“A rhythmically riotous piece, polyrhythms are created through the music’s consistently adjusting groupings and meters. Bacchanale was first conceived by Cage as a dance work for percussion ensemble by fellow Cornish College faculty choreographer Syvilla Fort, who asked for a composition of African inspiration. The space of the performance was not large enough to allow for the battery of percussion instruments, so Cage decided to fix weather stripping, bolts, screws and nuts into the strings of the piano to create a percussion ensemble, and the first work for prepared piano was born. Its large form being Fast-Slow-Fast, the outside sections are also broken into smaller sections of various levels of Fast-Faster-Fast. The middle section is marked Very Slow-Slow-Slower and has only one dynamic triple piano (ppp). The preparation of the guitars consisted of paper woven through strings 6-2, and an alligator clip on the first string with two washers around it. It is as close to rock and roll as one can get in 1940 or with classical guitars.”

It is the closing track of John. Cage. Guitar, Recorded with Adam Levin on Stone Records.