zeit.» 

Eine ähnliche Erklärung gibt es auch in Variations IV. Auch hier mündet die 

akribisch genaue Arbeitsanweisung in einen Schlussabsatz, der die Freiheit des 

Interpreten und die Unbestimmtheit der Aufführung betont: 

«Der Ausführende muss sich nicht auf die Ausführung dieses Stückes beschränken. Er kann 

jederzeit etwas anderes tun. Und andere, die etwas anderes zur selben Zeit und am selben 

Ort ausführen, können, wenn sie wollen, in diese Performance eintreten.» 

In der Performance «Any other activities…» werden Variations III und Variations IV 

erst live ausgearbeitet und dann gespielt. Innerhalb von Variations IV kommen 

noch weitere Werke von John Cage und von anderen Komponisten zur Aufführung. 

Über die Auswahl der Stücke entscheidet das Los. 

Allen Kompositionen ist ein hoher Grad an Unbestimmtheit gemeinsam. 

«…man könnte es aufgeben, den Klang kontrollieren zu wollen, den Geist von Musik 

reinigen und sich daran machen, Möglichkeiten zu entdecken, dass die Klänge sie selbst sein 

können und nicht Träger von gekünstelten Theorien oder menschlichen Gefühlen.» 

115

116 


16:04’57.9862”–17:00 

Um die Musik von Klischees und überkommenen Hörgewohnheiten zu befreien 

und die Klänge wieder sie selbst sein zu lassen, ist Unbestimmtheit für Cage eine 

wesentliche Bedingung seiner Musik. Mit Unbestimmtheit (indeterminacy) ist 

nicht etwa Ungenauigkeit oder Unklarheit gemeint, sondern die Unvorhersehbar- 

keit und Nicht-Vorherbestimmtheit des musikalischen Ereignisses. Unbestimmtheit 

und Aufgabe der Kontrolle erreicht Cage durch Zufallsmethoden bei der Kompo- 

sition seiner Werke und durch den Auftrag an den Interpreten, wichtige Entscheidun- 

gen im Kompositionsprozess zu treffen oder per Zufallsoperationen zu bestimmen. 

Schon bei den frühen Stücken für präpariertes Klavier wie den Sonatas and Interludes 

(1948) führt die Präparierung des Klaviers, obwohl genau definiert, zu sehr unter- 

schiedlichen Klängen und Tonhöhen. 1951 begann Cage, das I Ging für Kompo- 

sitionszwecke zu verwenden. Aus dieser frühen Zeit der Zufallskompositionen 

stammt 59 1/2” for a String Player (1953). In 27’10.544” (1956), das ebenfalls per 

Zufallsoperationen komponiert wurde, ist dem Interpreten nicht nur die Auswahl 

der Instrumente freigestellt, sondern auch die Entscheidung, ob er das Stück als 

Ganzes oder teilweise, live oder durch eine Aufnahme spielt. 

«Die Schlagzeugmusik ist der zeitgenössische Übergang von einer aufs Klavier bezogenen 

Musik zu einer Allklangmusik der Zukunft.» 

Im Lauf der Jahre entwickelt Cage verschiedenste Methoden, die endgültige Aus- 

arbeitung seiner Kompositionen dem Interpreten anzuvertrauen: In den Variations III 

(1962–1963) und Variatons IV (1962) sind es Plastikfolien, die auf eine Unterlage 

geworfen werden und durch ihre Positionen das Stück bestimmen. In vielen Fällen, 

u.a. auch in den Song Books, verwendet er Landkarten, Fotos oder Grafiken als 

Grundlage für die Komposition oder Interpretation. In Sixty‑two Mesostics re Merce 

Cunningham (1971) suggerieren ständig wechselndeSchriften und Schriftgrößen die 

Melodielinie, Intensität und Qualität der Darbietung. In späteren Werken erarbeitet 

der Interpret die Dauer der Abschnitte und ihre Inhalte selbst mittels Zufallsopera- 

tionen, so in Branches (1976), One 4 (1990) und cC/omposed Improvisation (1990). 

Um den Klängen zu ihrem objektiven Sein zu verhelfen und den Selbstausdruck 

(des Komponisten wie des Interpreten) zu verhindern, führt Cage noch weitere 

Unbestimmtheitsebenen ein: In But what about the noise of crumpling paper… (1985) 

werden die Musiker weit voneinander getrennt positioniert, damit sie beim Spielen 

ihren unabhängigen Puls beibehalten und nicht aufeinander reagieren. 

«Wo immer wir auch sein mögen, meistens hören wir Geräusche.» 

Andere Faktoren, die Unbestimmtheit erzeugen, sind Simultanaufführungen 

mehrerer Kompositionen, die zufallsbestimmte Verwendung von Elektronik, die 

Einbeziehung des Publikums, die Wahrnehmung von Umweltgeräuschen und 

zufälligen Ereignissen als Teil der Performance und die Ausführung von nichtmu- 

sikalischen, alltäglichen Tätigkeiten, aus denen Klang gewissermaßen als Neben- 

produkt entsteht. Alle diese Mittel kommen in den Song Books (1971) zum Einsatz. 

Jedes der 92 Solos for Voice gehört einer der folgenden Kategorien an: 1) Song. 

2) Song mit Elektronik. 3) Theater. 4) Theater mit Elektronik. Nicht in allen 

Aktionen kommt die Stimme zum Einsatz. Einige sind stumme oder geräuschhafte 

Mini-Performances, die zum Teil an Fluxus-Aktionen anknüpfen, zum Teil aus- 

formulierte Versionen von 0’00” sind, das wiederum eine Variante von 4’33” ist. 

In den Song Books setzt Cage seine beiden großen Vorbilder Erik Satie und Henry 

David Thoreau miteinander in Beziehung. Jedes Solo ist entweder relevant oder 

irrelevant für das Thema: «Wir verbinden Satie mit Thoreau». 

Mit 4’33” (1952) und 0’00” (1962) erreichte Cage den konzeptuellen Höhepunkt 

seines Komponierens mit Zufall und Unbestimmtheit, Ersteres als extreme Anwen- 

dung des Gebrauchs von Zufallsoperationen und als Frage nach den Grenzen

zwischen Stille, Geräusch und Musik, Letzteres, ein «Solo to be performed in any 

way by anyone», als radikales Loslassen der Kontrolle über den Interpreten. 

John Cages Gedanken und Aktivitäten übten großen Einfluss auf andere Kompo- 

nisten und Künstler aus, nicht zuletzt auch deshalb, weil sie dem Geist der Zeit 

entsprachen: In den 1950er Jahren setzte sich die vor dem ersten Weltkrieg ein- 

setzende Grenzüberschreitung und Vermischung der Künste rasant fort. In der 

Musik entstanden neue Konzepte und Gattungen, wie die Musique concrète, 

die musikalische Grafik, das Instrumentaltheater, die Klanginstallation und die 

Musikperformance. Vor diesem Hintergrund sind grafische Kompositionen 

wie Folio (1952) von Earle Brown, Kreise (1972) und Sonans (1973) von Roman 

Haubenstock-Ramati zu sehen, genauso wie die verbalen Handlungsanweisungen 

Fish Talk (1969) von Howard Skempton, Comb Music (1959–1962) von George 

Brecht und Drinks (1971) von Christian Wolff. 

Gleichzeitig etablierte sich in der zeitgenössischen Musik, auch inspiriert durch 

die Entwicklung des experimentellen Jazz, eine neue und eigenständige Improvi- 

sationspraxis. Viele Improvisationsstücke zeichnet ein hohes Maß an Unbestimmt- 

heit aus, besonders wenn sie kein musikalisches Material vorgeben, sondern, wie 

Christian Wolff in Edges (1968), Parameter wie Lautstärke, Dauer, Geschwindigkeit 

und Klang zueinander in Beziehung setzen, oder, wie Dieter Schnebel in réactions 

(1960–1961), die Möglichkeiten der Interaktion (in diesem Fall zwischen Inter- 

preten und Publikum) analysieren. (Elisabeth Flunger) 

Die kursiv gesetzten Zitate von John Cage stammen aus folgenden Texten und Partituren: 

Die Zukunft der Musik – Credo; Vortrag über Unbestimmtheit; Silence; Variations III; Variations IV; Song Books. 

John Cage: Variations III, Variations IV & 0’00” 

I finished Atlas Eclipticalis in 1961, and it took me nine months to write. I’ve 

always thought that composition was for me either something that took a long 

time or something that took a short time – the difference between oil painting 

and water color; and I’ve tried to have ways of working slowly and ways of 

working quickly. Now when I travel all the time, I can only use the ways of 

working quickly, because I don’t have much time. At least that’s how I feel. So 

I have tried to write in these last two years only quickly written music. One was 

0’00”, and then Variations III and Variations IV. 

These three pieces have in common no measurement of time, no use of the stop- 

watch, which my music for the previous ten years had – the structure of time, or 

the process of time; but in these pieces I’m trying to find a way to make music 

that does not depend on time. In an earlier interview, when I’m asked what aspect 

of sound interests me the most, I say time, but this view that I’m trying to express 

now is one in which time is abandoned. This is very difficult, because a greater part 

of my experience as a composer has to do with measurement. And it is precisely 

this capacity for measurement that I want to be free of. […] 

Variations III, you know, has circles that are all the same, but each one is on a 

different sheet of transparent plastic. When they are tossed onto a surface, they 

overlap. The ones that do not overlap the principal group are removed; so what 

you have in the end is a complex of overlapping circles. Some overlap more 

circles than others. For instance, the lowest will be one overlapping one other, 

whereas the highest will be seven, eight, or ninecircles overlapping. 

What I mean by that is that our activities… We are constantly active; we are never 

inactive. There is no space in our lives. But there is a greater or lesser number of 

things going on at the same moment; so that if I’m not doing anything other 

than listening, the fact that I’m listening is that I’m doing something by listening. 

That’s what Variations III is. 

John Cage (1965, in an interview with Lars Gunnar Bodin and Bengt Emil Johnson. – 

Richard Kostelanetz: Conversing with Cage. – New York: Routledge, 2003. – p. 69–70) 

117

118 


16:15–17:00, 16:15, 17:00 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII DIY WORKSHOP (7–100) 


«Lullaby (Family Edition)» 

Une boîte à musique joue des dessins d’enfants / 

Kinder malen Musik für eine Spieldose 

Ada Günther atelier (L, F, D, E) 

.......................................................................................................................... 

John Cage begeisterte sich für Spieldosen und entwarf als eines seiner letzten 

Werke ein Extended Lullaby (Erweitertes Wiegenlied), das als Objekt aus zwölf 

Miniatur-Spieluhren zum Selberdrehen gebaut wurde. (Eine Bearbeitung für 

mehrere Toy Pianos spielt Margaret Leng Tan um 17:30 in der Salle de Musique 

de Chambre.) Eine «interaktive» Spieldose, wie sie ähnlich auch in mehreren 

Stücken für Toy Piano vorkommt, kann im Foyer mit selbst angefertigten 

‹Partituren› aus Pappstreifen zum Klingen gebracht werden. 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII PERFORMANCE (7–100) 


Stefan Fricke performance 

George Maciunas: Solo for sick man (1962) – 7’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

The score of this Fluxus composition is a typewritten chart with rows labeled 

«cough,» «spit,» «gargle,» «sniff deeply and swallow,» and so on. Blank columns 

provide space to note the sequence and duration of each «event,» producing 

something akin to a musical score of symptoms. (http://georgemaciunas.com) 



ensemble recherche 

Christian Dierstein percussion 

Dieter Schnebel: Zeichen‑Sprache. Musik für Gesten und Stimmen 

(1987–1989, Auszüge / extraits) – 7’ 

Poem für 2 Rümpfe (version solo) 

Poem für 1 Springer 

en parallèle / simultan: 


Dick Higgins: Danger Music N° 15 (for the Dance) (1962) – 6’ 

George Brecht: Drip Music. Second Version (1959) 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Dieter Schnebel: Zeichen-Sprache 

His sound and language compositions from the 1950s to 1980s (Für Stimmen and 

Glossolalie) were pioneering; the premieres of his experimental works for music 

theatre (Maulwerke and Körper‑Sprache) created scandals. Language is treated as 

music, processes of vocal articulation and silent physical gestures attain the level 

of music theatre. In subsequent cycles, the music-theatrical miniatures Laut‑ 

Gesten‑Laute and Zeichen‑Sprache, Schnebel became an innovative border-crosser 

between music theatre, vocal performance art and sound poetry. 

Dick Higgins: Danger Music N° 15 

The complete score of this Fluxus composition reads as follows: 

«Work with butter and eggs for a time.» 

George Brecht: Drip Music. Second Version 

The complete score of this Fluxus composition reads as follows: «Dripping» 

(cf. George Brecht: Drip Music [1959], Grand Auditorium 21:15)


17:15 & 17:30–18:45 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII PERFORMANCE CONCERT (7–100) 



Christian Dierstein percussion, performance 

Martin Fahlenbock performance 

John Cage: Suite for Toy Piano (1948, version pour gongs balinais, 

arr. Christian Dierstein) – 8’ 

François Sarhan: Die Enzyklopädie des Professor Glaçon: Vice versa – 6’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

John Cage: Suite for Toy Piano 

(voir / siehe Salle de Musique de Chambre 17:00) 

François Sarhan: Vice versa 

Das ‹Duett für zwei Ausführende› mit dem Titel Vice versa ist ein winziges Mosaik- 

steinchen aus der groß angelegten Multimedia-Collage Die Enzyklopädie des Professor 

Glaçon des französischen Komponisten François Sarhan. «Ziel des Langzeitprojekts 

ist es, eine große Anzahl an Dokumenten, Kompositionen, Zeugnissen, Bildern, 

Büchern und Videos zu präsentieren, die vorgeben, eine Art von Enzyklopädie zu 

bilden. Alle diese Dokumente präsentieren erfundene Fakten, Tiere, Musiker usw. 

Die Musik hat entweder die Gestalt eines ‹objet trouvé› oder ist komponiert.» 

(François Sarhan) Typischerweise wird die Enzyklopädie in einem düsteren Museum 

in Szene gesetzt – beispielsweise im 2011 im Donaueschinger Jagdmuseum (mit 

einem staubigen ausgestopften Bären) oder beim Festival Ultima 2012 im Geolo- 

gischen Museum von Oslo, wo man gar um ein Dinosaurierskelett herumspaziert. 

Man stelle sich also beispielsweise die beiden Ausführenden als leicht aus der 

Rolle fallende Archäologieprofessoren oder gar als streitende Statuen vor. Was 

man sich hingegen kaum vorstellen kann, ist jedoch, dass Vice versa – in dem kein 

einziges Musikinstrument zum Einsatz kommt, sondern nur Stimme und Körper 

(Body Percussion) – von Schauspielern ausgeführt wird, denn das kunstvolle 

kammermusikalische Timing ist eine Aufgabe für Virtuosen. (Bernhard Günther) 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII PERFORMANCE INSTALLATION CONCERT (7–100) 



Atelier hasard / Zufallswerkstatt 

.......................................................................................................................... 

(voir / siehe Grand Foyer 16:04’57.9862”–17:00) 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII DIY WORKSHOP (7–100) 


«Lullaby (Family Edition)» 

Une boîte à musique joue des dessins d’enfants / 

Kinder malen Musik für eine Spieldose 

Ada Günther atelier (L, F, D, E), 

.......................................................................................................................... 

(voir / siehe Grand Foyer 17:30–18:45) 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII PERFORMANCE 

18:33’01.538” Grand Foyer 


George Maciunas: Solo for sick man (1962) – 7’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

The score of this Fluxus composition is a typewritten chart with rows labeled 

«cough,» «spit,» «gargle,» «sniff deeply and swallow,» and so on. Blank columns 

provide space to note the sequence and duration of each «event,» producing 

something akin to a musical score of symptoms. (http://georgemaciunas.com) 

119

120 


18:45, 19:00, 19:30, 19:45 & 20:00 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII PERFORMANCE CONCERT 


United Instruments of Lucilin 

Guy Frisch percussion 

John Cage: cC/ omposed improvisation for snare drum alone (1987–1990) – 8’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

This work exists in three in versions (for Steinberger bass guitar, one-sided drums 

with or without jangles, and snare drum alone). Each version comprises 2 pages 

of text with performance instructions. Each has 3 time brackets, 1 of which is 

variable, surrounded by 2 that are fixed. Each time bracket contains 1–8 events 

and 1–64 icti. The performer performs chance operations to decide the number of 

events and icti to be played, as well as specifics concerning the use of instruments 

as well as durations of sounds. (www.johncage.org) 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII CONCERT PERFORMANCE (7–100) 


Orchestre d’Harmonie des Jeunes de l’UGDA 

James Clarke: 2012‑L for woodwind and brass orchestra 

(2012, commande / Kompositionsauftrag Philharmonie Luxembourg) – 30’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

(voir / siehe Grand Foyer 15:00) 




La Monte Young: Composition 1961 N° 4 (1961) 

.......................................................................................................................... 

