{TABLE} The King of Denmark............ Feldman 27' 10.554".................... Cage {/TABLE} THE recent lunchtime concert in the Bank of Ireland "Mostly Modern" series was given by the percussionist, Richard O'Donnell. At the bank's arts centre in Foster Place, American-born O'Donnell gave strong performances of two pieces by American composers who were at the forefront of the post-war avant-garde. In their later work, Morton Feldman and John Cage used graphic rather than conventional notation (not exclusively, however), so as to leave aspects of pitch and rhythm to the performer's discretion.
Feldman's The King of Denmark (1964) is dedicated to the king who resisted the Nazi persecution of the Jews. It is dominated by instruments of non-specific pitch - drums, - cymbals and gongs - plus two small bells, the pitch of which defines important points. All are played by tapping or scraping with the fingers, and the result is 10 minutes of quiet music which defies conventional expectations of progress.
27' 10.544" (1960) was written when Cage was influenced by the I Ching, and was developing his belief that life and art should be indistinguishable. A tape was prepared (one of several options in performing the piece) by Richard O'Donnell, producer Paul McDonnell and others, to run throughout the work. O'Donnell wanted it to reflect a woman's sleep in her New York apartment, with the sounds of city life in the background, and a ticking clock in the foreground. The electronic tick was an ostinato throughout the time both denoted by the title, and accurately realised in this performance. Lying in a bed on the stage was Christina Brosnan, portraying the woman's disturbed sleep.
Cage requires many percussion instruments, played with enormous contrasts of dynamics and rhythm. The effect is nightmare-ish. Like the Feldman, this piece seems less radical than it would have in the heady 1960s. But it's forceful, iconoclastic concepts make one understand why Cage has been such an influential figure.
