I ordered scores from the library and they arrived today. Amazing! I wanted to look at these so badly when I was at Queen's but they always went on about funding etc. The staff at Dartington library got them without a problem.
I'll want to collect a lot of scores for my dissertation but these two I wanted in particular because they seemed so unusual. John Cage's Atlas Eclipticalis looks especially interesting. When I've told some people about this piece they've thought it was a little ridiculous. A guy who just puts paper over a star chart and hey presto! We have a score. But on reading the preface page I can tell a lot of thought has gone into turning this into playable music. I wouldn't envy the performers though.
I requested George Crumb's Makrokosmos too, simply for the fact that I wanted to view the Spiral Galaxy score. I really like this piece, but I can't help feeling the spiral scoring is simply an aesthetic quality, as it reaps no performance benefits and only give the sight-reader a slight neck strain.
