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John Cage & Hans Otte: Orient meets Occident on Live Disc

  Tobias

Hans Otte and John Cage were friends and soulmates throughout their lives. Otte introduced many German listeners to the works of Cage, whom he would regularly invite to the events sponsored by his employer Radio Bremen. Vice versa, the contact with Cage was not unimportant to his own, still sadly overlooked, oeuvre, which culminated in the two compositions mentioned in the first paragraph: „The Book of Sounds“, a collection of twelve piano pieces and „The Book of Hours“, an even more ambitious and stretched-out cycle.

The idea of „Orient:Occident“ goes deeper than that, however. Even though both Hans Otte and John Cage were representatives of what has been called the „beautiful piano sound“, they, too, had their unique characteristics: The „occident“ part of the disc belongs to Otte, while eastern philosophy strongly influenced the integration of „oriental“elements into Cage's oeuvre.

„Orient Occident“ was also the title of an album on Pogus Records from last year, which captured early pieces by Otte, large parts of whose work is still awaiting release.

Homepage: Wergo Records