The score of this Fluxus composition reads as follows: 

«Draw a straight line and follow it.» 



Claude Origer trombone 

John Cage: Solo for sliding trombone (Concerto for piano and orchestra) 

(1957–1958) – 8’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

(voir p. 93 & 95 / siehe S. 93 & 95) 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII CONCERT (7–100) 


«Songs of irrelevance and passion III» 

cantoLX 

John Cage: Song Books for solo voice (1970, extraits) – 10’ 

Présentation du CD / CD-Präsentation cantoLX: 

«Girolamo Frescobaldi / John Cage – Songs of irrelevance and passion» 

.......................................................................................................................... 

(voir / siehe Grand Auditorium 16:00) 




Takehisa Kosugi: Micro 1 (1961) – 7’

Grand Auditorium 

15:34’10.554” & 15:43’1.1499” 



15:34’10.554” Grand Auditorium 



John Cage: One 4 for solo drummer (1990) – 7’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

The score of One 4 consists of six time brackets for the left hand and eight for the 

right, each containing a single sound. Thus, there are a total of fourteen sounds 

heard throughout the entire composition. Dynamics and choice of drums and 

cymbals are free. (www.johncage.org) 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII TOY PIANO CONCERT (7–100) 


Phyllis Chen, Isabel Ettenauer, Pascal Meyer, Xenia Pestova toy piano 

Karlheinz Essl: Miles to go for 4 prepared and amplified toy pianos 

(2012, commande / Kompositionsauftrag Philharmonie Luxembourg, 


.......................................................................................................................... 

Having composed a number of works for toy piano since 2005 [cf. Espace 

Découverte 20:00], I was commissioned by the Philharmonie Luxembourg to 

write a piece for the first Toy Piano World Summit on December 2, 2012. 

For every new piece involving the toy piano, I have set out to convey a different 

perspective. This time, however, I felt stuck for ideas and didn’t want to repeat 

myself. In my despair, I began to dismantle a 25-key table-top piano. I opened 

the case and removed the set of tines that are responsible for producing the 

characteristic chime-like sounds of the instrument. Then I changed its position so 

that the hammers were not hitting the rods. Instead, the metal bar to which they 

are mounted was struck to create a metallic noise without any pitches. To make 

these subtle sounds more audible, I connected a contact microphone to the sound 

board and amplified the signal with a small loudspeaker. I was amazed at this new 

sound world. A new instrument was born: a gamelan-like percussion orchestra 

at my fingertips! Along with those metallic tones, this modified instrument 

contained even more sounds: a dry wooden attack on the lowest key (where the 

hammer directly hits the sound board) and also a few notes that still produce the 

usual toy piano tones. 

These new possibilities immediately kindled my imagination. By improvising with 

this setup, I discovered a variety of structural elements that attempted to connect 

to each other. Furthermore, the amplification became more and more important; 

not only to make the instrument louder, but also to achieve an aggressive 

expression more reminiscent of a thrash metal band than that of a children’s 

instrument. 

In Miles to go, the four players are treated as a single unit, forming a single metainstrument. 

They are not merely playing different voices, but contributing to a 

common sound that they are creating together. The dense and fast hammering 

at independent tempos creates haunting phasing effects that appear as an aural 

rendering of the well-known visual ‹moiré patterns.› These hectic and breathless 

movements evoke moments of stress and unrest but at a certain point, become 

transformed by the listener to the opposite: a quality of calmness. Finally, another 

transformation takes place when the percussive attacks are gradually replaced 

by soft and flowing sounds, which are achieved by stroking and scratching the 

soundboard with the handle of a percussion mallet. 

121

Page de droite / Rechte Seite: 

John Cage, 

preparing a piano (~1960) 

Photographer: Ross Welser 

Courtesy of the 

John Cage Trust 

122 


16:00 & 16:30 

This formal process gave rise to the title Miles to go which was borrowed from the 

poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost: 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. 

But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep, 

And miles to go before I sleep. 

Karlheinz Essl 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII CONCERT 

16:00 Grand Auditorium 

«Songs of irrelevance and passion I» 

cantoLX 

Lilith Verhelst soprano 

Marivi Blasco soprano 

Jonathan Deceuster contreténor 

Peter de Laurentiis ténor 

Jean-Paul Majerus basse 

Frank Agsteribbe clavecin, direction 

Girolamo Frescobaldi: Primo Libro d’Arie Musicali (1630) 

«Degnati, ò gran Fernando». Canto in stile recitativo 

«Signor, c’hora frà gli ostri». Sonetto in stile recitativo 

John Cage: Song Books for solo voice (1970) 

Solo for voice N° 27: Song (relevant) 


«Così mi disprezzate?». Aria di passacaglia 

«Troppo sotto due stele». Aria 


Solo for voice N° 52: Aria N° 2 & Aria (1958) 

Solo for voice N° 15: Theater using electronics (relevant). 

Statement by Erik Satie 

20’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Le but de ce programme: une confrontation inattendue des évolutions radicales 

dans l’écriture vocale, au début du 17 e siècle, et dans la deuxième moitié du 20 e . 

Même si l’esthétique et le monde sonore des deux périodes sont complète- 

ment différents, on y retrouve quand même une recherche de nouvelles possibilités, 

de styles inconnus et même choquants. Ma fascination pour ces deux compo- 

siteurs est à la base de ce projet – un projet qui a été reçu avec succès aux festivals 

de musique ancienne de Bruges (MA-Festival) et Utrecht (Festival Oude Muziek). 

L’enregistrement du concert à Utrecht a été diffusé aux Pays-Bas, ainsi qu’en Israël. 

Ce programme est aussi le contenu du premier CD de cantoLX. (Frank Agsteribbe) 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII DIY PERFORMANCE CONCERT (7–100) 


«Das Publikum komponiert I» 

Kunsu Shim, Gerhard Stäbler performance, présentation (D) 

Gerhard Stäbler: Rachengold. Geheime Partitur für einen Performer (1992) – 4’ 

Kunsu Shim: participation. Eine kollektive Komposition mit dem Publikum 

(2009) – ~12’ 

Kunsu Shim: positive spaces (1994) – ~1’ 

a. für Publikum – b. für 4 Spieler 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Im ersten der heutigen Konzerte mit Gerhard Stäbler und Kunsu Shim wird unter 

anderem das Publikum eingeladen, zu einer Komposition beizutragen, die dann 

um 18:45 Uhr in der Salle de Musique de Chambre zur Uraufführung kommt 

(voir / siehe Salle de Musique de Chambre 18:30, 18:45, 20:45, 21:00).

Margaret Leng Tan 

and John Cage 

(photo: George Hirose) 

124 


17:00 



«Through the Silence» 

A John Cage birthday homage I 

Margaret Leng Tan piano 

John Cage: Daughters of the Lonesome Isle for solo prepared piano (1945) – 8’ 

John Cage: Dream for piano (1948, version for piano and toy piano, 

arr. Margaret Leng Tan) – 7’ 

John Cage: In the name of the holocaust for solo prepared piano (1942) – 6’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

John Cage: Daughters of the Lonesome Isle 

The prepared piano is John Cage’s most famous invention. Recalling Henry 

Cowell’s excursions into the piano’s interior, Cage discovered that mutes of 

varying materials wedged between the strings of a grand piano could drastically 

transform the sound of the instrument endowing each note with a unique timbre. 

In his preface to Amores, Cage stipulated that «on completion of the preparation… 

an instrument having convincingly its own special characteristics, not even suggest- 

ing those of a piano, must be the result.» 

The timbral diversity of the prepared piano made it the most practical instrument 

for Cage and during the 1940s he created many works in this genre for dance, 

most often for Merce Cunningham and occasionally for others such as Jean 

Erdman, for whom Daughters of the Lonesome Isle was written. Eschewing transitions 

the work consists of nineteen modular sections following the structure of the dance. 

Daughters’ extensive all-metal preparation fulfills Cage’s intention to create «a per- 

cussion orchestra under the control of a single player.» His prepared piano sonor- 

ities have often been compared to those of the gamelan (Indonesian percussion 

orchestra). However, in a 1982 letter to me, Cage disclaimed any such influences: 

«Rather, I was making a music not based on Western tonality and including 

noises. The strangeness of what I was doing led many to think of it as oriental.» 

(Margaret Leng Tan) 

John Cage: Dream 

Dream and its companion piece of the same year, In a Landscape, evoke echoes 

of Erik Satie. Early examples of ambient music, they are precursors of the New 

Age aesthetic. Within Dream’s restricted gamut of pitches also lie the seeds of 

Minimalism. Modal melodic tones sustained either manually or with the pedal, 

are transformed into harmonic resonances fusing and fading away. Given the toy 

piano’s penchant for generating clouds of lingering overtones, I have taken the 

liberty of requisitioning my toy piano for two of Dream’s three repetitions. 

Dream was written for Merce Cunningham. (Margaret Leng Tan) 

(For an interview extract of John Cage about Souvenir, Dream, and ASLSP 

cf. Grand Auditorium 17:30) 

John Cage: In the Name of the Holocaust 

Written for the «string» piano of his mentor, Henry Cowell, In the Name of the 

Holocaust was composed as a dance score for Merce Cunningham. Ever staunchly 

apolitical, John Cage always maintained that the title was a pun on «In the Name 

of the Holy Ghost.» Nonetheless, Holocaust remains an uncompromising dramatic 

testament with its haunting pizzicato of prepared strings shattered by the brutal 

jangling of loose screws, and its culmination, a cataclysm of massive forearm 

clusters. (Margaret Leng Tan)


17:30 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII CONCERT PERFORMANCE 


Maurice Clement orgue 

John Cage: Souvenir for solo organ (1983) – 6’ 



Tomas Schmit: Klavierstück N° 1 (1962) 


John Cage: Two for flute and piano (1987) – 10’ 

Marcel Reuter: nouvelle œuvre / neues Werk (01./02.12.2012, 


.......................................................................................................................... 

John Cage: Souvenir 

«There’s a piece of mine, which I’m sure is very popular, the one called Dream 

[1948, cf. Grand Auditorium 17:00 & Espace Découverte 18:30]. And there 

was an organist who asked me to write a piece, and when I agreed he said: ‹The 

piece of yours that I like most is Dream, and I would like the new piece to be 

like Dream.› He’d already sent me half of the commission, and I sent it back to 

him and said, ‹I don’t want to write Dream over again.› He then sent the money 

back to me and said, ‹Do whatever you wish.› Since he had given me complete 

freedom, I, of course, wanted to do what he wanted me to do. [laughs] So I wrote 

a rather poor piece called Souvenir. Then more recently I wrote – by means of 

chance operations and so forth – ASLSP, which can be played on the piano or 

the organ. I think it’s much more beautiful than Souvenir or Dream.» 

John Cage (1987, in an interview with Peter Dickinson. Peter Dickinson: CageTalk. – 

Rochester/NY: University of Rochester Press, 2006. – p. 39) 

Tomas Schmit: Klavierstück N° 1 

Diese Fluxus-Partitur besteht aus folgender Anweisung: «Der Ausführende platziert 

verschiedene Objekte – Spielzeug, Schachspiele, Beton- und Holzklötze, Ziegel- 

steine, Glasvasen, Gummibälle usw. – auf den geschlossenen Deckel eines großen 

Flügels. Er kann diese Objekte sehr sorgfältig und mit Bedächtigkeit arrangieren. 

Er kann ein Gebäude aus den Klötzen konstruieren oder die Schachspiele arran- 

gieren oder die verschiedenen Spielsachen anordnen usw. Wenn er sein Arrange- 

ment komplettiert hat, hebt er plötzlich den großen Deckel an. Der Flügel muss so 

stehen, dass, wenn der Deckel geöffnet wird, die Objekte ins Publikum rutschen.» 

John Cage: Two 

This is Cage’s first composition in his series of «number» pieces. Each of its two 

parts has ten time-brackets, the eighth of which (7’15”–7’45”) is fixed, the others 

flexible. Sounds in a given time-bracket are not to be repeated. The piano part is 

notated on two staves, one to be played in the given order, the notes being played 

in any relation to the sounds in the other staff. Each time-bracket consists of 7 to 

10 tones. The flute part consists of extremely soft (mp–pp), low tones. Each timebracket 

here contains only one tone, with a total of three different pitches across 

the total duration of the work. (www.johncage.org) 

Marcel Reuter: Neues Werk 

Bei dem neuen Werk von Marcel Reuter handelt es sich um das während der 

Aufführung von John Cages WGBH‑TV durch Marcel Reuter am 01.12.2012 im 

Rahmen des Festivals rainy days komponierte (respektive begonnene?) Werk 

(vgl. S. 92 & 96). 

125

126 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII TOY PIANO CONCERT 


Isabel Ettenauer, Phyllis Chen toy piano 

minute. The work also serves as an exploration of the post-tonal harmonic possibilities within the twelve-note chromatic scale as presented by Elliott Carter in his 

monumental publication of the Harmony Book, with additional pitch material directly derived from Elliott Carter’s 3-note chord subsets of 6-note chord no. 35 (D!, 

E, F, G, A! and B). The arrangement for two 37-key toy pianos and an unlimited number of 25-key toy pianos features an indeterminate modular section 

incorporating sixty-four ‘musical’ events (in direct reference to the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching oracle, or ‘Book of Changes’ — originating in the Western Zhãu Dynasty 

([122-771 BC]) that may be performed by any number of professional and non-professional toy pianists. 

Andrián Pertout: Estrellita for two 37-key toy pianos and an unlimited number 

of 25-key toy pianos N° 409b* (2012, création / Uraufführung) – 7’ 

Gerhard E. Winkler: Mendelssohn´s Midsummer Nightmare 

for two toy pianos* (2011/2012, création / Uraufführung) – 4’ 

Maria Kallionpää: Toccata for two toy pianos and one performer* 

(2011, création / Uraufführung) – 5’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Andrián Pertout: Estrellita 

In his article entitled De Bruijn Sequences Drew Armstrong asks: «What is special 

about the following cyclic binary word (cycle of 0’s and 1’s): 0011, 1010? As we 

travel around the cycle (either clockwise or counterclockwise), we will encounter 

each of the 23 = 8 three-digit patterns 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, 111 exactly 

once. The formal name for this kind of pattern is a De Bruijn Sequence. A De Bruijn 

sequence of rank n on an alphabet of size k is a cyclic word in which each of the 

kn De Bruijn Cycle of Sixteen 0’s and 1’s 

0 0 0 0 

0 0 0 1 

0 0 1 0 

0 1 0 0 

1 0 0 1 

0 0 1 1 

words of length n appears exactly once as we travel around the cycle. De Bruijn 

0 1 1 0 

sequences have applications 1 1 to 0 computers 1 (electronic memory and coding theory), 

1 0 1 0 

crime (efficiently cracking a combination lock), and of course magic tricks.» 

‘Estrellita’ adopts a De Bruijn cycle consisting of sixteen 0’s and 1’s arranged as a unique four-digit series within the range of 0000 and 1111, or 0000100110101111 

— a series generating “each of the 16 possible arrangements of four binary characters.” The rhythmic displacement of the pattern by one digit yields the following 

numerical series: 0000, 0001, 0010, 0100, 1001, 0011, 0110, 1101, 1010, 0101, 1011, 0111, 1111, 1110, 1100 and 1000. The transformation of the a De Bruijn 

sequence into minim pulses as utilized in the work equal 1+1+1+1, 1+1+1+2, 1+1+2+1, 1+2+1+1, 2+1+1+2, 1+1+2+2, 1+2+2+1, 2+2+1+2, 

2+1+2+1, 1+2+1+2, 2+1+2+2, 1+2+2+2, 2+2+2+2, 2+2+2+1, 2+2+1+1 and 2+1+1+1. 

A De Bruijn cycle of 

sixteen 0’s ans 1’s 


18:00 

0 

1 

1 

0 

0 

1 

1 

According to Derrick Niederman in 0 Number 1 1 1 Freak: From 1 to 200 — The Hidden 

1 1 1 1 

Language of Numbers Revealed, «The existence 1 1 of 1 De 0 Bruijn cycles for any desired 

alphabet and cycle size can be proved using 1 graph 1 0 theory, 0 and these cycles are 

1 0 0 0 

related to a problem known as universal coloring,» whereby if you were to «color 

each of the 16 positions (in an arrangement of sixteen 0’s and 1’s) with one of four 

colours in such a way that as you went around the circle, you’d come across each 

of the 16 possible ordered pairs of those four colors — that is, (red, blue), (blue, 

yellow), and so on.» 

