American Percussion Works
American Percussion Works is a rare collection of seldom heard works each with specific rules or themes as basis for the compositions. In John Cage’s First Construction the principle is based on the figure 16. Alberto Ginastera’s work Cantata para América Mágica, used pre-Columbian texts based on the conditions of human life, with war, natural phenomena, daybreak, night and love. Lou Harrison mixes non-European forms which follow the pattern of having a single melodic part accompanied (or enhanced) by rhythmic percussion in his Koncherto. Varèse’s Ionisation too enters a new land being his first solely percussive work where he finds a new grammar for the language of music.
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