Mina Gajić & Zachary Carrettin - Bach Uncaged (2024) [Hi-Res]

This recording is a reflection of several performances that took place over time and in varying acoustic environments, including collaborations with contemporary and aerial/vertical dance. The Cage works tend to be binary in form, and while meditatively free flowing in spirit, the architecture is clean and easily understood. The Bach works—four movements that make up a sonata—offer a multitude of interpretive options, including an approach that wanders through the harmonic labyrinth without regard to pulse and traditional notions of time, magnifying minute rhetorical statements along the way. It can be such that the Bach works represent the dreamscape while the atonal prepared piano pieces of Cage represent structure. This might be in opposition to many listeners’ expectations. Performance traditions of Bach, combined with the underlying dance rhythms and characters that pervade his instrumental writing, steer many musicians in the direction of the rational: consistent tempo, consistent articulation in each motif’s repetition, concise determination of tempo and character as related to the movement’s marking, such as “allegro.” Bach’s exquisite contrapuntal writing and harmonic nuance contribute to the idea of intellectualism as an oft utilized guide for musical interpretation—when deciding about phrasing, articulation, and the sense of time. Conversely, Cage’s exploration of non-Western music idioms played on western instruments seems a natural departure from the European ideas of form and content. Thankfully, written music has much room for the implementation of ever-changing ideas in time, ideas that change over time, and even though a recording seems to be a permanent medium, recordings can be approached as a performance: a rendition of a work or an entire concert program is a reflection of ideas that are offered to the audience here and now. In this recorded rendition, Cage offers the morning coffee following each Bachian dream.