凯奇“芬尼根守灵夜”作品介绍

上海美术馆FLUXUS展


klaus schoning


John cage

Roaratorio
An irish circus on finnegans wake



Voice  ——      john cage
Song   ——     joe heaney
Violin ——      paddy glackin
Bodhran——     peadar and mel mercier
Flute  ——      matt malloy
Uillean pipe——  seamus ennis
Realizaton——   john cage and john david fullemann
Editing——      klaus schoning

60’13”

1979


With “roaratorio.an irish circus on finnegans wake”, a commissioned work for WDR, john cage realized a composition that would become an international sensationn and a key work in the acoustic art of this century.

In “roaratorio”, john cage bring his experiences with music and poetry, sound poetry and tape montage, and his involvement with zen buddhism, to an all-encompassing cosmogony of the human voice, sound of nature and the environment, noise, song and music. The basis for cage’s work on “roaratorio” was his intensive study over the years of james joyce’s epochal novel “finnegans wake”, cage’s sound poetry text consists of citations from the novel. The letters of the name of irish poet “james joyce”, continually recurring, from the centeal axis of this mesostic text. John cage recited this meditative sound poem himself. Joyce ‘s text was aslo used as the basis for the musical composition, a complex ambience of noise and sound. With the help of the ancient chinese book of oracles, the “I ching” ,john cage used chance operations to determine the sounds of 2293 place and noise mentioned in “finnegans wake”. These he composed into a polyphonic collage. The montage was supplemented by irish ballads, jigs and instrumental music that he had recorded in ireland. John cage saw this piece as an opportunity to transpose works of world literature into acoustic form, and so into a language accessible to everyone. “more and more, I think that we need a language that gets along without translation.”


Numerous european, american and australian radio stations have broadcast this work of acoustic art that has become a classic. It has been presented by WDR at international festivals as a live performance with john cage and irish musicians. Using the composition, merce cunningham choreographed a ballet for his new york company that was performed with great success at international festivals.


Heinrich vormweg in his laudation:”’roaratorio’ is a huge tablet of contemporary cuneiform. Full of hints and information and indeecipherable, it will lure interpreters. And as a medium of immersion or of flights of fancy, as an understanding with the world, and as a comprehensive utopia, it is at the same time a radical challenge to live differently in the world. A utopia of equality and the peace it achieves.”



`````````Just a whisk
`````````of
``````pity
```````a cloud
``in peace and silence