Werk: A Flower

There was no doubt that for this concert, one had to enter the front door with a completely open mind. The aim of the Contemporary Music Venture is to promote contemporary music to a wider audience, in an hour and for free – an honourable challenge.This was set to be their first concert of the year.

Almost as remarkable as John Cage's actual music is how varied it is. Nothing obvious connects The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs, a beautifully simple four-note piece for soprano and piano lid, to Four Solos for voice, a late work in which four singers independently do a series of strange things at the same time.

For most of us, the word ‘experimental’ probably provokes images of brass instruments filled with washing-up liquid or electrically manipulated sneezing sounds. But experimental doesn’t have to mean mental: it can simply refer to something original, something done differently.