Four2 (1990)

A stunningly beautiful and in many ways fairly surprising Number Piece for choir. As with most Cage pieces, the pace is slow: each person sings a single note, held for a long time - I mean a very long time, what sometimes seems like a superhuman length of time - and then rests. There is always at least one person singing, usually more; so this is built from a number of often overlapping, long, single notes.

So far, so good, nothing unusual there. What's surprising about it is its extreme consonance. This is, without any doubt, the most consonant Number Piece. It actually reminds me much more of Cage's "imitations" (Cheap Imitation, Hymns and Variations, Quartets I-VIII) than his Number Pieces. Now as far as I know, this is an entirely original work. I think it was composed for a high school choir, which might explain why Cage chose to work with more traditional material. Anyway, frankly, coming from a steady diet of Cage, this is almost overwhelmingly consonant, sort of like eating really sweet chocolate cake after having had a month off all junk food. I'm not complaining though. I love chocolate cake. And this composition is absolutely beautiful, in a traditional way.

Interestingly, over the last two minutes, standard Cage seems to reassert himself a little: the piece takes a darker turn as slightly more dissonant notes emerge, some of which are high-pitch nearly to the point of being shrill. The mood becomes rather more uneasy. It ends on an unresolved tension.

This leads us to another surprising thing about Four2: whereas most Number Pieces don't seem to progress or go anywhere, this has a clear structure - a simple structure, to be sure, but given the relatively short length (7 minutes), it's easy to pick up. The volume gradually increases over the first minute, then is stable until about three and a half minutes, at which point the music goes fairly quiet. This lasts until five minutes, when the somewhat more dissonant notes come in, and the volume increases. This section lasts till the end. Hence: 0'00" to 3'30": consonant loud - 3'30" to 5'00": consonant quiet - 5'00" to 7'00": dissonant loud. It is of course entirely possible that this structure arose entirely by chance. Perhaps if Cage had written 70 minutes rather than 7, we would have lots of random changes in volume and consonance/dissonance (or perhaps it would have the same general structure, but this would be unnoticeable when stretched to that length). But as it is, it's very difficult not to hear this as evincing some sort of overall development.

The mood throughout is one of yearning and devotion, with a religious/spiritual undertone. The use of the choir sets the religious atmosphere. Indeed, the choir sounds otherworldly, simply angelic (as I said, the notes are held for a superhuman length of time...). Part of this is that I'm listening to the recording by Mode, which boasts some incredible production. The voices are very resonant, and since there are no vocal acrobatics, no vibrato or whatever, each note rings out absolutely pure (this is probably partly why the consonance is so striking). I find it deeply moving. I don't know what prompted Cage to write this, but it really is an entrancing composition, well worth hearing.