| Category: | Musical composition |
| Dated: | 1983-1985 (double bass, oboe, voice, percussion); New York City, 1985 (trombone); Banff, December 1983-January 27, 1984, Taipei (flute); New York City, July 18, 1992 (cello, unfinished) |
| Instrumentation: | Solos for oboe, flute, contrabass, voice, trombone with percussion or orchestral obbligato |
| Duration: | indeterminate |
| Premiere and performer(s): | |
| Dedicated to: | Joelle Leandre (double bass and orchestra), Robert Aitkin (flute), James Fulkerson (trombone), Isabelle Ganz (voice), Michael Pugliese (percussion) |
| Choreography: | --- |
| Published: | Edition Peters 66986 a-g © 1983, 1984, 1985 by Henmar Press. |
| Manuscript: | Parts for double bass (holograph in pencil and ink - 16 lv.), for flute (copyist's manuscript and holograph in ink - 16 lv.), for oboe (incomplete galley proof with holographic emendations in pencil and copyist's emendations in blue pencil - 1+15 lv., as well as holograph in ink and red, blue and grey pencil - 2+14 lv.), for percussion (composer's printed part of ensemble player A with holographic annotation - 2 p.), for trombone (galley proof - 17 p. as well as copyist's manuscript with holographic emendations and directions - 17 p.); Performance notes for flute version (holograph in red ink - 1 lf.); Sketches for double bass version (copyist's manuscript and holograph in ink - 1 p + 1 envelope); Sketches for flute part (holograph in ink - 1 lf.); Sketches for oboe version (holograph in ink - 2 lv.); Sketches for percussion part (holograph in pencil and ink - 3 lv.); Sketches and used templates (holograph in ink - 3 lv.); Sketches for voice part (holograph in pencil - 3 lv.); Sketches for voice part (copyist's manuscript in ink with holographic emendations in red pencil - 18 lv.), all in New York Public Library. |
| In 1983 started a composition in progress called Ryoanji, named after the rock garden in Kyoto, Japan.
This garden is a collection of 15 rocks, placed in a landscape of raked, white sand. In the summer of 1983 Cage started a
series of drawings entitled Where R=Ryoanji, using 15 different stones and drawing around these. Around that time
the oboist James Ostryniec asked Cage to write a piece for him, which resulted in the first part of Ryoanji. Between
1983 and 1985 Cage added 4 more parts for voice, flute, double bass and trombone. In July 1992 Cage made sketches
(during an interview with Joan Retallack and Michael Bach, described in Musicage - Cage muses on Words, Art, Music.
), together with Michael Bach, for a cello part he never completed. The solos (in any combination or as solos) are always accompanied by a percussion part or a similar 20 member orchestral part. Every solo is a series of 8 songs (9 in the voice version). A song is created on 2 pages, each of which contains 2 rectangular systems. In every rectangle Cage traced parts of the perimeters of the given stones. These curves should be played as glissandi, within the given pitch ranges. In some places, contours overlap, thus being impossible to play for a soloist. In these cases, tape recordings are used to allow the soloist to play duets or trios. The percussion part is a single complex of 2 unspecified sounds, played in unison, wood and metal (not metal and metal). The metres for these materials are twelve, thirteen, fourteen or fifteen. The twenty musicians of the orchestra each independently choose a single sound, which they use for the entire performance. They should play in "Korean unison", their attacks being close, but not exactly together. These parts are a series of quarter notes (like in the percussion part) with notations (different for each instrument) to play slightly before, slightly after or more or less on the beat. The soloists represent the stones of the garden, the accompaniment the raked sand. |