John Cage's Bacchanale. A reconstruction for percussion ensemble.

Gorka Catediano Andrade

Name: Gorka Catediano Andrade Main Subject: Classical Percussion Research Supervisor: Karst de Jong Title of Research: John Cage´s Bacchanale - A reconstruction for percussion ensemble Research Question: John Cage's piece Bacchanale (1940) was written for prepared piano. However, this was likely because of logistical restraints. Is there an instrumentation for percussion ensemble possible, and if so, how would it sound? Summary of Results: After researching about different prepared piano pieces by John Cage, we can realise that Bacchanale is the most suitable to be rewritten for percussion instruments due to its sonority and circumstances of composition. The piece was conceived for percussion instruments but there was not enough room in the theater to set up all these instruments. Therefore, Cage composed Bacchanale for a piano with different found objects placed into strings. For this research, a set of percussion instruments, similar to the ones that Cage´s ensemble had, imitates the prepared piano´s sonority. All the original sounds have been distributed in its corresponding drums and the composition has been transcribed to be played by four percussionists. During the presentation, both the reconstruction procedure and video recordings of the transcription will be shown to the audience. In this way, the audience will be able to understand why this piece can be perfectly played in a concert using percussion instruments, how can we came up with this result and what is its sonority. Biography: Gorka was born in 1992 in Miranda de Ebro (Spain), where he started his music studies. He continued developing his knowledge in the Conservatory of Vitoria- Gasteiz, “Jesús Guridi”. Later, he graduated from the Music Conservatory of the Basque Country (with prof. Javier Alonso, Lorenzo Ferrandiz, José Trigueros and Antonio Domingo). He is currently completing a master in percussion at Koninklijk Conservatorium (The Hague, The Netherlands) with Hans Zonderop, Theum van Niewburg, Pepe García, Niels Mefieste and Rob Verhagen. He has collaborated with many instrumental groups including Symphony Orchestra of The Basque Country, Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, Slagwerk Den Haag and AskoSchoenberg among others. He has also won prizes in different competitions, as the 2º prize in the Italy Percussion Competition in 2014 and he has played as soloist in prestigious festivals as “Quincena Musical Donostiarra”. Chamber music is an essential aspect in his professional career. He is part of IKKO percussion quartet and Trio ZUKAN (percussion, txistu and accordion). Both ensembles collaborate with several contemporary music composers.

Now that we understand the first stage of Cage as composer, the origins of the prepared piano, and even the preparations required for Bacchanale, we are able to immerse ourselves in the process of transcribing from a historicist point of view. It is now time to look back and see if we are able to answer the written questions in "Introduction" and if we can conceive new ideas based on this research.

The answer to our research question "Is an instrumentation for percussion ensemble possible, and if so, how would this sound?" is now obvious. There are sufficient historical evidences to justify the transcription of Bacchanale for percussion ensemble. Likewise, we have the instruments and interpretative techniques to carry out such a transcription. However, we must emphasize the fact that the reconstruction is based on the Peters Edition of the score instead of on the original preparations of the piano. The lack of knowledge about the original preparations and their sounds prevents us from performing a real reconstruction of it, of the 1940 version.

Another question raised at the beginning of this research was regarding the selection of the most appropriate instruments to perform the piece. These instruments had to fulfill two conditions: to be known and used by Cage in his first percussion works and to simulate the sounds (timbre, volume and resonance) of the prepared piano. After studying the case, we can conclude that the best option is to the use of Chinese toms (or tamboras) for the weather-stripping preparations and cowbells for the metallic preparations. We can add small metal pieces to cowbell´s surface to imitate the rebound of the screw with nuts preparation.

Regarding the original version of Bacchanale, after a theoretical study of it and without any sound reference, we can propose two approaches to the performance: first approach, using tin cans as main instruments, which meets the conditions of being known and used by Cage, but we do not know its similarity with the piano timbre. The second approach, is the V. Thomson proposal of using gamelan instruments, which does not fulfill our condition of being an instrument used by Cage.

As we have chosen the most appropriate instruments for the performance, we have also obtained new ideas on the playing techniques. These techniques also follow the historical criteria and also match certain characteristic effects of the prepared piano (such the use of una corda pedal or the resonance decay). The general techniques involves playing with hands in the center and edge of the drum. It is added with effects such as playing with a soft rubber mallet on the cowbells to lengthen their resonance; with the hand to get noise in the attack; or with combinations of cowbell plus drum to imitate the double preparation of B-flat. Likewise, in case the tempi are very slow, there is a possibility of playing the drums with felt mallets.

Given the doubts about the tempi of Bacchanale: we have not been able to establish any clear criteria that allows us to specify the metronomic speeds. However, we know the tempi range of the piece, that is, which sections should be faster, which shoud be slower and which share the same tempo. We also know the different piano preparations, their placement or material, and ever that the piano itself will produce different sounds in each case. The dynamics and resonance of these sounds will vary on each occasion and the tempo of the piece will naturlly adjust to them. With louder and longer sounds, we will opt for slower tempi so the rhythmic precision will be mantained and then the opposite the with short and soft sonorities.

However, we must not forget the role of Bacchanale as an accompaniment for dance. The above criteria will be valid in case of playing the piece in a concert version. When the piece includes the choreography, we must use the tempi inaccuracy in favor of the dancer and adapt the music to the speed of his or her movements. Even in this case, the tempi ratio between different sections must be kept.

After completing this last chapter and answering the questions raised in "Introduction", it is time to put all this knowledge into practice and try a real performance of Bacchanale with percussion instruments. However, before finishing this paper, we can not avoid asking one last question: What could have happened if Cage had had enough room for his percussion ensemble? Would his music have developed in the same way it did during the next ten years? An exciting question that will never get its answer.

4. CONCLUSIONS

Tip

Tip