Atlas Eclipticalis (1962)

One of the more infamous entries in Cage's catalogue, as it was the subject of a disastrous performance in 1964 by the New York Philharmonic, presented by Leonard Bernstein. The audience hated it, and so did the orchestra, who pretty much ignored Cage's score and just messed around. You can hear this performance here (Atlas Eclipticalis starts at about 11:30, but I'd recommend listening to the whole video as it includes an introduction by Bernstein and a free improvisation by the orchestra). Quite frankly, I really like it that performance. In fact I love it. It's right up my street, I think it sounds fantastic. I can see why Cage was annoyed though.

Beyond this disaster, Atlas Eclipticalis is notable for being the first composition that Cage wrote using star charts - I believe by simply copying the stars onto paper and placing staves over them, giving the notes (then using other properties of the stars, such as magnitude, to determine the volume and duration of the notes). Hence this is Cage's earliest composition in which natural phenomena plays a notable role. I'm not sure, however, whether there was any significance in the use of stars, or if it was simply a more expedient way of generating chance than the endless coin-tossing required for the I-Ching.

Certainly, at first blush, it doesn't really evoke starlight. Part of the reason for this is that it includes up to 86 instruments, of many different kinds, some of which seem to be nonstandard - for example, towards the beginning of the recording I'm listening to I heard what sounded like amplified rustling paper, then later, there was an occasional metallic rattling noise. With all of this variety, it's more evocative of, say, the complexity of the rainforest, than the minimal and austere image of the night sky.

That's at first blush. However, it soon becomes clear that the piece boasts extreme variation in dynamics. Scattered throughout it are a number of very short but very loud sounds, which force you to play it at a relatively low volume. Here is the waveform of the first 20 minutes in Audacity:

So you have to turn the volume down, and with that, most of the instruments fade into the background, barely perceptible or just plain imperceptible. There are occasionally fairly long stretches where I can't hear anything at all; and when I can hear the instruments, it's often difficult to distinguish them. They form a quiet but intricate canvas, with loud bangs suddenly and randomly popping out of it. And now, I very much have the impression of the night sky. (With the quiet music being the black background, and the short, loud sounds being specks of starlight. There are even a few drum rolls of mid-amplitude that remind me of clouds drifting across the sky.) In fact, if you amplify the quieter parts and the silences, you find that they are just as active as the louder parts - they even have similar extremes of dynamics - much as a telescope peering into apparently empty space will reveal lots of hidden stars and galaxies. It's a lot of fun to play around with the recording, and discover music hidden beneath its surface.

This piece allows for discoveries in more ways than one. The score is for 86 instruments, but a performance may use any combination of those. Eberhard Blum has a wonderful version for three flutes, which of course is a radically different take on the piece, very minimal and quiet. It doesn't evoke starlight, though... it doesn't really evoke anything, but it is lovely to listen to. So it's well worth checking out different recordings of this.