Two6 (1992)

A twenty-minute Number Piece for piano and violin; as you can probably guess, its most distinctive features are its slow pace and minimal arrangement.

It does however have a few distinctive features. Notably, some of the piano parts are derived from Cage's piece Extended Lullaby (1991), which itself is one Cage's Satie pieces, derived from Satie's Vexations. Unfortunately I've never heard Extended Lullaby. But the parts excerpted here clearly show the strong Satie influence: consonant, delicate, meandering melodies. The rest of the piano parts, penned by Cage, are just ascending scales. Again, they're consonant, and played softly, so merge well with the Extended Lullaby excerpts (indeed, without careful listening, it probably won't be obvious which parts are derived from Satie and which aren't). They do stand out in a way, though, since a simple move up a scale leaves you with the distinct impression that the music is going somewhere; in contrast to the meandering mood of the piece overall.

At first, for about two minutes, the violin plays a high-pitch, airy drone - it's more reminiscent of whistling wind than a violin, very atmospheric, and makes for an interesting contrast with the piano. It would have been cool if this kind of thing had gone on longer. After this, however, the violin becomes relatively active. Passages contain a number of notes, that get higher and lower and higher and lower in a narrow pitch range, like the kind of style used in Ten, and as in that piece, the music here evokes a rocking motion (imagine a person saying "ee-oo-ee-oo-ee-oo"; that's sort of what it sounds like). The mood of these parts is surprisingly plaintive. Maybe it's something about the particular timbre of the violin combined with that kind of playing, but the result definitely seems more emotive than usual for Cage. Anyway, these passages alternate with the quiet drones (though unfortunately, the lovely wind-like sound of the first drone never makes another appearance).

So this is Two in two ways: two instruments, the piano and violin; and each instrument plays two kinds of things: the piano alternates between Satie and Cage, the violin, between quiet drones and more active, emotive parts. Very interesting listening, and often very beautiful. (When I listened to this yesterday, I wasn't quite so keen on it. The violin and piano seemed kinda incongruous, they didn't fit together well. I think I felt that the sad mood of the violin clashed with the extreme tranquility of the piano. And indeed I still think that they seem incongruous. But that tension between the two moods has very much grown on me. There's a famous Zen story that Cage liked to tell about a monk who achieves Enlightenment and, when he's asked how it feels, responds: "I'm just as miserable as ever." This piece, with its contradictory moods, reminds me of that.)