Estrellita (or «Little Star») was especially arranged for the Toy Piano World Summit 

at the rainy days 2012 festival at Philharmonie Luxembourg as a Homenaje a 

John Cage (1912–1992) in celebration of the 100 th anniversary of his birth. In the 

tradition of American composer, pianist and theorist Henry Cowell (1897–1965) 

and his monumental publication of New Musical Resources (1930), the work 

explores a variety of compositional techniques developed during the twentieth 

century by American experimentalist composer Conlon Nancarrow (1912–1997) 

and documented by Kyle Gann in The Music of Conlon Nancarrow (1995). The 

C Major scale is adopted as the basic pitch material, while the simple five-limit 

frequencies ratios associated with the C Major triad form the basis for rhythmic 

development: fundamental or unison (the frequency ratio 1/1), just major third 

or 5 th harmonic (5/4, or 386.314 cents), and just perfect fifth or 3 rd harmonic 

(3/2, or 701.955 cents). 

The melodic elements of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star – the English language 

nursery rhyme of nineteenth-century English origin, often sung to the tune 

of the French melody Ah! vous dirai‑je, Maman (1761), a melody employed in 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s twelve variations for piano KV 265 (1778), as well 

as Baa, Baa, Black Sheep and the Alphabet Song – also feature in the work, which 

are incorporated via a compositional process structured around tempo canons 

(or diminution canons, expressed as polyrhythmic ratios: 4/5/6) and a rhythmic 

sequence based on a De Bruijn cycle (0000, 1001, 1010, 1111). 

On September 5, 2012, Estrellita has been recognized as the Winner of the 

John Cage Centennial Wolf Museum of Music and Art International Toy Piano 

Composition Competition for Two Toy Pianos (Lancaster, PA, USA). The judges 

of the competition were John Sherlock (Toronto, Canada) and Christian Wolff 

(Hanover, New Hampshire, USA). (Andrián Pertout) 

1


18:30 

Gerhard E. Winkler: Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Nightmare 

Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Nightmare was composed by extracting a MIDI-cell 

out of the original version for four-hand piano of Mendelssohn’s Overture to 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This cell was then projected into a dynamic polydimensional 

space according to Rene Thoms «Cusp» simulation (as part of his 

Catastrophe-Theory), thus generating the score of my piece. 

As the projection of the MIDI-cell works in a non-linear way, there are lots of 

subtle distortions of the original model. The strange mechanical sounds which 

come along by transferring the generally string-attached figurations into the piano- 

‹percussion› world by Mendelssohn himself is re-enforced by the transformation 

into the sound-world of the toy piano, which also mimicks the ‹elfish› 

connotations of the original music. 

The structural anamorphic transformations by projecting the MIDI-cell 

perceptionally create a nightmarish feeling, where one tries to find solid ground 

under the feet but the basics are always in a flowing motion pushing one to 

stagger around in a rather helpless way. Maybe Mendelssohn himself felt some- 

times nightmared by the success of this special work covering other outputs of his 

production. Other and real nightmares came later… (still alive?) (Gerhard E. Winkler) 

Maria Kallionpää: Toccata 

I have composed the Toccata for two toy pianos and one performer as a study 

of the sonic quality of the toy piano and as an experiment of writing a virtuoso 

piece for an instrument that is still sometimes regarded as something less serious 

than a regular piano. In this work there are two opposite aesthetical poles: there 

is a ‹toy› instrument, somewhat innocent in its sound; at the same time the music 

is utterly dark and dramatic, circling in its own never ending spheres. One can 

perhaps see certain technical and aesthetical relations between the Toccata and my 

wind quintet Circular Thoughts which was constructed on an idea of never ending 

patterns that are derived from each other but almost never quite the same. 

In the Toccata there is almost all the time a constant rhythmical, repetitive pattern 

on the second toy piano; the part of the first toy piano is more free, sometimes 

just commenting the music with short fragments, sometimes joining to the fast 

rhythms of the second toy piano. (Maria Kallionpää) 



Pascal Meyer, Xenia Pestova toy piano, piano 

Jorrit Dijkstra: Native (1992/2012, version for 2 toy pianos, 


Yu Oda: Behind the Scene for piano and toy piano 


Monica Pearce: Chess suite* (2011) – 9’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Jorrit Dijkstra: Native 

Native was written about twenty years ago, and was recorded and played many 

times with my jazz trio in those days. Native is inspired by the music of the 

Pygmy children in West Africa: beautiful polyphonic vocal lines, over clapping 

rhythms. The Pygmies’ music has the unique character of being incredibly 

complex, while sounding very down to earth and simple. Native has one element 

that makes it un-African: it’s in 5/4 time. This arrangement for two toy pianos 

takes the basic song and groove as a starting point, to feature solo sections for 

each piano in a call and response form. (Jorrit Dijkstra) 

127

128 


19:31’57.9864” 

Yu Oda: Behind the Scene 

The piece Behind the Scene is constructed foreshadowing a lute song from the late 

16 th century by John Dowland, «Flow My Tears». Use of the harmony and the 

flowing romantic melody of the song functions as a backbone during the writing 

process, which allows the composer to deconstruct the materials and to feature the 

differences of the piano and the toy piano. While these technical aspects might 

appeal the most to the audience, what is most important for the composer is to 

reflect his loyalty and passion for the instruments and the original song in the 

result… This is a love song! (Yu Oda) 

Monica Pearce: Chess Suite 

Chess Suite for two toy pianos is a series of musical representations of chess pieces – 

the ostentatious knight, the timid pawn, the mysterious bishop, the elegant queen, 

the stately rook, and the steadfast king. I was inspired by the way the different 

pieces move in constructing the musical material. For instance, the pawn can only 

move a step at a time and the music reflects that. I was also interested in pitting 

two players against each other in (mock) competition in an analogy to a chess 

match. Though I toyed with this idea for several years, I could never find the 

appropriate instrumentation until I became enchanted by the microtonal sound 

of two toy pianos. In using two toy pianos, I was aiming to capture the lightness 

and gravity of play that exists in the game of chess, a game that has many conno- 

tations: 

«The Geschick of being: a child that plays… Why does it play… It plays, because 

it plays. The ‹because› withers away in the play. The play is without ‹why›… it 

simply remains a play: the most elevated and the most profound. But this ‹simply› 

is everything, the one, the only… the question remains whether and how we, 

hearing the movements of this play, play along and accommodate ourselves to 

the play.» (Martin Heidegger: The Principle of Reason) (Monica Pearce) 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII TOY PIANO WORKSHOP CONCERT 


Étudiants du Conservatoire de la Ville de Luxembourg piano, toy piano 

Bernd Wiesemann piano, toy piano, direction 

John Cage: Winter Music for 1–20 pianos (1957, version pour pianos 

et toy pianos) – 20’ 

En coopération avec le Conservatoire de la Ville de Luxembourg 

.......................................................................................................................... 

This score consists of 20 unnumbered pages plus title page with performance 

instructions. These 20 pages may be used in whole or in part by between 1 and 

20 pianists. The performer(s) make(s) a program of a determined time length and 

then translates this to the page(s) to be played (with space equating to time). Each 

page of the score contains 5 systems, notated on 5 bars. Some pages contain very 

few events, while others are brimming. Most events are aggregates of notes to be 

played as a single ictus. Dynamics, resonances, overlappings, and interpenetrations 

are free. Cage’s composing means involved both chance operations and use of the 

imperfections found in the paper upon which the music was written. This work 

may be performed with Atlas Eclipticalis or Song Books. (www.johncage.org)


20:00 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII TOY PIANO WORKSHOP CONCERT (7–100) 


Étudiants du Conservatoire de la Ville de Luxembourg toy piano 

Pascal Meyer toy piano, direction 

Guy Klucevsek: A Chant for Industrious Angels* (2010/2011–2012) – 2’ 

Alcides Lanza: aCage [2012‑I] for multiple toy pianos* 


Mauro Agliate: I saw Cage out of the cage! Little suite for 10 toy pianos* 


Lonely? 

C.A.G.E. Fugue… 

…‑to the beach 

Together! 

John Cage: Music for Amplified Toy Pianos (1960) – 5’ 


.......................................................................................................................... 

Guy Klucevsek: A Chant for Industrious Angels 

The music for Suite from «Industrious Angels» was commissioned by writer/actor/ 

puppeteer, Laurie McCants, for her one-woman show, «Industrious Angels,» 

which was premiered in July of 2011. Laurie McCants’s script was inspired by, 

among other things, the life and work of the 19 th century American poet, Emily 

Dickinson. The complete 30-minute theatre score consists of cues for piano/ 

toy piano, violin and accordion. From that, I extracted four pieces, and created 

concert versions for solo toy piano. The four pieces may either be performed 

together as a suite, in the sequence 

1. A Chant for Industrious Angels 

2. The Little Note that Others Missed 

3. A Little Madness in the Spring 

4. The Landscape Listens 

…or they may be played independently, as stand-alone pieces. 

A Chant for Industrious Angels may be played on two toy pianos in unison, by one 

player; it may also be played by a choir of toy pianos (any number), in unison, à 

la Gregorian Chant or a church congregation; if using more than four players, a 

conductor may be necessary. It may also be played as a solo on grand piano, with 

the sostenuto pedal down throughout most of the piece, à la John Cage’s Dream, 

letting the harmony arise from the overlapping of melodic notes. 

The concert versions of A Chant for Industrious Angels, A Little Madness in the 

Spring, and The Landscape Listens were premiered by Isabel Ettenauer in 2010, at 

the Festspielhaus Sankt Pölten, Austria. (Guy Klucevsek) 

Alcides Lanza: aCage 

I have been very fortunate that I got to know John Cage – late 1960s, in Buenos 

Aires. I had moved to New York City in 1965, so our friendship developed there 

as well. I also coordinated one issue of Revista de Letras, issue dedicated to John 

Cage, a publication of the Universidad de Mayaguez in Puerto Rico. Due to 

that I treasure a wonderful experience: Cage accepted to do an interview, at his 

apartment in NYC, for the above publication. I recorded it and it was included in 

the magazine. However, during the interview – extended meeting, 4 or 5 hours – 

Cage cooked mushrooms and we ate them accompanied by some Italian wine. 

aCage [2012‑1] is a composition for multiple toy pianos. it is also possible for 

other suitable instruments to be used, providing the toy pianos will have more 

presence within the ensemble. concerning aCage, an important aspect of the 

composition is the random control of dynamics, textures and densities as a 

129

130 

consequence of the multiplicity of instruments with individual players playing 

notes or silences. except for the initial and final cueing numbered 1 [to initiate 

performance], 2 [common to all, a silent bar to coordinate the final section], 3 [to 

initiate upper part of ‹exclamation point›], 4 [for the final dot, last fragment to be 

performed], and 5, sudden end of the piece], no other attempt at coordinating the 

different parts should be made. it is expected that the score itself allows enough 

‹coincidences› of textures, loudness, tonal moments, noises, etc., to achieve a 

proper realization of the composer’s ideas. one of the players should be selected 

to indicate these cues. 

All fragments are inscribed within the large letters C–A–G–E and the final exclama- 

tion point. the drawing of the letters comprising Cages’s name was of importance 

during the compositional stages and – if projected from a digitized slide during 

performance – may have visual value for the audience. 

as an hommage to Cage, the score indicates to ‹close piano lid.› this is a reference 

to the Cage pieces for voice and closed piano and its percussive effects. since there 

may be a variety of different toy pianos used during a performance, some having 

no keyboard lid on the instrument, the exact instruction may apply or not. the 

performers nevertheless should select 4 areas on the plastic or wooden part of the 

instrument, to obtain the required percussive effects using their hands. 

As Cage himself has declared, «…using procedures of which the result is unfore- 

seeable in the moment of its application» (about Aria, in the liner notes of the 

Wergo CD). (Alcides Lanza) 

Mauro Agliate: I saw Cage out of the cage! 

The work is intended for an ensemble composed of non-professional players with 

a limited amount of practice. The most challenging part is assigned to the toy 

piano 5, either for the difficulty of the performance and because the musician 

has to perform the incipits of each movement and then to propose to the whole 

ensemble metronomic correct tempos. For this reason, the execution doesn’t need, 

however, a director. 

The four movements have to be played in sequence, with no interruptions between 

one movement and the other. The first movement provides for the presence of 

an executor associated with the toy piano 5. Gradually, with the advance of the 

work, the musicians take place, as shown below. Naturally, the players have to sit 

down to their stations silently, taking into account the time required to reach the 

instruments and take positions, so as to be ready to perform theirs parts at the 

appropriate time. (Mauro Agliate) 

John Cage: Music for Amplified Toy Pianos 

This is a composition indeterminate of its performance. The material consists of 

7 sheets of transparent plastic, 2 sheets with points (referring to the keys of rods 

of the piano[s]), 2 with circles (piano amplification), 2 with points within circles 

(noise), and 1 with a graph and a straight line. The transparencies are super- 

imposed to create a single reading, and any number of readings may be made. 

In any performance, the toy piano(s) is (are) amplified via contact microphones. 

Loudspeakers are distributed around the performance space. (www.johncage.org)


20:30 & 20:45 




John Cage: Some of the Harmony of Maine for organist and assistants 

(1985, extraits / Auszüge) – 10’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Some of the Harmony of Maine is based on the tune book The Harmony of Maine, 

published in Boston in 1794 by the American composer and singer Supply 

Belcher (1751–1836). He was one of the most prominent (mostly self-taught) 

composers of the so-called First New England School and wrote mostly sacred 

vocal music for local choirs. Using chance operations, JohnCage determined 

whether a note from the original source should stay or be removed, how long it 

should sound, and how it should be registered. A complete performance of all 

13 parts take about 45 minutes. 



Phyllis Chen, Isabel Ettenauer, Pascal Meyer, Xenia Pestova, 

Margaret Leng Tan, Bernd Wiesemann toy piano 

Andreas Weixler: Idem. Minimal music for four toy pianos* 


Peter Moran: Beageens for 4 toy pianos (Hommage à Kurtág)* (2010/2011) – 3’ 

I. Largo 

II. Largo 

III. Andante 

IV. Largo. Seul, pendant un instant (Alone, but for an instant) 

V. Andante. Ouvrez la tête (Open the mind) 

Chad Martin: Andante Balinese for three toy pianos* (2010) – 5’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Andreas Weixler: Idem 

The piece is part of a series of minimal music for changing instrumentation since 

1990, performed by Klangforum Wien, Züricher Ensemble für Neue Musik and 

released on CD by Dama Dama. Idem consists of fractions of two whole tone series, 

which are shifted by a half tone. Each instrument is just repeating a few notes 

and the notes are traveling from one instrumental group to the other. The border 

between melody and accompaniment lies in the ear of the listener. (Andreas Weixler) 

Peter Moran: Beageens 

These tiny pieces were written with children and amateur musicians in mind. The 

premiere performances were given earlier this year by the 7-year-old students of 

the Conservatoire Frédéric Chopin in Paris. The pieces are intended to suit any 

ensemble of instruments, although the delicate quality of the music makes them 

especially well-suited to performances on toy pianos. They have been especially 

revised and arranged for the Toy Piano World Summit. (Peter Moran) 

Chad Martin: Andante Balinese 

Andante Balinese was originally conceived as a solo toy piano work for the JunctQin 

ensemble. The sound of the toy piano seemed very conducive to creating a sound- 

scape inspired by Balinese Gamelan, which I had experienced in a workshop at the 

Indonesian Consulate in Toronto. However, the dynamic limitations of the toy 

piano reminded me of the harpsichord. To remedy this, I borrowed the baroque 

technique of increasing volume by adding more instruments. However, I restricted 

myself to only toy pianos as I was intrigued by the challenge of working within the 

very small scale of the instrument. Similarly, I limited the tonal material to a five- 

note scale used in Gamelan music, which challenged me to experiment with 

rhythm, juxtaposing non-traditional time signatures for increased musical interest 

and complexity. (Chad Martin) 

131

132 


21:00 & 21:15 



Phyllis Chen, Isabel Ettenauer, Pascal Meyer, Xenia Pestova, 

Margaret Leng Tan, Bernd Wiesemann piano, toy piano 

Se-Lien Chuang, Andreas Weixler: Catch the Beatles, catch the Cage 

for 6 toy pianos, 6 i-conductors and video projection 

(2012, création / Uraufführung) – 4–6’ 

John Cage: The Beatles 1962–1970 for six pianos (1989/1990) – 8’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

This piece avails itself of floats of melodies of the Beatles. The chances of playing 

the melodic fragments are directed in real time by the hexagram of the I Ching, 

designed through digital media. (The I Ching determines which of the players will 

perform, each player of the six toy pianos is represented by an I Ching line of the 

character chosen by an algorithmic random process.) Each of the selected melodies 

possesses an innate mode. In the convergence of the different modes there are 

coalescence and fusioned clustering, which will be reinforced by the peculiar 

crystal/metallic harmonic structures of the toy pianos and lead to a reciprocal, 

imaginary sounding landscape, which, in a reflected way, allegorized the shining 

water walk of the Attersee, Austria. The initials of the selected pieces are devoted 

to JOHN CAGE. The concept and the video editing are designed by Se-Lien 

Chuang. The I Ching associated system is programmed by Andreas Weixler in 

Max/MSP/Jitter. (Se-Lien Chuang, Andreas Weixler) 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII PERFORMANCE CONCERT INSTALLATION 



John Cage: Organ 2 / ASLSP for solo organ (1987) – 40’ 



George Brecht: Drip Music (1959) 

.......................................................................................................................... 

