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john cage - john cage shock vol. 2 - em records - cd

Genre: Wave / Pop / Rock

1. Karlheinz Stockhausen - Klavierstück X
2. John Cage - 26'55.988" For 2 Pianists & A String Player

Volume 2 in EM Records' John Cage Shock series lifts off with a fiery example of David Tudor's piano virtuosity, his mastery of dynamics well-evident in a performance of Klavierstücke X (1961) by Karlheinz Stockhausen.

The titular shock of this series is delivered even more forcefully with the next piece, John Cage's 26'55.988" for 2 Pianists and a String Player (1961), which was first performed the year before in Darmstadt by Tudor and Kenji Kobayashi, a combination of two of Cage's solo pieces. The performance here, from Osaka, has a slightly altered title and the composition becomes a seismic quartet with the addition of Toshi Ichiyanagi and Yoko Ono, with the four performers providing acutely-angled blasts of sound. Features rare photos plus liner notes in Japanese and English plus commentary by Toshi Ichiyanagi.