These are Cage's solo violin works of the late 1970s, when he worked closely with Paul Zukofsky. The performances here are reissues on CD from the American LPs on the CP2 label and bring the first eight of the Freeman Etudes into the British catalogue. Since Zukofsky recorded these, Negyesy has followed with the first 16 in the USA. The challenge must be rather like climbing Everest—because it is there. Zukofsky has said: ''Violinists may or may not enjoy these works—that is of no importance—but no violinist can consider himself of today without coming to terms with their methodology of creation, their problems and their solutions'' (A John Cage Reader; C. F. Peters: 1982). What about listeners? It's hard to get the same direct, sensuous pleasure from the unaccompanied violin forced to do the impossible as is provided by Cage's percussion or prepared piano music. But the challenge is undoubtedly exhilarating, as it was for the cellist Frances-Marie Uitti. (Seemy review of Cage's cello works on Etcetera in March, where I compared the Etudes borealis for cello with these Freeman Etudes. Note, too, that there are competing recordings of both these virtuoso studies in desiccation and discontinuity! Which cause us to revise our notions of what continuity is?) The recorded sound for Uitti is more polished, which helps. Zukofsky can be heard breathing and no doubt sweating over the difficulties in rather harsh, close acoustical balance. The trouble is that this is the kind of music one can imagine without having to listen to it!
There's something of the penitential exercise about the other two works also. Both have connections with Satie—the Chorals are based on Satie's posthumously published piano works and Cheap Imitation is a bar-by-bar reading of Satie's cantata, Socrate, based on the life and death of Socrates. The rhythms are exactly Satie's but the pitches have been processed through Cage's chance operations, though they remain modal. Cheap Imitation started as a piano piece, then an orchestral version followed, and then Zukofsky worked with Cage on the solo-violin version. If you know the Satie, the work has fascinating echoes connecting two composers who have been and still are of crucial importance in twentieth-century music. The Chorals are less obviously derived, but Cage has achieved a new sound in his bell-like, struggling near-unisons (microtonally distorted) across the strings. All this is worth having on CD, but the booklet-notes ought to have been updated.'