John Cage: Organ 2 / ASLSP 

This composition consists, like ASLSP for solo piano (1985), of 8 pieces. Unlike 

ASLSP, however, all pieces here should be played. Any of the 8 pieces may be 

repeated, and these repetitions may be played subsequent to any of the other pieces. 

The published score consists of a title page, brief instructions, and 4 leaves with 

music. The title stands for «As Slow(ly) and Soft(ly) as Possible», and also refers to 

«Soft morning city. Lsp!» from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. (www.johncage.org) 

Wie langsam ist «so langsam wie möglich»? Die Tempovorschrift «As SLow 

aS Possible» von John Cages Orgelstück Organ 2 / ASLSP stellt diese Frage. 

Ausgehend von einem Orgelsymposium in Trossingen 1997 führt die Frage 

der Realisierung des Werkes zu dem Ergebnis, dass man «As SLow aS Possible» 

potentiell unendlich denken und spielen kann – zumindest so lange, wie die 

Lebensdauer einer Orgel ist und so lange, wie es Frieden und Kreativität in 

künftigen Generationen gibt. Aus dieser spieltechnischen und ästhetischen Frage 

entwickelte sich im Laufe der Zeit ein Projekt, das inzwischen weltweites Aufsehen 

erregt hat. In der historischen Burchardikirche in Halberstadt (Deutschland) 

wird eine Orgel gebaut, die ausschließlich der Aufführung von Organ 2 / ASLSP 

gewidmet ist. Der 89. Geburtstag von John Cage am 05.09.2001 markierte den 

Beginn der Aufführung; als erster Klang wurde der Wind aus dem Blasebalg 

hörbar. Beim ersten Klangwechsel am 5. Februar 2003 begannen die ersten 

drei Pfeifentöne zu klingen. Der 13. und bislang letzte Klangwechsel war am 

05.07.2012, der nächste ist für 05.10.2013 geplant. Das Finale der Aufführung ist 

für das Jahr 2640 vorgesehen. (www.aslsp.org)

Salle de Musique de Chambre 

16:04’57.9861” & 16:15 


16:04’57.9861” Salle de Musique de Chambre 

«Cage’s Friends & Enemies I» 


Åsa Åkerberg violoncelle 

Klaus Steffes-Holländer piano 

Ludwig van Beethoven: Bagatellen op. 126 N° 3 & N° 4 für Klavier (1824) – 7’ 

Erik Satie: Désespoir agréable pour piano (1908) – 1’ 

Anton Webern: Drei kleine Stücke op. 11 für Violoncello und Klavier (1914) – 2’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

«I used to go [to an Anton Webern concert, in the late 1940s] with my hair on 

end and sit on the edge of my seat. It was so completely different from anything 

I’d ever heard. Of course he cannot compare to Schoenberg. Schoenberg is so 

clearly magnificent. Boulez is responsible for the shift to Webern, and I think I 

understand why. Schoenberg s music is traditional. It continues the past magnifi- 

cently. Whereas Webern seems to break with the past. He gives one the feeling he 

could break with the past. For he shook the foundation of sound as discourse in 

favor of sound as sound itself. But in Schoenberg the supremacy of pitch relations 

remains. And so he was really tied to an earlier time. In Satie [by contrast], the 

structures have to do with time, not pitch. Virgil Thomson introduced me to Satie 

just at the time I first heard Webern. I connected the two composers in my mind.» 

John Cage (1976, in an interview with Joan Peyser.– Richard Kostelanetz: Conversing with Cage. – 

New York: Routledge, 2003. – p. 46) 

(For Cage’s view on Beethoven, Satie’s Choses vues à droite et à gauche, and Webern’s 

op. 11, cf. John Cage: «Defense of Satie», p. 29–33 in this catalogue.) 


16:15 Salle de Musique de Chambre 

«Cage’s Friends & Enemies II» 


Melise Mellinger violon 

Barbara Maurer alto 



Ludwig van Beethoven: Duo für Viola und Violoncello Es‑Dur WoO 32 

(«Duett mit zwei obligaten Augengläsern») für Viola und Violoncello 

(~1795–1798) – 10’ 

Allegro 

Minuetto: Allegretto – Trio 

Erik Satie: Choses vues à droite et à gauche (sans lunettes) 

pour violon et piano (1914) – 6’ 

N° 1: Choral hypocrite 

N° 2: Fugue à tâtons 

N° 3: Fantaisie musculaire 

.......................................................................................................................... 

«I gave one long lecture, in which I denounced Beethoven, the peak of German 

music. And that was necessary to do, from Satie’s point of view, because 

Satie himself spoke against Beethoven. So I pointed out to the Germans that 

Beethoven’s music was a mistake fundamentally, and that Satie’s music was 

correct. The reason is that Beethoven’s music is based on a marriage of form 

and content, involving beginnings, ends and middles, and all kinds of ideas and 

expressions of individual feeling that have nothing whatsoever to do with sounds, 

whereas Satie’s music is essentially based upon an empty space of time, in which 

one thing or another could happen. There is no other way to explain some of 

the pieces he wrote around 1912, which simply don’t do any of the things that 

133

134 


16:33’59½” 

German music told everyone that music should do. From Satie’s point of view, all 

that he was doing was getting rid of sauerkraut.» 

John Cage (1973, in an interview with Robert Cordier.– Richard Kostelanetz: Conversing with Cage. – 


(For the mentioned ‹long lecture› concerning Cage’s view on Beethoven, Satie’s 

Choses vue à droite et à gauche, and Webern’s op. 11, cf. John Cage: «Defense of Satie», 

p. 29–33 in this catalogue.) 


16:33’59½” Salle de Musique de Chambre 

«Cage’s Friends & Enemies III» 



Martin Fahlenbock flûte 

Jaime González hautbois 

Shizuyo Oka clarinette 

Christian Wolff: Cello Song Variations («Hallelujah I’m a Bum») (1980) – ~10’ 

Morton Feldman: Projection 1 for cello solo (1950) – 3’ 

James Tenney: Trio for flute, oboe and clarinet (1957) – ~6’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Mystery has surrounded the personality of Morton Feldman, whose importance is 

close to that of Cage in American new music. Now [1966] in his early forties, he 

is known for a large number of very quiet compositions where the music quivers 

delicately on the borderline between sound and silence, and for some original 

types of notation which operate between the player and the notes he plays. Feldman 

was born in New York, where he has spent most of his life, and as a child was 

taught to play the piano by Madame Maurina-Press who had known Scriabin and 

Busoni and who introduced him to their work. Later Feldman studied with Walling- 

ford Riegger and Stefan Wolpe, both 12-tone composers although the former was 

more permissive than the latter, with whom Feldman came into sharp conflict. 

He never found any real agreement with his aims until he met Cage in 1950. 

Ironically, both composers were leaving a New York Philharmonic concert after 

hearing Webern’s Symphony op. 21. The work had not been well received, which 

dismayed them, and they naturally wanted to leave the hall before the next item 

on the programme, which was by Rachmaninov. From this time onwards Cage 

and Feldman met almost daily and their circle soon included David Tudor, the 

outstanding pianist for new music of various persuasions, Christian Wolff and 

Earle Brown. In this atmosphere composers and painters lived at the frontiers of 

a new world. Feldman developed his graph notation and Cage was introduced to 

the ancient Chinese Book of Changes and its charts for obtaining oracles which he 

used in composing. (Peter Dickinson,1966, «Feldman explains himself», Music and Musicians) 

On a spring evening in 1951, a budding 16-year-old pianist with an interest in 

engineering went to hear John Cage play one of his most famous pieces, the 

Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano, at the Women’s Club Auditorium in 

Denver. «The concert blew me away,» James Tenney says, seated at a prepared 

piano in his studio at CalArts, as he demonstrates the exquisite clinks, plinks and 

thuds that Cage produced by wedging bolts or bits of rubber or plastic between 

the strings of the piano. In fact, that concert helped propel Tenney, one of 

America’s most important experimental composers, into a career that has included 

pioneering work in computer music and collaborations with Cage. Tenney is also 

a formidable pianist. (Mark Swed: «A Piano Piece’s Nuts and Bolts», 2002)


17:00 & 17:30 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII WORKSHOP CONCERT (7–100) 


«A Dip in the Lake» 

Les Lions Bleus Bonnevoie (Scouten a Guiden vun der FNEL) 

Anne Kaiffer présentation (L) 

John Cage: A Dip in the Lake. Ten Quicksteps, Sixty‑One Waltzes and 

Fifty‑Six Marches for Chicago and Vicinity for performer(s), or listener(s), 

or record maker(s) (1978) – ~15’ 

Coopération avec Les Lions Bleus Bonnevoie 

.......................................................................................................................... 

A Dip in the Lake konzipierte John Cage für Chicago und Umgebung, die Partitur 

enthält jedoch eine Anleitung zur Übertragung auf andere Städte: 427 Adressen sind 

per Zufall festzulegen und anschließend ebenso zufällig in 10 Gruppen von je 2, 

61 Gruppen von 3 und 56 Gruppen von 4 Adressen zu ordnen. Das entspricht 

10 Quicksteps im 2/4-Takt, 61 Walzern im 3/4-Takt und 56 Märschen im 4/4-Takt. 

An jedem der 427 Orte sollen jeweils die dort angetroffenen Klänge angehört oder 

aufgenommen werden, man kann aber wahlweise dort auch etwas aufführen. 

Ähnlich wie bei dem ein Jahr vorher entstandenen New-York-Stück Forty‑Nine 

Waltzes for the Five Boroughs lässt sich auf Basis von A Dip in the Lake also eine Art 

Stadtplan oder Wanderkarte herstellen, die einen präzise gebauten Handlungs- 

rahmen mit dem kompletten Zufall verbindet. (Der Titel des Stücks deutet an, dass 

in Chicago einige der zufällig bestimmten Punkte in den Michigan-See fielen.) 

Die Luxemburger Pfadfindergruppe Les Lions Bleus Bonnevoie hat für das Festival 

rainy days 2012 – mit Hilfe von Stadtplänen, Dartpfeilen, Wanderschuhen, MP3- 

Rekordern u.v.a. – quer durch alle Altersgruppen im November 2012 eine Version 

von A Dip in the Lake für die und in der Stadt Luxemburg realisiert. (Bernhard Günther) 



«Through the Silence» 

A John Cage birthday homage II 

Margaret Leng Tan toy piano 

John Cage: 

Suite for Toy Piano (1948) – 8’ 

4’33” (1952) 

Extended Lullaby (1992–1994, version for multiple toy pianos, 

arr. Margaret Leng Tan) – 6’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

John Cage: Suite for Toy Piano 

Written for Merce Cunningham’s dance, Diversion, the Suite for Toy Piano is 

the first-ever serious composition created for the toy instrument. Its five short 

movements use only nine consecutive white notes and can ostensibly be 

performed on any toy piano, perhaps even one with painted black keys. One of 

the most charming and whimsical of Cage’s compositions, the Suite is filled with 

Cagean irony and humor as in the exaggerated dynamic extremes from sffz to ppp. 

As if a toy piano could have such capabilities! Nevertheless, the pianist tries his 

best and from the effort subtle differences do emerge. (Margaret Leng Tan) 

John Cage: 4’33” 

«There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always 

something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we 

cannot. Sounds occur whether intended or not.» 

«Life goes on very well without me, and that will explain to you my silent piece, 

4’33” … One need not fear for the future of music.» (John Cage: Silence) 

135

Margaret Leng Tan 

and John Cage 

(photo: George Hirose) 

136 


18:00 

John Cage: Extended Lullaby 

One of Cage’s last works, Extended Lullaby (1992), was executed posthumously 

in 1994 as a musical sculpture of acrylic, spruce brass, and twelve 36-note Reuge 

music box mechanisms mounted adjacent to each other. The encircling acrylic 

tunnel serves as a modest resonating chamber. The dimensions of the piece are 

17.8 x 182.9 x 12.7 cm. Extended Lullaby was produced in an edition of ten, one 

of which, belonging to the John Cage Trust, will be on exhibit at the Musée d’art 

contemporain de Lyon in a show entirely dedicated to works by John Cage that 

engage with the French composer, Erik Satie (September 28–December 30, 2012). 

The melody heard on the music boxes is a re-working of the cantus firmus and 

counterpoint of Erik Satie’s Vexations. Hence its chromatic, modal nature. 

Activated at random intervals the twelve unsynchronized music boxes, playing 

at different speeds, make for a delightful chaos that dissipates as the mechanisms 

peter out. 

I have made a performance version of Extended Lullaby wherein I play one toy 

piano live against eleven pre-recorded tracks. I chose a toy piano closest in timbral 

quality to a music box… sweetly beguiling, yet faintly disquieting at the same time. 

(Margaret Leng Tan) 



«Das Jahr des fließenden Nichts» 

1962 – Fluxus & 0’00” 









Karlheinz Essl, Stefan Fricke, Bernhard Günther, Bernhard Lang, Gerhard 

Stäbler, Kunsu Shim, Olivier Sliepen, Guy Frisch performance 

Takehisa Kosugi: Distance for piano (to David Tudor) (1965) – 3’ 

Dick Higgins: Solo für Blasinstrumente (1963) – 3’ 

George Brecht: Solo for violin, viola, cello or contrabass (1962) – 3’ 

John Cage: 0’00” (4’33” N° 2). Solo to be performed in any way by anyone 

(1962) – 20’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

FLUXUS EST: 

UNE ATTITUDE ENVERS L’ART 

POUR L’IMPORTANCE DE LA NON IMPORTANCE 

LES DÉTAILS DE LA VIE 

LE SEUL MOUVEMENT ARTISTIQUE CAPABLE DE MANGER SA QUEUE 

PLUS IMPORTANT QUE CE QUE VOUS CROYEZ 

MOINS IMPORTANT QUE CE QUE VOUS CROYEZ 

DE RATER UN SPECTACLE 

DE LIRE LE JOURNAL D’UN AUTRE À TRAVERS UN TROU FAIT DANS LE SIEN 

DE S’ENDORMIR ET RONFLER LORS D’UN CONCERT DE STOCKHAUSEN 

DE JETER 20 LITRES D’HUILE SUR LA SCENE DE «GISÈLE» 

VOSTELL LORSQU’IL EXPLIQUE L’HISTOIRE DE L’ART 

GEORGE BRECHT QUAND IL ÉVITE L’HISTOIRE DE L’ART 

LE TOUT POSSIBLE 

L’ART-D’ATTITUDE 

L’ANTI-ART 

VICE-ART

LE MAIL-ART 

LES CONCERTS 

LE NON-ART 

L’ACTION-MUSIQUE 

L’IDEE 

LE GAG 

L’EVENT 

LA THEORIE 

Ben Vautier 

I would say that the ‹art of performance› began with Fluxus – a theater without 

text but which could include text or other elements as well. There is a deep 

relation between Fluxus and Antonin Artaud. Isn’t there? Not enough has been 

said about this. 

John Cage (1982, in an interview with Serge Daney and Jean-Paul Fargier. – Richard Kostelanetz: 

Conversing with Cage. – New York: Routledge, 2003. – p. 105) 

Fluxus is not a moment in history, or an art movement. 

Fluxus is a way of doing things, a tradition, and a way of life and death. (Dick Higgins) 

Whether you think that concert halls, theaters, and art galleries are the natural 

places to present music, performances, and objects, or find these places mummi- 

fying, preferring streets, homes, and railway stations, or do not find it useful to 

distinguish between these two aspects of the world theater, there is someone 

associated with Fluxus who agrees with you. Artist, anti-artists, non-artists, anartists, 

the politically committed and the apolitical, poets of non-poetry, non-dancers 

dancing, doers, undoers, and non-doers, Fluxus encompasses opposites. Consider 

opposing it, supporting it, ignoring it, changing your mind. (George Brecht) 

In der Vergangenheit haben die meisten Leute gemeint, nicht zu wissen, was Fluxus 

ist. Sie täuschten sich. Nun beginnen schon einige Leute zu sagen, sie wissen ganz 

genau, was Fluxus ist. Die täuschen sich natürlich genauso. Jedenfalls wird es bald 

dreizehn Leute auf der ganzen Welt geben, die als echte Fluxusspezialisten gelten. 

