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| As early as in 1942, in Credo in Us, Cage employed not only a percussion ensemble but also sounds from the radio and records. Therefore, quite in accordance with what the composer would have wished, the materials used by the Percussion Ensemble Mainz in this recording range from Beethoven's fifth symphony (vinyl record, including the rustling) to ABBA, Tina Turner and advertising slogans. It goes without saying that rhythms play an important part in music for percussion. Cage, though, was also interested in developing new percussion sounds and, thus, new musical tools. In order to ensure that the performers would nevertheless always remain as free as possible in their interpretation the composer permitted them, for instance, to choose their own instruments in Quartet (1935). Second Construction and Third Construction, on the other hand, have a fixed instrumentation. She's asleep (1943) is a quartet for tom toms and is also based on the concept of an extremely sophisticated differentiation of sound. The Percussion Ensemble Mainz miraculously succeeds in combining their meticulous, well-planned presentation of Cage's works with an underlying spontaneous tension maintained throughout the performance. |
1CD | Contemporary | Instrumental | Ensemble |
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Une Soirée Vian (1991): on the borderline between opera, oratorio and cabaret Denys Bouliane investigates the heritage of the French writer Boris Vian.  |
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| Russia’s answer to the western-focused Postmodernism: the polystylist Schnittke on the track of western Baroque. |
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| Dance music from high-alpine regions and from the low plains, music located somewhere between Schubert, Bartok and a Young Farmers’Ball in East Tyrol. |
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