John Cage - Complete Piano Music, Vols. 1-10 - Steffen Schleiermacher (2004) {18CD Set MDG 613 1731-2 rec 1997-2002}
Steffen Schleiermacher's monumental traversal of the complete piano music of John Cage will be essential for the collection of any fan of the composer's, unless he or she has already purchased the previously released ten volumes (a total of 18 discs) that are boxed together here and reissued in recognition of the composer's 100th anniversary in 2012. The 20-hour compilation is a testimony to Cage's hugely prolific output, and certainly constitutes one of the most significant collections of keyboard music of the 20th century. There could hardly be a more sympathetic and skillful interpreter of Cage's oeuvre than German pianist/composer Steffen Schleiermacher. Much of the music was derived from chance and other pre-compositional procedures, and in an indifferent performance can sound random and meandering, but Schleiermacher consistently brings an acute sensitivity, intelligence, and sense of direction to the scores. Cage often allows extraordinary freedom to the performer; in some cases, as in Music for Piano 21-52, he offers only written instructions outlining certain procedures and parameters that require the performer to write the music him/herself. The marvel of Schleiermacher's performances is the consistency with which he takes advantage of the composer's assumption that the pianist will use the sometimes-skeletal notation to personally discover and convey meaning and beauty in the music's execution.