Gott steh’ uns bei, wenn die’s dann herauskriegen. (Ben Patterson) 

Sicher, die Fluxusgruppe setzt sich aus sehr verschiedenen Individuen zusammen, 

sowohl was die Personen als auch ihre Arbeit betrifft, doch die menschliche 

Annäherung aller ist gefühlsmäßig dieselbe, nämlich hart zu kämpfen gegen 

die immense Einfalt, Traurigkeit und den Mangel an Einsicht für das, was unser 

Leben angeht, eine Welt zu begründen, in welcher die Spontaneität, die Freude, 

der Humor, und – warum nicht! – eine neue Art von höherer Weisheit (viele von 

uns sind durch den buddhistischen Zen beeindruckt worden), eine wahrhaftige 

Gerechtigkeit, wahrhaftiges soziales Wohlbefinden (die Mehrheit von uns steht 

politisch links) ebenso selbstverständlich werden, wie das Grün der Augen meiner 

Frau für mich ist. (George Brecht) 

Fluxus hat überhaupt keinen Sinn. (Eric Andersen) 

John Cage: 0’00” 

Just briefly, 0’00”, which is about two years old now [1965], is nothing but the 

continuation of one’s daily work, whatever it is, providing it’s not selfish, but is 

the fulfillment of an obligation to other people, done with contact microphones, 

without any notion of concert or theater or the public, but simply continuing 

one’s daily work, now coming out through loudspeakers. What the piece tries to 

say is that everything we do is music, or can become music through the use of 

microphones; so that everything I’m doing, apart from what I’m saying, produces 

sound. When the sounds are very quiet, they become loud through the use of 

microphones. And I may not do again in performance what I did once before. 

John Cage (1965, in an interview with Lars Gunnar Bodin and Bengt Emil Johnson. – Richard Kostelanetz: 

Conversing with Cage. – New York: Routledge, 2003. – p. 69) 

137

138 


18:30 & 18:45 



«Das Publikum komponiert II» 


Olivier Sliepen saxophone 


Gerhard Stäbler: JC/NY für 3, 4, 5 oder 7 Spieler (1992) – 7´ 

Kunsu Shim: Pièce Japonaise mit Publikum (2008) – 5’ 

Kunsu Shim: g’espresso. Extrakt aus Kompostionen Gerhard Stäblers 

für Tonband (2006) – 1´ 


Gerhard Stäbler: EarPlugs für Publikum (1999) 

(voir /siehe Salle de Musique de Chambre 18:45) 



«Das Publikum komponiert III» 




Kunsu Shim: participation. Eine kollektive Komposition mit dem Publikum 

(2009/2012, création / Uraufführung) – 10’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

My old Monotone Symphony of 1949, which was performed under my direction, by a 

small orchestra on March 9, 1960, was destined to create an «after‑silence» after all sounds 

had ended in each of us who were present at that manifestation. 

Silence… This is really my symphony and not the sounds during its performance. This 

silence is so marvelous because it grants «happenstance» and even sometimes the possibility of 

true happiness, if only for only a moment, for a moment whose duration is immeasurable. 

(Yves Klein: Truth Becomes Reality) 

Mit einer Pause beendet J.S. Bach in seiner um 1720 entstandenen Orgelfantasie 

g‑moll eine andauernde Modulation in entfernte Tonarten, um dann mit einem 

enharmonisch umgedeuteten Akkord fortzufahren und in die Grundtonart zurück 

zu torkeln… Eine Pause als eine kurze, aufgeladene Stille, eine Stille, die nur 

scheinbar still ist, weil sie das weitere – unmögliche? – Geschehen in den Kopf des 

Hörers verlagert. 

John Cage setzt ihr, der Stille?, in seiner vielzitierten dreisätzigen Komposition 

4’33” einen Rahmen: und nichts ist still! Denn absolute Stille, die nur in einem 

vollständig gedämmten Raum möglich wäre, bedeutete Tod. In dieser «Stille» gibt 

Cage das weitere «Zusammensetzen» von Klängen, das «Komponieren» (auch) an 

den Hörer weiter… Doch anders als bei Bachs musik-immanentem Vorgang kann 

man hier Dinge tatsächlich hören: sich selbst, die Mit-Hörenden, den Raum, das 

Draußen. Cages «Stille» gibt Raum zu hören… 

Kunsu Shim schenkt in participation ein weißes Blatt: Was ist zu tun? Eine oft 

langwierige Frage von Künstlern – Poeten, Malern, Komponisten – und nun 

auch des Publikums: Was notiere ich? Schreibe ich auf, was ich schon hörte? 

Formuliere, was an inneren Klängen in mir steckt? Setze ich Akzente? Zeichne 

Klangkonturen? Träume Klänge? – Doch wie schreibe ich meine Gedanken und 

Vorstellungen auf, um sie anderen, den Interpreten, verständlich zu machen? 

Mit Noten? Mit Zeichen? Mit Worten, Geschichten, Bildern? 

Überhaupt laden die Performances von Kunsu Shim und Gerhard Stäbler 

das Publikum ein, auf unterschiedliche Art Teil des Geschehens zu sein: Als


19:00 & 19:45 

«Komponist» wie in participation, als «Instrument» wie in EarPlugs, als «Interpret» 

wie z.B. in positive spaces oder Pièces Japonaise und natürlich als «Hörer» und 

«Zuschauer» mitten drin – in einer alltäglichen und dennoch künstlerischen 

Klangwelt. 

Hören / Sehen ist Erleben – als das Mögliche, bei sich zu sein und gleichzeitig bei 

anderen. (Gerhard Stäbler) 



«Songs of irrelevance and passion II» 

cantoLX 

Lilith Verhelst soprano 

Marivi Blasco soprano 

Jonathan Deceuster contreténor 

Peter de Laurentiis ténor 

Jean-Paul Majerus basse 

Frank Agsteribbe clavecin, direction 


«Voi partite mio sole». Aria 

«Non mi negate ohime». Aria a voce sola 

«Donna, siam rei di morte». Sonetto 


Solo for voice N° 30 (extraits / Auszüge) & Solo for voice N° 34 


«Se l’aura spira». Aria 

«Dopo si lungo error». Canto spirituale in stile recitativo 


Solo for voice N° 53: Aria N° 2B 


«Se m’amate io v’adoro». Madrigale a due voci 

20’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

(voir / siehe Grand Auditorium 16:00) 



«Revolution I» 

The New World Theatre Club 

Chris Wilson mise en scène 

Les Wilson light, sound, projection 

John Cage: Lecture on the weather (1975) 

For twelve speaker-vocalists (or instrumentalists), perferably American men 

who have become Canadian citizens, each using his own sound system, 

each sound system given an equalization distinguishing it from the others. 

Materials for an unconducted radio broadcast or theatrical performance: 

recordings of breeze, rain and thunder; film representing lightning by 

means of briefly projected negatives of drawings by Thoreau, and a preface. 

Recordings by Maryanne Amacher. Film by Luis Frangella. 

32’45” (=10’ + 5 x 4’33”) 

.......................................................................................................................... 

This work was composed in collaboration with Luis Frangella, who produced its 

film, and Maryanne Amacher, who produced its weather sounds on tape, which 

were mixed live in performance. The performance begins with a reading of Cage’s 

preface (in Cage’s own voice). In it, he expresses dismay with the institutions 

of American government. The work then commences with (originally) 12 men 

reading text fragments drawn from the writings by Henry David Thoreau; they 

139

140 


20:45 & 21:00 

may also play instruments (ad lib.), guided by graphic notation derived from 

snippets of drawings obtains from Thoreau’s Journals. In part 1, this is accompanied 

by sounds of breeze, in part 2 by sounds of rain. In the third and final part, the 

lights in the performance space have dimmed to their darkest point, and the 

performers are accompanied by both Frangella’s film and the sounds of thunder. 

The film consists of fragments of Thoreau’s drawings, printed in negative, the 

projection of which resemble lightning at night (or white on black). The performers 

agree ahead of time on a total duration of the work (between 5 to 8 periods of 

4’33” each). Every performer creates a unique program of starts and stops, covering 

the duration of the composition. The work was composed on a commission from 

the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in observance of the bicentennial of the 

United States of America. (www.johncage.org) 

In his preface to Lecture on the Weather John Cage says: «I have wanted in this work 

to give another opportunity for us, whether of one nation or another, to examine 

again ourselves both as individuals and as members of society…». What better 

aspiration could we have in mind when approaching our performance of this 

composition. (Chris Wilson) 



«Das Publikum hört sich zu I» 

Kunsu Shim, Gerhard Stäbler performance 



Kunsu Shim: Ex·Position (Nachtrufe) für eine beliebige Anzahl von Spielern 

(2012) 


happy for no reason für Ensemble (2000) 


ich bin wo ich sein möchte für einen Pianisten, zwei Performer und Publikum 

(2007) 

.......................................................................................................................... 

(voir /siehe Salle de Musique de Chambre 18:45) 



«Das Publikum hört sich zu II» 

Kunsu Shim, Gerhard Stäbler performance 



Gerhard Stäbler: …leaving the gold… für Stimme, Klavier und fünf CD-Player 

(2004) 


Kunsu Shim: soft speaker für einen Performer mit einem Mikrophon und 

Lautsprecher (2001) 


Gerhard Stäbler: hyacinth – liquid, scents für Schlagzeug (1997) 


Kunsu Shim: Flower Fist. KlangAktion für einen Performer (2009) 

.......................................................................................................................... 

(voir /siehe Salle de Musique de Chambre 18:45)


21:18’31.729” & 21:30 



«Zen II» 





Walter Zimmermann: Shadows of cold mountain N° 3 

für Flöte, Oboe und Klarinette (1997) – 11’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Morton Feldman bekam einst eine Zeichnung eines Malerfreundes geschenkt, zu 

einer Zeit als dessen Berühmtheit und Marktwert noch in den Anfängen steckte. 

Als dieser den Zenith seines Ruhms erreicht hatte, holte Feldman die Zeichnung 

wieder hervor, und siehe – die Striche auf dem Papier waren verloschen. 

Die drei Stücke Shadows of Cold Mountain (N° 1 von 1993 ist für 3 Tenorblock- 

flöten, N° 2 von 1995 für Violine, Klavier, Bandoneon und 2 analoge Sinusgenera- 

toren) basieren auf den kalligraphischen Bildern von Brice Marden. Das Stück 

N° 3 übersetzt die gestisch-kalligraphischen Liniengeflechte von Brice Marden 

in Klang. Was dort freiheitlicher Ausdruck einer losen, weiten und schweifenden 

Linienfolge ist, wird hier zum Grenzgang. Flöte, Oboe und Klarinette sind nicht 

für Grenzenloses gebaut, jede Freiheit kommt in Konflikt mit der Mechanik. 

Die schweifende Linie wird strengstes Abmühen. So weit können Malerei und 

Musik auseinander liegen. Jedoch trifft sich Farbwelt und Tonweit, jenseits dieser 

Anstrengung, in Mannigfaltigkeit der Verbindungen der sekundären Klangprozesse 

der Interferenztöne und Differenztöne. Die primäre Gestik des Malens wird hier 

erst in der sekundären Klangebene wahrnehmbar. (Walter Zimmermann) 



«Zen III» 







Karlheinz Stockhausen: Aus den Sieben Tagen oder Für kommende Zeiten 

(1968–1970) (Version für Violoncello, Oboe, Klarinette, Klavier, 

Schlagwerk) – 10’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Im Werkverzeichnis ist unter der Nummer 33 eingetragen: Für kommende Zeiten. 

Die 1976 in Stockhausens eigenem Verlag publizierte erste Ausgabe enthält 

17 Texte für intuitive Musik. Die Texte tragen musikalische Begriffe als Titel, 

wie Intervall oder Schwingung, sind aber auch überschrieben mit Namen von 

Ländern, deren Kultur sich Stockhausen verbunden fühlte, wie Japan oder Ceylon. 

Dazu findet sich noch frei Assoziatives wie Über die Grenze oder Zugvogel. Einen 

Einführungstext dazu soll es der Idee entsprechend nicht geben. (Sabine Franz) 

141

142 


21:43’08.1292” 



«Zen IV» 










Jo Kondo: Holzwege (2008) – 8’ 

La Monte Young: 337 (to Henry Flynt) (April 1960) – 8’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Jo Kondo: Holzwege 

Seit über drei Jahrzehnten interessiert mich lineare Musik. Während meine 

früheren Stücke durch eine einzelne Tonlinie bestimmt werden, ist die Linearität 

in meinen jüngeren Arbeiten weniger offensichtlich; dennoch handelt es sich um 

eine Erweiterung (oder Entwicklung) desselben Konzeptes. 

Als ich dieses Stück komponierte, las ich Martin Heideggers berühmtes Buch 

Holzwege (in der japanischen Übersetzung) – daher der Titel. Dies ist die einzige 

Verbindung zu dem Buch, es gibt keinerlei inhaltliche oder strukturelle Bezie- 

hungen. Holzwege ist einfach ein Name für dieses Stück abstrakter Musik. Aller- 

dings ist dies nicht das Ende der Geschichte: Ich habe die umgangssprachliche 

Bedeutung des Wortes erfahren, und das hat mir sehr gut gefallen, da mein 

Kompositionsstil und Denken außerhalb des Mainstreams der zeitgenössischen 

Musikszene stehen. Es freut mich, auf meinem eigenen Holzweg zu sein. Daher 

ist Holzwege der perfekte Titel. (Jo Kondo) 

La Monte Young: 0–1698 (April 1960) to Henry Flynt 

The title of each performance is determined by the number of bangs in that 

particular performance. […] The title should be printed on the program in Arabic 

numerals (not written out in words). The piece is dedicated to Henry Flynt & this 

should be indicated on the program as well as the date of composition (April 1960). 

(La Monte Young)

Espace Découverte 

16:30, 16:45, 17:00 & 17:15 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII PERFORMANCE CONCERT (7–100) 

16:30 Espace Découverte 

«Cages Enkel I» 

The Experimental Music Yearbook 

Lucia Mense flûtes à bec 

Seth Josel guitares 

Anton Lukoszevieze violoncelle 

Frank Gratkowski clarinettes, saxophones 

Hans W. Koch live electronics, objets, direction 

Hans W. Koch: e.t. (l.a.) for five people moving with their laptops (2010–2011) – 5’ 

Cat Lamb: line/shadow for open instrumentation (2011) – 8’ 



«Cages Enkel II» 


Michael Pisaro: Harmony Series. 34 pieces for a varying number of 

performers (2004–2005) 

N° 14: A single charm is doubtful [Gertrude Stein] 

for four sustaining instruments – 13’ 



«Cages Enkel III» 


Michael Winter: Small World (2009) – 7’ 

Scott Cazan: Outliers for any number of players and computer (2010) – 7’ 



«Cages Enkel IV» 


Tashi Wada: Nest for three players (2008) – 7’ 

Liam Mooney: 180° for triangles and dry ice (2011) – 7’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Cages Enkel – die Komponisten des Experimental Music Yearbook 

in Los Angeles 

Obwohl John Cage die längste Zeit seines Lebens in New York wohnte, sollte man 

nicht vergessen, dass er von Geburt ein «Angelino» war, ein Kind der Metropole 

an der Westküste, die vor allem mit Hollywood assoziiert wird und seltener mit 

experimenteller Musik. 

Und doch gibt es hier eine ganz eigene Szene junger Komponisten, die die Fahne 

der experimentellen Musik hochhalten, eine eigene Gruppe in der Millionen- 

metropole bilden und neben wechselnden Konzertorten sogar eine eigen Location 

betreiben, «the wulf». Trotz aller Verschiedenheit in ihrem künstlerischen Schaffen, 

haben sie eine gemeinsame Wurzel: das vor den Toren von Los Angeles in der 

Suburbia von Valencia gelegene California Institute of the Arts und dort insbe- 

sondere die zwei Kompositionslehrer James Tenney und Michael Pisaro, die dort 

unterrichteten bzw. unterrichten. Während Tenney (1934–2006) als einer der großen 

«Mavericks» der experimentellen Musik gilt, jenen unbeirrbaren Einzelgängern, 

die, mitten in ihrer Zeit stehend, doch zu keiner Schule gehören, zählt sich Pisaro 

(*1961) zum Kollektiv der Wandelweiser-Komponisten, deren Nukleus eigentlich 

in Europa liegt. Beide eint aber die Fokussierung auf kleinste Details (bei Tenney 

in seinen späteren Jahren die Beschäftigung mit alternativen Stimmungssystemen, 

143

144 

bei Pisaro die Untersuchung einer Musik vom Rand der Stille her) und die Ver- 

bundenheit mit John Cage. So seltsam das scheinen mag, sind solche Positionen 

an einer amerikanischen Hochschule noch immer die Ausnahme (wie auch Cage 

zu Lebzeiten seine größten Erfolge eigentlich in Europa feierte). 

