Cat Duet

Program Note:

Undercutting the notion of “serious” music is precisely one of Cage’s motivations in this work. But he was not the only composer to find humor in high art. Even Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868), that bastion of the Italian concert hall, could engage the lighter side of merging poignant operatic gestures with feline vocalizations in his Duet for Two Cats. With only one word, “meow,” the piece derives its appeal from the clash between high culture and low comedy. Scored for prima donna sopranos, it was created in 1825 by using material from Otello.

(c) Jason Stell