Cacioppo: Advance of the Fungi

Album review

Aside from a 2003 release on New World of recordings from the legendary ONCE Festival, George Cacioppo's imaginative music was under-represented on CD until the release of this exceptional album from Mode. Thanks to the efforts of friends and associates, Cacioppo's aleatoric and graphically notated pieces have received fresh interpretations; with the exception of his most famous composition, Cassiopeia (1962), the disc covers all the important works of the 1960s, and includes Cacioppo's own performance on electric organ of the cluster-filled Holy Ghost Vacuum or America Faints (1966). This 2006 collection deserves high marks for its sensitive performances by vocalists Janet Pape, Nicholas Isherwood, and Sevan Manoukian; Ensemble 2E2M and the Atelier de Musique Contemporaine du CNR de Versailles; and conductors Paul Méfano, Renaud François, and Lionel Arnaud, who demonstrate a profound affinity for Cacioppo's rarefied textures, free-floating pitch associations, and spectral harmonies avant la lettre. Also deserving honorable mention is Gerard Pape, whose efforts in preserving Cacioppo's legacy and producing this album are especially praiseworthy. But this album is most attractive and compelling because of Cacioppo's delicate combinations of timbres and poetic explorations of sounds and silences in some of the most gentle and moving compositions produced in the avant-garde's heyday. Time on Time in Miracles (1965) and Two Worlds (1962) reveal the strong influence of Edgard Varèse, yet they grow out from that composer's stark soundworld and evoke rather than mimic his style. Music for the unstaged pantomime Advance of the Fungi (1964) is expansive and static, with slow pacing of events and a broad structure to allow for the full resonance and decay of pitches. Bestiary I: Eingang (1960) and Mod 3 (1963) are fine compositions in their own right, but they seem minor alongside the previously mentioned works, which are the most exemplary of Cacioppo's art in their wholeness and depth. Kudos to Mode for providing the best possible recording quality for these offerings, which depend almost entirely on sound production as their raison d'être.

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