Ich hatte 2007 als Visiting Professor an CalArts die Gelegenheit und das Vergnügen, 

diese Szene intensiver kennenzulernen (ein erster Kontakt war 2002 während 

meines Stipendienaufenthaltes an der Villa Aurora in Los Angeles entstanden), und 

war beeindruckt von der Vielfalt an künstlerischen Ausdrucksformen und dem 

persönlichen Engagement ihrer Urheber, die alle irgendeiner Art von «day job» 

nachgehen müssen – ein dem europäischen vergleichbares System von öffentlicher 

Kunstförderung gibt es ja in Amerika nicht. 

Unter dem Titel The Experimental Music Yearbook betreiben die Komponisten seit 

2009 auch eine Online-Publikation, die neben lokalen Künstlern Geistesver- 

wandte aus der ganzen Welt einlädt, Stücke oder Texte beizutragen. Das Ziel ist, 

mit der Zeit eine Datenbank von relevanten Kompositionen und KomponistInnen 

anzulegen und allgemein verfügbar zu machen. So sind dort neben den Initiatoren 

auch internationale Größen wie Christian Wolff und Tom Johnson vertreten. 

Aus dieser Publikation (zu der ich letztes Jahr auch einen Beitrag beisteuern durfte) 

rekrutieren sich die Komponisten des vorliegenden Programms, wobei die Aus- 

wahl die Szene keinesfalls vollständig abbildet, sondern eher als Appetizer zu ver- 

stehen ist: bunte Häppchen in verschiedenen Geschmacksrichtungen, die neugierig 

machen sollen auf mehr: mehr davon und mehr anderes. 

Mein eigener Beitrag, e.t. (l.a.) für eine beliebige Anzahl von Spielern mit Laptops, 

eröffnet den Reigen und stellt dabei gleich zwei Themen vor, die an CalArts eine 

besondere Rolle spielen: der spielerische Umgang mit Technologie und alternative 

Stimmungssysteme: das e.t. im Titel verweist nicht auf den gleichnamigen Block- 

buster, sondern steht für «equal temperament», gleichstufige Stimmung. Die Ok- 

tave wird in so viele Töne unterteilt, wie Laptops an der Aufführung teilnehmen, 

jedes davon bringt nur einen hervor. 

Das Werk von Cat Lamb, meist in kalligraphischen Partituren niedergelegt, kreist 

vor allem um feinste Abweichungen vom temperierten System, die in minutiösen 

Obertonrelationen angegeben werden. line/shadow ist allerdings als graphische 

Partitur realisiert, drei Seiten mit einfachen Linienzügen, die von einem Solisten 

interpretiert werden, dem die anderen Spieler Töne wie Schatten zur Seite stellen, 

die sie im Raum hören und die kaum lauter als die Umweltgeräusche erklingen 

sollen. 

Harmony Series von Michael Pisaro ist ein Mikrokosmos (obwohl einzelne 

Nummern auch bis zu einer Stunde dauern können) von 34 Stücken vom Solo bis 

zum 14-köpfigen Ensemble, denen allesamt verschiedene Dichter und Gedichte 

zugeordnet sind, ohne dass man die Stücke als Vertonungen bezeichnen könnte. 

Die Partituren – vorwiegend als Texte notiert – sind in ihrer präzisen Kargheit in 

sich schon fast wieder selbst Gedichte. N° 14 «A single charm is doubtful» weist dabei 

jedem der vier Spieler einen eigenen tonalen Aktionsraum zu, innerhalb dessen er 

frei wählen kann, aus dem Zusammentreffen der Einzelstimmen entsteht dann ein 

harmonisches Feld mit eigener Logik. 

Michael Winter hat in Small World einen eigenen Kosmos erschaffen, oder genauer 

gesagt: den Straßenplan eines Kosmos. Dessen verschiedene «Raum/Zeitknoten» 

füllen die Interpreten mit einem Repertoire aus selbstgewählten Aktionen und 

verbinden diese nach dem gegebenen Straßennetz. Das Stück endet, wenn ent- 

weder alle Aktionen ausgeführt sind oder ein Spieler in einer Sackgasse landet.


18:00 

Bei Scott Cazans Outliers ist es hingegen der Computer, der als Zuhörer den Fort- 

gang des Stückes bestimmt: Aus dem anfänglich zur Verfügung stehenden chro- 

matischen Total streicht er im Verlauf von vier Abschnitten nach und nach die 

Tonhöhen, die pro Abschnitt am häufigsten gewählt wurden, bis am Ende nur 

noch der Einzelton übrigbleibt. Die Spieler müssen sich dabei der in Echtzeit auf 

dem Computerbildschirm generierten Partitur unterwerfen. 

Nest von Tashi Wada verbindet auf eigene Weise Umweltklänge mit Wahrnehmung: 

Zwei der Spieler sollen vor dem Konzert an getrennten Orten Aufnahmen machen, 

bei denen sie gleichzeitig mit ihren Instrumenten Töne spielen, die sie am Ort 

hören. Diese Aufnahmen werden dann simultan im Konzert abgespielt, wozu die 

Instrumentalisten, um ein drittes Instrument verstärkt, wiederum Töne spielen, die 

sie entweder vom Band oder im Konzertsaal hören. 

Zum Abschluss schließlich lässt Liam Mooney in 180° die Spieler Trockeneis an 

Triangeln halten, die dadurch in leichte Vibrationen versetzt werden. Sobald die 

Triangeln auf die Temperatur des Eises abgekühlt sind, hören sie auf zu klingen 

und müssen in Eimern aufgewärmt werden. Diese beiden Handlungen, deren 

Dauer vom Interpreten genau gemessen und angeglichen werden sollen, geben 

dem Stück einen langsamen Rhythmus von zartem Sirren und Pausen, der sich po- 

tenziell unendlich wiederholen könnte (oder bis der Vorrat an Eis aufgebraucht ist). 

(Hans W. Koch 




Marcel Lallemang clarinettes 

Sophie Deshayes flûte 

Olivier Sliepen saxophones 

John Cage: Sonata for Clarinet (1933) – 6’ 

Vivace 

Lento 

Vivace 

John Cage: Sonata for Two Voices (1933) – 6’ (version pour EWI et synthesizer) 

Sonata 

Fugato 

Rondo 

The Sonata for Clarinet is in three chromatic movements: Vivace, Lento, and 

Vivace, and was composed while Cage was in Los Angeles. Its third movement is 

a retrograde canon of the first, although not rhythmically. Octave transpositions 

are used. Sonata for Clarinet is a typical early example of Cage’s work, being 

rhythmically complex and non-metrical. Cage makes free use of short motives, 

repeating and varying them throughout. The second movement sounds very close 

to serial music, but Cage never used this method of composition. 

Sonata for Two Voices is in three movements. It is a chromatic composition dealing 

with the same problems at work in Cage’s Composition for 3 Voices. In this piece, 

each voice is heard within a specific two-octave range. All twenty-five notes should 

be played without repetitions. Once all have been played, another presentation 

begins, and so on, throughout the piece. (www.johncage.org) 

145

146 


18:15, 18:30 & 18:45 




André Pons-Valdès violon 

Tomoko Kiba sho 

John Cage: Two 4 for violin and sho (1991, extrait / Auszug) – 15’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Two 4 , one of the «number pieces» that Cage composed during the last five years of 

his life, is the fourth (of six) compositions for two musicians composed between 

1987 and 1992 – hence the title. The duo in this case is formed by a violin and 

the Asian free reed musical instrument which came from China to Japan about 

2,000 years ago. It is notated using flexible time-brackets, i.e. each tone should 

occur within a period of which the beginning and the end are given instead of a 

precise moment. The sho part covers the full range of 17 pitches and consists of 

three movements. The violin part employs microtonal notes (six between each 

chromatic step) and is divided into four movements. The violin plays mainly 

sustained single tones, the sho (or piano) shorter sounds. 



Quatuor United Instruments of Lucilin 

André Pons-Valdès, Tomoko Kiba violon 

Danielle Hennicot alto 

Christophe Beau violoncelle 

John Cage: Five Dances (arr. for string quartet by Eric Salzman, 1996–1997) 

N° 2: Dream for the dance by Merce Cunningham (1948) 

N° 3: Totem Ancestor for Merce Cunningham (1943) 

10’ 



Quatuor United Instruments of Lucilin 

John Cage: Five Dances (arr. for string quartet by Eric Salzman, 1996–1997) 

N° 4: In a Landscape (1948) 

N° 5: A Room (1943) 

10’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

John Cage: Five Dances 

Dream, written in 1948 for solo piano, was originally used as music for the epony- 

mous choreographed piece by Merce Cunningham, following the rhythmic struc- 

ture of the dance and using a fixed gamut of tones. Throughout, resonances are 

sustained. The music is essentially a single melodic line, except for the last few bars. 

Totem Ancestor was composed in 1942 for solo prepared piano. It was used as music 

for the choreographed piece by Merce Cunningham of the same title. The piece 

makes use of only 11 different notes which, in the original version, are prepared 

with screws, bolts, weather stripping, and a free-rattling nut. 

In a Landscape was composed in 1948 for piano (or harp) and is one of Cage’s 

most popular and lyrical compositions. The form and rhythm – 15 x 15 measures 

(5–7–3) – follows the structure of the dance by Louise Lippold for which it was 

written. The piece is similar to Cage’s Dream, but the fixed gamut of tones is more 

extensive. Resonances are sustained throughout the composition by using both 

pedals. The sound of the composition is soft and meditative, reminiscent of the 

music of Erik Satie.


19:31’57.9864” & 19:45 

A Room was written in 1943 for piano or prepared piano. It is a short composition 

with a constant, flowing pulse, set in a minimalist style. It is built around a 

complex rhythmic scheme – 4, 7, 2, 5; 4, 7, 2, 3, 5 – although this is not really 

audible. Originally, Cage intended A Room to be part 3 of She is Asleep. 

All four solo (prepared) piano pieces were arranged for string quartet by Eric 

Salzman in 1996–1997 and published by Peters under the title Five Dances. 

(For an interview extract of John Cage about Souvenir, Dream, and ASLSP 

cf. Grand Auditorium 17:30) 


19:31’57.9864” Espace Découverte 

Xenia Pestova toy piano 

Carlos David Perales Cejudo: Three Liturgies for toy piano and electronics* 


Luca Vanneschi: Light Music* (2011, création / Uraufführung) – 5’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Carlos David Perales Cejudo: Three Liturgies 

Three liturgies for toy piano and electronics is a virtuous look on this particular 

instrument. From the famous Suite for Toy Piano of John Cage to the most 

bizarre experiments with souvenirs and toys, this instrument is a challenge in the 

creation of new works. Its small size, its short resonance or its unequal timbre, 

requires a full attention to its potential as a piano. The extent of its sound with 

the electronic expression forms a rich world of sound gestures and details. In this 

work, the toy piano acquires a ritual role, in it, many symbolic resources related to 

sacred rituals are arised: the sacred temples plant, the number 2 and 3, as symbols 

of the profane and the sacred, the antiphon, the arabesques and ornaments of the 

liturgical objects, repetition as the basis for setting dogmas, the stubborn apodosis, 

the lazy acceptance of meager texts, etc. (Carlos D. Perales) 

Luca Vanneschi: Light Music 

Não sou nada. 

Nunca serei nada. 

Não posso querer se nada. 

À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os 

sonhos do mundo. 

I am nothing. 

I shall always be nothing. 

I can only want to be nothing. 

Apart from this, I have in me all the 

dreams in the world. 

(Fernando Pessoa: «Tabacaria», 1928) 



Phyllis Chen toy piano 

Andrian Pertout: Pi (Obstruction) (2008) – 6’ 

Christina Viola Oorebeek: Chromotoy I. Three sketches for Schoenhut 

toy grand piano (37 keys), toy piano tines, soundwheel and electronics* 


.......................................................................................................................... 

Andrian Pertout: Pi (Obstruction) 

The history of the toy piano (French: piano jouet; German: Spielzeugklavier; Italian: 

pianino-giocattolo) begins as Troiger’s ‹Stahlklavier› (Dessau, 1792) and Franz 

Schuster’s ‹Adiaphonon› (Vienna, c. 1818), to be later developed in Philadelphia, 

147

148 

USA, in 1872, where German immigrant Albert Schoenhut ultimately conceives 

the child’s toy that in time will also capture the imagination of the contemporary 

composer. The instrument is usually made out of wood or plastic, and is dimen- 

sionally less than fifty centimeters in width, with a range between two diatonic 

and three chromatic octaves. It has a simple sounding mechanism (similar to that 

of the full-sized keyboard glockenspiel) consisting of plastic hammers operated 

via a keyboard, which strike fixed metal plates or steel rods. Traditionally, toy 

pianos were modeled on uprights, but following the 1950s grand piano varieties 

were commonplace. Contemporary works that have incorporated the toy piano 

include John Cage’s Suite for Toy Piano (1948) and George Crumb’s Ancient Voices 

of Children (1970), as well as other works by Renaud Gagneux, Mauricio Kagel, 

Louis Roquin, Zygmunt Krauze, and Leonid Aleksandrovich, among many. 

Internationally acclaimed concert pianist Margaret Leng Tan made her debut on 

the toy piano in 1993 at New York’s Lincoln Centre, and went on to introduce the 

model 6625, 25-key Schoenhut Traditional Spinet to Carnegie Hall in 1997; also 

releasing ‹The Art of the Toy Piano› in that same year — a collection of works by 

Stephen Montague, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Toby Twining, Jed Distler, 

Philip Glass, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Ludwig van Beethoven, Guy Klucevsek, 

Raphael Mostel, and Erik Satie. 

Pi (Obstruction) for Schoenhut Concert Grand (Model 379, 37-key) was commissioned 

by American pianist Phyllis Chen and represents a Hommage à Conlon Nancarrow 

(1912–1997). The title is in reference to the I Ching, or ‹Book of Changes› — 

originating in the Western Zhou Dynasty (1122–771 BC) — and highlights hexa- 

gram 12 (incorporating the trigrams of energy and space) from the 64 hexagrams 

of the oracle. In the tradition of American composer, pianist and theorist Henry 

Cowell (1897–1965) and his monumental publication of New Musical Resources 

(1930), the work explores a variety of compositional techniques developed during 

the 20 th century by American experimentalist composer Conlon Nancarrow and 

documented by Kyle Gann in The Music of Conlon Nancarrow (1995). (Andrián Pertout) 

Christina Viola Oorebeek: Chromotoy I 

Chromotoy I is the third piece in a trilogy of three compositions for various 

acoustic and electronic keyboards and small percussion instruments. Chromotoy II 

is written for Yamaha Disklavier, live sampling and improvisation by the performer. 

Chromotoy III is for acoustic grand piano, toy grand piano and MIDI toy piano, 

which uses samples of toy piano or piano harmonics. 

The form of Chromotoy I is the most open of the three works, in its timing and 

interaction of the acoustic instruments with pre-recorded samples and live 

electronics. The timbres of the iron toy piano tines are heard in two ways – 

through the sounding board of the instrument itself, and also, mounted solo on a 

resonating wine box. In addition, the soundwheel, a unicycle wheel played with 

invented implements, complements the chromatic pitches of the tines. 

Unifying gestures of the piece are the glissandi on the solo tines and soundwheel, 

a whirring sound recalling the fluttering of wings, or mechanical water wheels 

or lathes. Garlands of fast notes echo these glissandi with sustained tones giving 

breathing space in between. Tempi speed up and slow down within these gestures, 

creating peaks of excitation and ambient languor. (Christina Viola Oorebeek)


20:00 



Isabel Ettenauer toy piano 

Karlheinz Essl: 

Kalimba (mit Zuspielung) (2005) – 5’ 

WebernSpielWerk (mit Ringmodulator) (2005) – 5’ 

whatever shall be (2010) – 10’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

At the beginning of the 3 rd millennium, I had a strange encounter with a strange 

instrument: the toy piano, which at first didn’t attract me that much. On the 

contrary, I didn’t properly estimate its restricted sound possibilities and regarded 

it quite uninteresting and boring. My immature prejudice changed entirely when 

I borrowed a toy piano from Isabel Ettenauer who was asking me since years to 

write a piece for her. And now, after being forced to dedicate myself to this instru- 

ment I soon understood that it has nothing to do with the piano as we know it. 

When I hit a key on a regular piano, I am not just hearing a note, but also the 

whole history of this instrument with its repertory from Bach to Boulez that the 

piano sound transports. This fact always makes it difficult for me to compose for 

piano as it always reminds me of historical music that I love – and also abhor. 

