Two3 is the third “number” piece Cage wrote for two instruments. In the
number pieces, the first number, spelled out, is the number of instruments
or performers; the second, in digits, is the position of the piece in
chronological order.
Each of the number pieces, which Cage composed in the last years of his
life, has its own character, due to the varied selections of instruments, be
they solo instruments, such as piano, or ensembles. They range from one to
108 instruments. You can read a good explanation of his technique in
composing the number pieces
here and Wikipedia has a list of the works
here. Parts of the scores Cage wrote for these works
include flexible time brackets, allowing the musicians a great deal of
latitude in their performance. Hence, no two recordings sound the same.
In 1991, he wrote Two3, after meeting the
shō player Mayumi Miyata. The shō is a 17-pipe mouth
organ, used in traditional Japanese music. This recording also features
accordion for some sections, together with sheng and conch shells; not your
standard group of instruments (
review ~
review).
Much of John Cage’s music sounds random, which is no surprise, since his
compositional technique, from the mid-1950s on, was based on aleatory
processes. Yet Two3 doesn’t sound entirely random; its waves of sound and
decaying chords come across as more like certain types of ambient music.
There’s a lot of silence, with chords that come and go, but little actual
melody. Written in ten sections, it’s not exactly clear from the liner-notes
why the sections are ordered as they are, and why, on four of the tracks,
the musicians play two sections simultaneously.
That doesn’t matter; what comes through here is an attractive sound; not
one that fades into the background but one whose chords stand out against
the silence. Cage constantly worked with silence, and the music of Two3 can
be seen as interruptions in silence, rather than any sort of music with a
narrative.
This is a fascinating recording, one that has grown on me as I’ve listened
to it. I’ve always been on the fence about John Cage’s music, and some of it
irks me, whereas some enthralls me. This recording is definitely in the
latter camp.
Kirk McElhearn
