With CAGE² Bertrand Chamayou brings together 20 dance-inspired pieces written for prepared piano by the American composer John Cage (1912–1992). It continues Chamayou’s recorded exploration of Cage’s music, which began with the Erato album Letter(s) to Erik Satie, released in 2023. Juxtaposing the music of Cage and Satie, whose work Cage championed and revived in the mid-20th century, the album was welcomed by the Guardian as “a gem of a collection”.

John Cage’s name is widely associated with one of his works, 4’33” – which famously comprises four minutes and 33 seconds of silence – and with his invention in the 1940s of the prepared piano: the “preparation” consists of placing small objects (such as bolts, screws and coins, or pieces of rubber, fabric or plastic) between the strings of a grand piano, thus giving rise to a variety of timbres and percussive effects when the instrument is played. Not for nothing did Arnold Schoenberg, Cage’s teacher for a time in Los Angeles, provocatively classify him as “not a composer but an inventor – of genius”.

Bertrand Chamayou recounts the genesis of the prepared piano. “John Cage hit upon this brilliant idea in 1940, as a way of overcoming an obstacle. The Afro-American dancer Syvilla Fort commissioned him to write the music for her ballet Bacchanale, which was to be premiered at the Repertory Playhouse in Seattle … Inspired by the idea of music with an African influence, Cage’s thoughts understandably turned towards a small percussion ensemble. However, because the stage area was too small, he had to compose for the only instrument at his disposal: a baby grand piano. It was at this point that, instead of adapting his music, Cage set about ingeniously adapting his instrument. This is how the ‘prepared piano’ was born …

“In the 1940s and 50s Cage wrote a great many works for this instrument, so rich in possibilities. With each new metamorphosis, Cage’s prepared piano conjured up an original sound world that reflected the diverse influences upon him at the time: African tribal music, Balinese gamelan, his growing attraction for Zen Buddhism, but also major political issues, particularly racial segregation (for instance in Our Spring Will Come) or the tragedies of World War Two (In the Name of the Holocaust).”

Other evocative names for the 20 pieces on the album – which range in duration from less than a minute to around nine minutes – include The Perilous Night, Daughters of the Lonesome Isle and A Valentine Out of Season. With their iridescent timbres, insistent, sometimes jazzy rhythms, and frequently quirky spirit, they are mesmerising in their effect. It becomes clear why, as the New York Times wrote: “Mr Cage’s influence was extremely far-reaching. He started a revolution by proposing that composers could jettison the musical language that had evolved over the last seven centuries, and in doing so he opened the door to Minimalism, performance art and virtually every other branch of the musical avant-garde.”

Dance was important in Cage’s trajectory, as Bertrand Chamayou explains: “In addition to the music for Syvilla Fort, the pieces on this album were written for dance solos created by the dancers and choreographers Valerie Bettis, Wilson Williams, Pearl Primus and Jean Erdman, and above all for Merce Cunningham, who came to form an iconic duo with Cage, as we know, and who became his partner in life.”

This album takes its title, CAGE², from a stage show, built around 12 pieces for prepared piano written by Cage between 1940 and 1945, which Chamayou and dancer-choreographer Élodie Sicard toured around France. For practical purposes, it was necessary to have four pianos, each “prepared” in different ways, on the stage. The mathematical power of 2 applied to Cage’s name in the show’s title (“Cage squared”) refers both to the complementary presence of two performers – a pianist and a dancer – and to the square formed by the four pianos, each in a corner of the stage.

In 1972, in a text entitled “How the piano came to be prepared”, John Cage traced the invention of the prepared piano and set it in the context of his open-minded philosophy: “The prepared piano, impressions I had from the work of artist friends, study of Zen Buddhism, ramblings in fields and forests of mushrooms, all led me to the enjoyment of things as they come, as they happen, rather than as they are possessed or kept or forced to be.”