This didn’t seem to happen to me when I was playing on the toy piano because its 

sound has nothing to do with a conventional piano. Instead of strings this instru- 

ment has metal rods which are hit by hammers, producing sonic qualities that 

rather remind me of bells or a celesta, Asian gamelan, or even an African kalimba. 

Kalimba in fact is the name of my first piece for toy piano and playback which was 

composed in 2005 for the pianist and toy piano performer Isabel Ettenauer. The 

primary aim of this piece is an attempt to break up the restricted sound world of 

the toy piano – not by superficial means of additional sound processing, but by 

the sound of the instrument itself. This is achieved by a pre-composed soundtrack 

which is played back by a small loudspeaker which is hidden inside the toy piano. 

This creates a perfect blend between the sounds of the instrument and the sounds 

from the loudspeaker. Furthermore, as the listeners won’t notice any electronic 

devices, they might assume that all the music comes from the toy piano itself. 

The piece is entirely based on an eight-tone scale which alternates whole and half- 

tone steps. It was recorded from the very instrument which Isabel uses to play in 

her performances, and also in her solo recital today in Luxembourg. The material 

was processed by a computer program written in Max/MSP using a compositional 

algorithm that creates five canonic layers of the same soundfile which are affected 

by very slow glissandos. The result is stunning: starting from the original scale 

(which is also played synchronously on the toy piano), the sound gradually trans- 

forms itself from a rich variety of sonic transformations into a ‹chaotic› distribution 

of the 8 tones which finally fall together into chord repetitions. 

In the adjacent part of the piece, the glissandos are expanded to a much wider 

range and – by forming an ambitus of 4 octaves in the end – a proportional 

canon of the form 1/4 : 1/2 : 1 : 2 : 4 is created. Continuously, all layers except 

the (s)lowest are fading out, so that in the end only a transposition of the original 

recording two octaves lower (and two times slower) can be heard. This is the 

beginning of the ‹coda› of the piece, where upon the ‹ground› of the extremely 

slowed-down toy piano motif the entire piece is compressed into a few seconds. 

After finishing this piece I became more and more interested in scrutinizing further 

possibilities of this instrument. A few months later I composed WebernSpielWerk as 

a tombeau for Anton Webern who was accidentally shot dead by an American GI 

in Mittersill, Salzburg (where Webern had escaped from the Russian invasion) on 

149

150 


20:30 

September 15 th , 1945. In this piece, the toy piano was utilized as a sort of carillon 

– a very tiny one –, and in fact the piece was modeled after the generative sound 

installation WebernUhrWerk which was played at the 60 th anniversary of Webern’s 

death from a loudspeaker hidden inside a roof at the market place of Mittersill. 

Later in the evening, a different rendering of the same concept – this time notated 

as a score – was performed by Isabel Ettenauer on a toy piano in the church of 

Mittersill; a stark contrast to the original open air sound installation, but now 

projected into the small and concentrated environment of a spiritual place. 

Tonight I will perform this piece together with Isabel, using a ring modulator to 

process the toy piano’s sound in order to transform it into a more bell-like timbre. 

In my toy piano compositions, I always attempted to find a new perspective to 

this instrument. In order to break up its restricted sound world, I was hiding a tiny 

loudspeaker inside the toy piano for Kalimba which played back pre-produced 

sounds. WebernUhrWerk, however, was originally a purely acoustic piece, and 

Sequitur V uses live-electronics which create a sonic house-of-mirrors solely from 

the live input of the instrument. 

In whatever shall be – written for Phyllis Chen from New York in 2010 – I focussed 

on the ‹ugly› parts of the instrument which are commonly not regarded as musical: 

the guts apart from the keys – the body of the instrument. So I was approaching 

the toy piano like an innocent child who looks into the belly of the instrument 

and starts scratching and knocking here and there. In fact, due to the acoustic 

properties of the sound boards, this produces very rich and fascinating sounds. 

Then I mounted a contact microphone on the downside of the the sound board 

which was connected to a special computer program (written in MaxMSP) that 

I had conceived for this composition: a kind of sonic ‹particle accelerator› which 

creates a maelstrom of sounds, swirling around the audience. 

But there is yet another story which I have to mention in the end: When experi- 

menting with the entrails of the toy piano, I realized that its sound board acts 

as a splendid amplifier for tiny sounds and noises. When putting a small music 

box inside, its lanky sound becomes strong and mighty, mixing nicely with the 

key sounds of the toy piano. That happens at the very end of the piece. And in 

fact everything that is heard before – rhythmical cells, melodic motives, even the 

harmonic structure – has derived from this little music box melody which arose 

from the great movie The Man Who Knew Too Much by Alfred Hitchcock. And the 

refrain of the song reads: «Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be.» 

(Karlheinz Essl) 



CO2 

Riccarda Caflisch flute 

Dario Calderone contrebasse 

Bernhard Lang: Winterlicht (création / Uraufführung) – 20’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Das Stück setzt die Reihe der Differenz/Wiederholungs-Stücke fort, hier ausgehend 

von der einzigartigen Klangkombination Bassflöte/Kontrabass. Loops sind das 

dominierende Strukturelement, aber auch das Instrument der Klangbeleuchtung 

und Schattierung. Die Textur oszilliert zwischen freier Klangfantasie und computer- 

generierten Passagen, auf die Verwischung der Grenzen zwischen beiden Zonen 

abzielend. 

Die dreisätzige Struktur ergab sich im Zuge des organischen Wachsens des Stückes, 

während der ich erst die zeitliche Ausdehnung entdeckte. 

Das Stück wurde von Ricci Caflisch angeregt und beauftragt. (Bernhard Lang)


20:52’57.998“ 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII DIY WORKSHOP CONCERT PERFORMANCE (18–XXX) 

20:52’57.998“ Espace Découverte 

«Revolution II» 

Bernhard Günther présentation (F, D, E) 

John Cage: Les Chants de Maldoror pulvérisés par l’assistance même. 

200 pages pour un public francophone de pas plus de 200 personnes (1971) 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Les Chants de Maldoror sind ein 1869 unter dem Pseudonym Comte de Lautréa- 

mont im Druck erschienenes experimentelles Prosawerk. Im Mittelpunkt des 

radikal und hemmungslos wuchernden Textkonvoluts steht Maldoror, ein 

abgrundtief schlechter Charakter, der im Verlauf der sechs «Gesänge» alle nur 

erdenklichen Schandtaten begeht – Clockwork Orange und American Psycho lassen 

grüßen. Autor des Texts war der französische Dichter Isidore Ducasse, der 1846 

als Sohn eines französischen Diplomaten in Montevideo/Uruguay geboren 

worden war und ein Jahr nach Erscheinen der Gesänge des Maldoror starb. Erst 

posthum sorgte sein Text für Furore: Alfred Jarry erblickte darin ein Universium 

der Pataphysik, André Breton erwähnte Ducasse mehrfach im Surrealistischen 

Manifest, André Gide sah das größte Verdienst von Breton, Louis Aragon und 

Philippe Soupault darin, «die literarische und ultra-literarische Bedeutung des 

bewundernswerten Lautréamont erkannt und proklamiert zu haben». 

«Gebe der Himmel, dass der Leser, erkühnt und augenblicklich von grausamer Lust gepackt 

gleich dem, was er liest, seinen abrupten und wilden Weg durch die trostlosen Sümpfe dieser 

finstren und gifterfüllten Seiten finde, ohne die Richtung zu verlieren; denn wofern er nicht 

mit unerbitterlicher Logik und einer geistigen Spannung, die wenigstens seinen Argwohn 

aufwiegt, an diese Lektüre geht, werden die tödlichen Emanationen dieses Buches seine Seele 

durchtränken wie das Wasser den Zucker.» Diesem gefährlich klingenden Wunsch 

begegnet der Leser schon auf den ersten Seiten des skandalumwitterten Stücks 

Weltliteratur. Um sich ich mit diesem Buch rund um den «Sonnenaufgang des 

Bösen» (L’aurore du mal) auseinanderzusetzen, kann es also nicht schaden, wenn 

man – wie John Cage – über eine unerschütterliche «sunny disposition» verfügt. 

John Cage pulverisiert Les Chants de Maldoror durch die bloße Anwesenheit des 

Publikums. Die Wahl des Titels Les Chants de Maldoror pulvérisés par l’assistance même 

steht natürlich zu Duchamps La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même von 1934 

in Beziehung (auch eine Loseblattsammlung). Cage nimmt zufallsbasiert umfang- 

reiche Streichungen vor, zerlegt das Buch in 200 einzelne Seiten und lässt diese 

ans Publikum verteilen. Der eigentliche Auslöser dessen, was im Saal vonstatten- 

geht, sind aber nicht die mehr oder weniger anstoßerregenden Textfetzen von 

Lautréamont, sondern John Cages verschmitzte und raffinierte Anweisungen an 

das Publikum, das eine kollektive Performance aufführt. 

Wie beispielsweise auch bei Cages Cheap Imitation for orchestra without conductor 

(einem der radikalsten Orchesterstücke der Musikgeschichte) lässt eine einzige 

Seite Textanweisung aus einer Partitur eine soziale Plastik entstehen. In gewisser 

Weise sind Cages Chants ein Gegenstück zur Cheap Imitation: Dort müssen 95 

professionelle Musiker mindestens zwei Wochen lang arbeiten, hier werden bis zu 

200 Laien nach höchstens 10 Minuten Orientierung zu Cage-Interpreten. Beide 

gehören zu den am seltensten aufgeführten Werken von John Cage. Utopisch, 

experimentell, verspielt, mit offenem Ausgang und einem gewissen aktionistischen 

Spaßfaktor sowie (aufgrund der kollektiv zu pulverisierenden literarischen Roh- 

materialien von schwärzester Finsternis) nicht 100% jugendfrei. (Bernhard Günther) 

151


21:00 & 21:19’8½” 



«Zen I» 

CO2 



John Cage: Ryoanji (1983–1985) – 14’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

(voir p. 95 / siehe S. 95) 


21:19’8½” Espace Découverte 

CO2 



Marcel Reuter: unbreakable captive (2012, commande / Kompositionsauftrag 

Philharmonie Luxembourg, création / Uraufführung) – 7’ 

153

154 

Salle de répétition I 

16:04’57.9865” 


16:04’57.9865” Salle de répétition I 

Margaret Leng Tan piano 

Phyllis Chen: Carousel for toy piano and hand-cranked music box (2010) 

Phyllis Chen: Cobwebbed Carousel for toy piano and hand-cranked music box 

(2010) – 8’ (video: Rob Dietz) 

Yuichi Matsumoto: Intention (Composition in Retrospect N° 3) 

for Toy Piano and Reader* (2012, création / Uraufführung) – 4’ 

Lee Hye Kung: Dream Play: No‑ri II* (2000/2011, création / Uraufführung 

revised version) – 3’ 

Erik Griswold: Old M acDonald’s Yellow Submarine for toy piano, woodblocks, 

bicycle bell, bicycle horn and train whistle (2004) – 4’ 

4. Chooks! 

5. Bicycle Lee Hooker 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Phyllis Chen: Carousel & Cobwebbed Carousel 

It seems natural to love music boxes as a toy pianist; both instruments have metal 

tines and rely on a resonating chamber to sound. Both Carousel and Cobwebbed 

Carousel are composed on the same punch tape strip but for Cobwebbed Carousel, 

the reverse surface of the punch tape passes through the music box mechanism. In 

this «counter-piece,» Margaret suggested that I attempt to capture the mysterious, 

darker aspect of childhood. Cobwebbed Carousel is dedicated to and written for 

Margaret Leng Tan with great admiration. (Phyllis Chen) 

Yuichi Matsumoto: Composition in Retrospect 

This piece is written based on the «Enquete-art» (Questionnaire Art) composition 

theory. «Enquete-art» is my work; it uses surveys to gather opinions from many 

people; these answers are then presented in a work transformed into music. While 

various parts of speech (e.g. noun, adverb, preposition etc.) are each assigned their 

own individual pitches, the length of each part of speech translates into rhythm, 

thus resulting in a melody. 

This music in this particular piece is generated using the text of «Composition in 

Retrospect» by John Cage. I’m sure that by using Cage’s text according to his own 

rules has resulted in new possibilities for this composition theory. 

This work involves reading. When it is difficult to read aloud while playing, it is 

possible to have other people read. Or just display the text while performing the 

music. It is important the audience understands that the music is generated from 

the original text. (Yuichi Matsumoto) 

I have chosen to perform this particular section of Composition in Retrospect for 

Toy Piano and Reader for personal reasons. Cage’s text contains a reference to 

our initial encounter – in 1981 Malaysian dancer Marion d’Cruz and I performed 

Cage’s Bacchanale for him: «the dancer from malaysia a theatrical crossing from 

left to right so slowly as to seem to be moving not at all the music meanwhile as 

fast as possible.» (Margaret Leng Tan)

Composition in Retrospect 

N° 3: Intention 

The text is an extract from John Cage’s mesostic «Composition in Retrospect», 

originally given as a speech in 1981 at the Computer Music Conference in Denton, Texas. 

Printed in: John Cage: X. Writings ’79–’82. – New England, Hanover [Middletown, CT]: 

Wesleyan University Press, 1983. – p. 127–128 

[intention conjunction verb adjective auxiliary-verb determiner preposition symbol noun adverb] 

musIc 

for the daNce 

To go with it 

to Express 

the daNce in sound 

noT 

beIng able 

tO do 

the same thiNg 

gIves the possibility 

of doiNg 

someThing 

that diffErs 

liviNg 

in The same town 

fInding life 

by nOt 

liviNg the same way 

the dancers from malaysIa 

a theatrical crossiNg 

from lefT to right 

so slowly as to sEem to be 

moviNg 

noT at all 

the musIc meanwhile 

as fast as pOssible 

togetherNess 

of opposItes 

purposeful purposelessNess 

noT 

to accEpt it 

uNless i could remain 

aT 

the same tIme 

a member Of society 

able to fulfill a commissioN 

to satIsfy 

a particular Need 

Though having no control 

ovEr 

what happeNs 

accepTance 

sometImes 

written Out 

determiNate 

sometImes 

just a suggestioN 

i found iT 

worked therefor i Nap 

pounding The 

rIce 

withOut 

liftiNg my hand 

gIves the possibility 

a theatrical crossiNg 

Though having no control 

that diffErs 

uNless i could remain 

in The same town 

the same tIme 

as fast as pOssible 

togetherNess 

155

156 


16:30 

HyeKyung Lee: Dream Play (No-ri II) 

Dream Play (No‑ri I–IV) has for short movements connected into one. Dream 

Play (No‑ri II) is one of the four movements in the piece, which can be played 

separately as an independent piece. «No-ri» means «play» in Korean. In dreams 

there are no limits to our imagination. I used toy piano for its unique innocent 

and ghostly sound colour. (HyeKyung Lee) 

Erik Griswold: Chooks! & Bicycle Lee Hooker 

Chooks! and Bicycle Lee Hooker are from Old MacDonald’s Yellow Submarine, a six 

movement work Griswold wrote for me in 2004. «Chooks» is Australian for 

chickens. Bicycle Lee Hooker is a mini-tribute to the great blues musician, John 

Lee Hooker. A tour-de-force of multi-tasking, the piece explores the potential of 

making music with the humblest of toys – a bicycle bell, bicycle horn and train 

whistle heard in tandem with the toy piano. 

Old MacDonald’s Yellow Submarine was generously funded by the Australia Council 

for the Arts and was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s official entry at 

the 2010 International Rostrum of Composers conference. 

Australian-American composer-pianist Erik Griswold performs in Clocked Out 

Duo with percussionist Vanessa Tomlinson. He not only creates works for pre- 

pared piano, percussion and toy instruments, but he also explores the possibilities 

of music boxes, found object percussion and microtonality. (Margaret Leng Tan) 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII TOY PIANO CONCERT (7–100) 

16:30 Salle de répétition I 

«Toy Dreams» 

Isabel Ettenauer toy piano 

Manuel de Roo: Monsieur Michel sonne les cloches du rock 

for toy piano solo (2009, 2’) 

Tomi Räisänen: Dreamgate for two toy pianos and tape* (2006) – 7’ 

Franz Danksagmüller: seven little nightmares for toy piano and soundfiles* 

(2012, création / Uraufführung, extraits / Auszüge) 

1. fed with bees 

2. someone’s nibbling on my dreams 

4. haunting sirens 

6. Chab’s bar 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Manuel de Roo: Monsieur Michel sonne les cloches du rock 

Immer wieder träumt der von allen zirkusbesuchenden Kindern, Eltern und 

Großeltern geliebte Clown Monsieur Michel davon, ein Rockstar zu sein, nicht 

mehr mit einem Zirkuswagen herumzufahren, sondern mit Limousine und 

Chauffeur, neben Mick Jagger auf der Bühne das Schlagzeug zu energetischem 

Leben zu erwecken. Gleich einem nicht aufhörenwollenden Läuten von zu kleinen 

Kirchenglocken fühlt sich rastlose Kraft dieses Traums an, wie in einem zu schnell 

ablaufenden Film spuken ihm die Bilder durch den Kopf. Aber wie müsste er 

sein Leben bisher gestaltet haben, welchen Weg müsste er gegangen sein und was 

müsste er jetzt auch noch alles unternehmen um diesen Traum zu verwirklichen? 

