Ryoanji (1985)

Ryoanji is often considered, in my opinion quite rightly, one of Cage's finest compositions from the 80s and is one of his most frequently recorded. It has a long and interesting genesis, which goes all the way back to the early 60s when Cage visited the Ryoan-ji temple in Japan. He was fascinated by its karesansui, a "Zen garden" consisting of large rocks placed on a bed of small pebbles, raked to create minimal, ripple-like patterns. Looking at pictures of it on Google, it's easy to see why he was entranced by this tranquil miniature landscape: he had long held the view that function of art is to "imitate nature in her manner of operation", and the Ryoan-ji garden is as clear an example of this as you're likely to find.

However, the garden would not have any explicit influence on his work until about two decades later, when he began creating a series of drawings called Where R = Ryoanji. These were created by placing stones on the paper and drawing around them, usually just with pencil. The position and orientation of each stone and the hardness of the pencil used to circle it were all determined by chance operations. They are perhaps the most austere of Cage's visual art - indeed, he saw drawing them as being more a form of meditation - but like the rock gardens they have a simple, tranquil beauty:

Cage then applied the same technique to musical composition, scoring many of the parts for Ryoanji by drawing along one side of a stone. The resulting lines represent changes in pitch (these sounds are the rocks of the garden; Cage also adds a conventionally notated percussion/orchestra obbligato that stands for the raked pebbles):

This is then a very interesting piece, intimately connected with both his Zen influences and his visual art. It is also a piece of simply stunning beauty. The first thing one hears, at least in my favourite recording of it, is the percussion, a drum that sounds like it has some kind of bells on it. It's reminiscent of the percussion in But what about the noise... (1985), in that the instrument is hit just once, then there is a long period of silence, then it is hit just once again, and repeat; and also in that it's impossible to follow its beat (given their proximity in time, I wonder if Cage had similar things in mind when scoring each of them). However, Ryoanji is very much unlike that composition in that here, there's only one percussive sound. The playfulness of But what about the noise... contrasts with the much more ascetic mood here.

Solos of microtonal glissandi from a somewhat plaintive flute and a low, grumbling trombone accompany the percussion. I love the guttural sound of the trombone, being played right at the lowest possible end of the scale, especially as it contrasts with the lighter flute. They are both played slowly, softly, and they often dissolve back into silence. Cage once described sound poetically as being bubbles on the surface of silence that burst. These sounds are more like a thin mist in silence, fading in, fading out, not-quite-existing.

Since there are so many recordings of this, I also had a listen to this rather different take provided by Mode Records. What's notable about it is its denser arrangement. We have four soloists here: the flute and trombone, as before, but also oboe and bass. Plus, the single percussion instrument is replaced by a twenty-piece orchestra. The effect is that the soloists' sounds here seem much more tangible. Indeed, they are somewhat imposing, as the larger number of sounds results in a fairly extreme and continuous dissonance. Personally, I prefer the more standard versions with percussion and fewer instruments. This doesn't have the same contemplative mood... and without any hard, percussive sounds, it just doesn't feel like Ryoanji to me. Which is not to say that it's bad, of course. Indeed, it's definitely worth hearing, as aside from the beauty of the music its different approach shows a new, unexpected side to the piece.

I'm also aware of a version of Ryoanji that goes on for over an hour. Unfortunately I haven't heard this one, but it's on my wishlist. No recording of it that I've heard has extended beyond 20 minutes.