Postcard from Heaven

Victoria Jordanova, harps; Pamela Z, voices

Cage’s prophetically-titled Postcard from Heaven, a mesmerizing, roughly 40-minute 1982 composition scored for 20 harpists, receives its world premiere recording on this new disc from ArpaViva. Originally premiered at Minneapolis’s Walker Arts Center in the early ’80s, it has rarely been performed since, most likely due to the practical difficulty of assembling 20 harpists willing to tackle experimental new music. Jordanova elimates this problem through the miracle of the overdub. While not exactly the same as what Cage originally intended, her approach has given the work new life and, in fact, the work does sound like a postcard from heaven written by John Cage.

—FJO