Sixty-Eight (1992)

First of all, I apologise for my absence over the past week. I've been quite busy, mostly because I've just moved from home to university. My target when I started this blog was one review per day, and I'll try to get back to that - though of course it depends on how much work I have...

Anyway, onto one of my favourite Cage compositions: Sixty-Eight! Essentially, we begin with a number of instruments playing in unison. Then silence. Then, a number of instruments playing in unison, though this time on a different note. Another silence. Then a number of instruments playing in unison, again on a different note... and so on, to the end of the piece. Ultimately then this piece is a series of drones separated by silences, in which multiple instruments play a single note in unison. There are fifteen such drones, spread over half an hour.

Probably thanks to Cage's use of time-brackets, allowing the performers freedom over when to start and stop, the drones build up and recede gradually. They wax and wane in a cyclical manner; it's evocative of something like slow breathing, or perhaps the sea that washes in and out with each wave.

The "series of drones" structure is in itself quite interesting, but the style of playing is also notable. Unlike most Number Pieces, this is, of course, not especially dissonant (well, in fact, it doesn't sound quite as consonant as you'd expect from unison playing, so I wonder if this might have been one of the many Number Pieces in which Cage used slight imperfections of tuning, to produce imperfect unisons). It also features no sudden, loud sounds. So, this is as close as Cage comes to traditional ambient music - slow, not intrusive, doesn't demand attentive listening. This could easily fade into the background; you could even fall asleep to it, and it won't jolt you awake with sharp, loud bangs scattered randomly through it.

What I love most about Sixty-Eight is its fascinating exploration of timbre. Here, Cage has a full orchestra to play with, and he embellishes this with liberal use of non-standard instruments: for example, I heard something that sounded like a Tibetan singing bowl, evoking wind; then later, literally the sound of wind produced by a wind machine; one drone included an odd rattling noise; another, beautiful, sparkling chimes; another had something that sounded a bit like rainsticks (perhaps an appearance of the amplified cactus?); another included low, rumbling drums. Each drone has its own unique character. In fact, Cage could have probably taken each particular drone and extended it to, say, five minutes to form a stand-alone piece. This is definitely one of the most active and varied Number Pieces, despite its slow pace.