Wäre das nicht eine unheimliche seelische und körperliche Belastung für den alten 

Herrn Michel? Müsste er da nicht von einer Konzerthalle zum nächsten Empfang 

um sogleich wieder im Flugzeug zu sitzen, damit das nächste mit Publikum 

gefüllte Sportstadion sein Konzert erlebt… sein Konzert? 

Monsieur Michel zweifelt, kommt noch nicht zu einer überzeugten inneren 

Haltung. So wird er bei der nächsten Abendvorstellung erst einmal wieder die 

fröhlichen Besucher mit im Spaß verstecktem Ernst verzaubern und hoffen, dass 

die Menschen den tragischen Hintergrund von all seinem Klamauk zumindest 

unbewusst in sich aufnehmen. Dennoch bleibt er innerlich aufgewühlt, schlägt 

die Traumglocken wieder und wieder an und fiebert rastlos seiner Vorstellung 

hinterher, ist dieser doch im Schlaf allzu real.


17:00 

Tomi Räisänen: Dreamgate 

The work Dreamgate, composed for two toy pianos and tape, deals with the 

transition from the waking state to the world of dreams. The music tells the story 

of a child who is falling asleep while listening to the melodies of a music box and 

her mother’s lullaby. The repetitive sounds of the music box and the calming 

singing work together as a gateway to the dream world. After the child has fallen 

asleep the sounds of the music box continue in a dream, but now in an altered 

form. The mother’s song also returns as a recollection. (Tomi Räisänen) 

Franz Danksagmüller: seven little nightmares 

During summer, Isabel Ettenauer asked me to write a piece for her. She also sent 

me a link to an ebay auction of an old Schoenhut toy piano (upright, 25 Keys). 

I got it and immediately fell in love with this charming instrument. I began to 

improvise and the ideas just started popping up. This led to this little suite. 

(Franz Danksagmüller) 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII TOY PIANO CONCERT (7–100) 


Bernd Wiesemann toy piano 

Andreas Kunstein: Requiem für ein Meerschweinchen* (2008) – 7’ 

Peter Gahn: Bewegen Sie die Störung für toy piano* (2008) – 4’ 

Nickos Harizanos: Five Moments in a Ladybird’s Life* 

(2012, creation / Uraufführung) – 4’ 

Yasuko Yamaguchi: Zuckerregen* (2002) – 7’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Andreas Kunstein: Requiem für ein Meerschweinchen 

The Requiem for a Guinea‑Pig for one player with two toy pianos is dedicated to 

Bernd Wiesemann. It was written in memory of Mimi (January 5, 2005–April 23, 

2008). (Andreas Kunstein) 

Peter Gahn: Bewegen Sie die Störung 

This piece (the title means «move the disturbance») derives of the idea of a little 

diamond. Not a perfect diamond but one with a lot of colour effects. Crystallo- 

graphic disorders, e.g. point, line, planar and bulk defects, can occur inside regularly 

ordered crystallographic structures and are a reason for the colour and colour 

effects. Elastic and plastic distortion is a reason for delocalisation of the regularly 

ordered elements of a metallic bond. These metallic bonds – in German called 

metallic ‹fences› – and the elastic distortions are the physical reason of the 

vibration of the metal bars of the toy piano, its sound. The plastic distortions of 

the slightly imperfect metal bars – looking like a fence in their regular order – 

make the unique sound of each single pitch and special beauty of this instrument. 

(Peter Gahn) 

Nickos Harizanos: Five Moments in a Ladybird’s Life 

The work consists of three short parts played without rest, starting from a point 

of short, staccato single notes or phrases while little by little the leading voice 

becomes more dense and complicated. This short plan of the form, along with the 

complex rhythmical patterns, ‹describes› the ladybird’s colour and the way it walks 

and flies, which sometimes can be very humoristic. 

…nothing better than the sound quality of a toy piano for all this picture! 

(Nickos Harizanos) 

Yasuko Yamaguchi: Zuckerregen 

Zuckerregen (Sugar Rain) consists of three small pieces, each of which has a different 

concept of mirroring. I took my inspiration from a film entitled Sugar Rain. In it 

the story of two women is explained: The television screen is divided and the 

viewer sees the same story, on one side the screen told from the beginning and on 

the other from the end, each from the perspective of one woman. At the midpoint 

of the story, the images cross and the film continues as a mirror of its first half. 

(Yasuko Yamaguchi) 

157

158 


18:00 & 19:31’57.9864” 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII TOY PIANO CONCERT PERFORMANCE (7–100) 


Pascal Meyer toy piano 

Catherine Kontz: Siegfried & Melusina* (2007/2008) – 5–10’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Melusina is said to have been the wife of the founder of Luxembourg, Count 

Siegfried. When they married, she had one particular request, namely that 

Siegfried must leave her alone for one full day and night every month, and that 

he should not ask or try to find out what she was doing. Of course, Melusina 

was such a beautiful girl that Siegfried could not refuse her this one small wish, 

and all went well for years and years, when on the first Wednesday of the month, 

Melusina would retire into her chambers in the Casemates, a network of caverns 

underneath the city, not to be seen again until early light on Thursday. 

But one day, Siegfried’s curiosity got the better of him. Wondering what on earth 

she might be doing alone all the time, he peeped through the keyhole, and was 

shocked to see that Melusina was lying in the bathtub, with a fishtail hanging over 

the rim. As you all know, mermaids like Melusina have a very keen sixth sense, 

which tells them instantly that they are being watched, and thus she recognized 

her husband through the door, and jumped out of the window into the river 

Alzette below, never to be seen again. Except every now and then, some people 

say they have seen a beautiful girl’s head pop out of the river, and a fishtail 

rippling the calm waters of the river Alzette. (Luxembourg Legends, www.ont.lu) 


19:31’57.9864” Salle de répétition I 

«Cage’s teachers I» 





Henry Cowell: Seven Paragraphs for string trio (1925) – 12’ 

Largo 

Allegretto 

Allegro 

Allegro scherzando, 

Andante 

Allegro moderate 

Quasi andante 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Henry Cowell’s Seven Paragraphs is a collection of short musical character studies. 

Cowell was 28 years old when he wrote it, and he already had about 15 years of 

experience – he had started to compose in his early teens and began to study at 

age 16 with Charles Seeger at the University of California. About 20 years after 

Seven Paragraphs was written, Henry Cowell, John Cage, Virgil Thomson, and Lou 

Harrison composed together the Party Pieces. 

Cowells use of varied sound materials, experimental compositional procedures, 

and a rich palette colored by multiple non-European and folk influences 

revolutionized American music and popularized, most notably, the tone cluster as 

an element in compositional design. Cowell’s influence is legion, counting among 

his students John Cage, Lou Harrison, and George Gershwin. Cowell taught at the 

New School for Social Research in New York and also held posts at the Peabody 

Conservatory and Columbia University. (www.schirmer.com)


19:45 



«Cage’s teachers II» 





Arnold Schönberg: Streichtrio op. 45 (1946) – 15’ 

.......................................................................................................................... 

«Am 2. August dieses Jahres wird es drei Jahre her sein, seit – was ich scherzhaft, 

meinen Todesfall, nenne [eine Reanimierung durch Herzinjektion nach einer 

Herzattacke]. Das Trio, von dem, ich vielen Leuten erzählt habe, dass es eine 

‹humoristische› Darstellung meiner Krankheit ist, habe ich bald nachdem ich aus 

dem Ärgsten heraus war, angefangen.» (Arnold Schönberg: «Mein Todesfall», 1949) 

«Eines Zusammenseins mit Schönberg bei uns ist in jenen Tagen gedacht und soll 

hier gedacht sein, bei dem er mir von seinem neuen, eben vollendeten Trio und 

den Lebenserfahrungen erzählte, die er in die Komposition hineingeheimnist habe, 

deren Niederschlag das Werk gewissermaßen sei. Er behauptete, er habe darin 

seine Krankheit und ärztliche Behandlung samt ‹male nurse› und allem übrigen 

dargestellt. Übrigens sei die Aufführung äußerst schwierig, ja fast unmöglich, oder 

nur für drei Spieler von Virtuosenrang möglich, dabei aber sehr dankbar vermöge 

außerordentlicher Klangwirkungen.» (Thomas Mann: Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus, 1949) 

«In the 1930s we didn’t take Bartók seriously. We took Stravinsky and Schoenberg 

seriously as the two directions that one could legitimately take. I chose Schoenberg, 

and I think it was right, because toward the end of his life Stravinsky also turned 

to twelve-tone music. I worshipped Schoenberg – I saw in him an extraordinary 

musical mind, one that was greater and more perceptive than the others.» 

John Cage (1982, in an interview with Paul Hertelendy.– Richard Kostelanetz: Conversing with Cage. – 


«Schoenberg was a magnificent teacher, who always gave the impression that he 

was putting us in touch with musical principles. I studied counterpoint at his 

home and attended all his classes at USC [University of Southern California, 

1935] and later at UCLA [University of California Los Angeles, 1936] when he 

moved there. I also took his course in harmony, for which I had no gift. Several 

times I tried to explain to Schoenberg that I had no feeling for harmony. He told 

me that without a feeling for harmony I would always encounter an obstacle, 

a wall through which I wouldn’t be able to pass. My reply was that in that case 

I would devote my life to beating my head against that wall – and maybe that 

is what I’ve been doing ever since. In all the time I studied with Schoenberg he 

never once led me to believe that my work was distinguished in any way. He never 

praised my compositions, and when I commented on other students’ work in class 

he held my comments up to ridicule. And yet I worshipped him like a god.» 

John Cage (1965, in an interview with Calvin Tomkins. – Richard Kostelanetz: Conversing with Cage. – 


159

John Cage, Teeny Duchamp, 

and Marcel Duchamp 

Reunion 

(Toronto, Canada, 1968) 

Photographer: 

Shigeko Kubota 

Courtesy of the 

John Cage Trust 

160 

Autres lieux / Sonstige Orte 

15:30–22:00 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII DIY INSTALLATION (7–100) 

15:30–22:00 Salon d’honneur 

John Cage: Mozart Mix (1991) 

.......................................................................................................................... 

John Cages Mozart Mix, entstanden im Mozartjahr 1991 zum 200. Todestag, 

gilt als die erste Klanginstallation, die als numerische Auflage produziert wurde. 

Jedes der 36 Exemplare besteht aus 25 Tonkassetten, 5 Abspielgeräten und einem 

signierten Siebdruck in einem Holzkasten (10,2 x 86 x 81 cm). Beim simultanen 

Abspielen der (inzwischen aus konservatorischen Gründen auf CD überspielten) 

Loops entstehen zufallsbasierte Überlagerungen der von Cage ausgewählten 

Mozart-Samples. 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII INSTALLATION (7–100) 

16:00–19:00 & 19:45–21:45 Studio (Atelier) 

Noise Watchers 

Laurent Willkomm régie son 

John Cage: Bird Cage. Twelve tapes, to be distributed by a single performer 

in a space where people are free to move and birds to fly (1972) 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Bird Cage (wörtlich: Vogelkäfig) ist die Anordnung von 4, 6, 8 oder 12 von Cage 

produzierten Aufnahmen in einem Raum, in dem das Publikum frei ist, sich zu 

bewegen und in dem Vögel frei sind umherzufliegen. Die Tonbänder enthalten 

drei verschiedene Arten von elektronisch bearbeiteten Klängen: Vögel, die Cage 

im Frühjahr 1972 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania und im Bombay Hook National 

Wildlife Refuge in der Nähe von Dover, Delaware aufgenommen hatte; Cage 

selbst, der Teile seines Gedichts «Mureau» (Music of Thoreau) singt; sowie Um- 

weltklänge. Die Anordung basiert auf Zufallsprozeduren nach dem I Ging. Am 

Ende der Partitur ist der damals aktuelle Vogelschutzvereins-Mitgliedsausweis von 

Cage der National Audubon Society abgedruckt (Ablaufdatum Februar 1973). 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII FILM CONCERT PERFORMANCE (7–100) 

16:15 Salle de répétition II 

Noise Watchers 

Mário Costa, Claude Lenners chess players 

Arthur Stammet electronic sounds for chess moves 

Aniela Stoffels flute (live improvisation) 

Film: {t∫es} (2012, création / Uraufführung) – 12’ 

Mário Costa director and cinematographer 

Ciomara Morais, Angelo Torres, Matamba Joaquim acteurs 

Claude Lenners music 

Sandra Bogalho producer 

Leandro Vaz da Silva steadycam operator 

Raquel Laranjo make-up and wardrobe 

José Manuel Rodrigues gaffer 

.......................................................................................................................... 

Der Auftrag, innerhalb der rainy days 2012 die verschiedenen Facetten von John 

Cage zu beleuchten, brachte uns auf die Idee, uns dem Schachspiel zuzuwenden. 

Cages lange und intensive Freundschaft mit Marcel Duchamp (der die Malerei 

zugunsten des Schachspiels aufgab) brachte die beiden Künstler des Öfteren am 

Brett zusammen, nicht nur zum edlen Zeitvertreib: Schach ist eine Kunst! So ist 

es auch nicht verwunderlich, dass die Begegnungen der beiden Erneuerer eines 

Tages die Welt zur Realisation eines Kunstwerks veranlasste, in dem Schach im 

Mittelpunkt steht. 

An diesem Event wollten wir anknüpfen, gleichsam mit einer Gedenkfeier an 

den historischen Moment sowie auch aus dem Bedürfnis heraus, unser eigenes 

Interesse am königlichen Spiel zu zelebrieren. Dabei lassen wir uns durch die

Autres lieux / Sonstige Orte 

16:45 & 17:15 

Happening-Kultur leiten und laden ein, einer Begegnung beizuwohnen, bei 

der verschiedene Ereignisse unabhängig voneinander gleichzeitig ablaufen. Der 

Zuhörer wird auch zum Zuschauer in einem Event, bei dem die Züge von zwei 

live spielenden Schachspielern von elektronischen Klängen begleitet werden, bei 

dem ein Film auf einer Leinwand zu sehen ist, der die Thematik des Schachspiels 

umkehrt (nicht der König wird ‹erkämpft›, sondern die Dame), und bei dem zu- 

sätzlich improvisierte Flötenklänge den Raum beschallen. Auge und Ohr dürften 

bei diesem Event genügend Abwechslung finden… (Claude Lenners) 


16:45 & 17:15 Parking souterrain / Tiefgarage 

(Lieu de rencontre: Philharmonie, Entrée principale / Treffpunkt: 

Philharmonie, Haupteingang) 

«Hupkonzert» 

Noise Watchers Ensemble 

Marc Meyers, Marcel Lallemang, Netty Glesener direction 

Claude Lenners: Hupkonzert (Environment Music I) für 3 Dirigenten, 

8 Blechbläser, 3 Gruppen mit 4 Klarinetten und 2 Gruppen von 4 Autohupen 

(2012, création / Uraufführung) – ~8’ 


.......................................................................................................................... 

Ein einsames Autohupen in tiefer Nacht hat etwas von Großstadtromantik. 

Tagsüber gehört das Hupen zur üblichen Geräuschkulisse, an die wir gewohnt 

sind. Ein Hupsignal kann aber gewaltig stören, wenn man andächtig in einem 

Konzert sitzt, und unverhofft vom nervösen Verkehr auf der Straße ein ‹falscher› 

Ton sich in die Konzertmusik mischt. John Cage würde sich daran nicht stören; 

für ihn gehörte das Hupsignal eben dazu. Aus einem solchen Zufallsmoment 

heraus hat Cage eine eigene Philosophie entwickelt, die uns zu denken gibt… 

In diesem Ideenzusammenhang wollte ich ein Stück schreiben, welches Zufalls- 

momente nicht ausschließt und Hupsignale als ‹nicht störend› mit einbringt. 

Das Stück ist anlässlich des Festivals rainy days 2012 entstanden, welches den 

100. Geburtstag von John Cage feiert, von dem Pierre Boulez kürzlich in einem 

Interview sagte: «Er war kein Prophet, sondern ein Hofnarr!» (Claude Lenners) 

161

Grand Auditorium - Philharmonie Luxembourg

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?