# John Cage



## Edward Elgar

This is a composer who's ideas were better than his music in my opinion. Schoenberg described him as "the inventor of genius" and I firmly aggree with him. A lot can be learned from Cageian ideas about the nature of music and how we respond to music.

Although quite a bit of his music is lacking in artistic merit (such as his radio music), his works for musicians can be very liberating. I went to hear his piano concerto recently and there were points during the performance where the orchestral players could make any sound they wanted. Also the piano part is a graphic score which I find very exiting as it closes the divide between composer and performer (the performer being free to semi-compose the work themselves).

John Cage I understand is a cotravertial figure and I know how we all like that so let battle commence!


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## Guest

Edward Elgar said:


> This is a composer who's ideas were better than his music in my opinion.


In many people's opinions, so far as I can tell. It's an odd notion, though. He was a composer. He thought with sounds, he thought about sounds, he distinguished between intentional sounds and unintentional sounds. I don't see how one can separate his ideas from his music. (No one does this with anyone else. Well, maybe Schoenberg a little.)



Edward Elgar said:


> Although quite a bit of his music is lacking in artistic merit (such as his radio music)


Given who Cage was, and his contributions to music, to how we think about music, this is a very peculiar statement. Indeed, it would be a peculiar statement about anyone, come to think of it. I despise the music of Bax, for instance, but I would never in a million years, or at least 750,000 years, say that about any of his pieces.

But back to Cage. Part of his importance to music was how he redefined what could be considered music. How he elevated the roles of performer, as you've pointed out, but also of listener, which if you had considered, you might have considered "lacking in artistic merit" a trifle off the point!



Edward Elgar said:


> John Cage I understand is a [controversial] figure and I know how we all like that so let battle commence!


Why? You really want _battles_? How lacking in artistic merit!! (In any event, it is 2009 already. Almost twenty years after his death. Almost a hundred years after his birth. Maybe it's time for listeners, for members of online music forums, to catch up with creative musicians around the world and appreciate the many benefits Cage conferred on the whole business!!)


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## Edward Elgar

Yo some guy, let me first start by thanking you for providing your own differing opinion that provides the basis for a good, healthy argument which is the word I immaturely infered with "let battle commence". I too think that Cage's input was highly beneficial to music. His musical ideas, which do include the listener as an entity in the performance process, are revolutionary concepts for audiences to grasp even decades after their formulation.

However Cage's radio music and music for music-box require decidedly no work from the performer. These in my opinion are not even revolutionary or innovative and are quite conventional works. 4:33 requires little work from the performer yes, yet it is still revolutionary as it includes the listener in the music making process to the highest degree. This is what I believe makes the radio music and music for music-box lack artisticly.

I think his music is a small slice of how far he took his ideas. His output does reflect his idea that music lies in everything, but to what extent did he explore the possibilities? That's why I believe his ideas were better, or rather wider reaching, than his music. I see you appreciate the need for a future of classical music and it would be interesting to find out if others feel that Cage is the way forward or not.


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## marval

I don't think I could say I am a fan of his, but give him his due he did have ideas that were different.

I think I would have to get to know the man and his works a little better, before I could fully discuss him.

This audience did not know whether to take him seriously or not.






Margaret


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## Edward Elgar

Yo marval! That is my favourite Cage clip from YouTube! The dedication and determination he has to his own cause is inspiring, the only thing wrong is that he's 100 years too early!


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## marval

Yes, I agree, I think it is an inspired clip. It gave people an insight into Cage's future music.


Margaret


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## msegers

I have so much fun with this forum, and I learn so much. But, if I had never gotten anything more than that link to the Cage video, all my time here would be worthwhile! Thanks.


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## marval

Hi msegers,

Glad you liked it, I think it gave a good indication of what John Cage was like.


Margaret


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## msegers

There is a lot of John Cage material in the archives at http://www.ubu.com.

The search for John Cage returns 213 items on ubu.com at -
http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=17493&pageid=r&mode=ALL&query=john+cage

Among the videos are -
"American Masters" John Cage: I Have Nothing to Say and I Am Saying It (1990)
http://www.ubu.com/film/cage_masters.html
Vivian Perlis (writer), TV Series: "American Masters" (1983)
Original Air Date: 17 September 1990 
Country: UK, 55 min

4"33" (2004)
http://www.ubu.com/film/cage_433.html
On January 16, 2004, at the Barbican in London, the BBC Symphony Orchestra gave the UK's first orchestral performance of this work. The performance was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, and one of the main challenges was that the station's emergency backup systems are designed to switch on whenever apparent silence (dead air) is detected. They had to be switched off for the sole purpose of this performance.

From http://www.archive.org, there are also a number of items in different media. A search returns 239 at http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=john%20cage, but it is obvious that some of them are irrelevant.

An interesting video is "At Land" (1944), a 15-minute silent experimental film written, directed by and starring Maya Deren, John Cage, Alexander Hammid and Parker Tyler at http://www.archive.org/details/AtLand.


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## Tal

Really nice composer.
I see you are crazy about the AMERICANS. 
So try Tedesco.


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## altiste

I recently had the chance to hear the solo piano work _In a Landscape_ (1948) by John Cage and thought it was an effective piece. Very evocative.


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## Zeniyama

I bought a Cage CD a while back. My favourite is either _Credo in Us_ or _Rozart Mix_.

Not very emotional music, but it's neat to listen to every once in a while.


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## Sid James

I think that the reason why Cage can still be such a 'controversial' figure is that people who haven't heard any of his actual music (as opposed to simply hearing or reading about 4'33") start ignorantly judging his whole output. I think these people can be very inflexible and unwilling to correct their assumptions by learning about the actual facts.

For example, I bought a cd yesterday of Cage's music, in the EMI American Classics series, and have been pleasantly surprised. The piece _*Credo in Us *_is especially engaging, incorporating snippets of Dvorak's _Symphony No. 9 _(on vinyl records), radio broadcasts, and music played live by the pianist and percussionist. The non-live sounds are turned up and down, becoming a kind of orchestra/accompaniment to the live players. There is a dialogue, and sometimes the players subvert the recorded/radio material, sometimes they complement it. There's alot of collage going on in this work, such as when (towards the end) the pianist starts belting out what sounds like a honky-tonk tune. The most amazing thing is that this innovative piece was composed in the 1940's, about a decade before Varese started using taped sounds in his own music.

Another interesting thing is that he actually composed for a variety of instruments, from prepared piano, to toy piano and even carillon (bells). So he was probably one of the most versatile composers around.


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## Jeremy Marchant

Andre said:


> I think that the reason why Cage can still be such a 'controversial' figure is that people who haven't heard any of his actual music... start ignorantly judging his whole output. I think these people can be very inflexible and unwilling to correct their assumptions by learning about the actual facts.


I think that's a perfect metaphor for the human condition: "judge, blame, attack first and find out (may be) after".


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Jeremy Marchant said:


> I think that's a perfect metaphor for the human condition: "judge, blame, attack first and find out (may be) after".


In my opinion, John Cage was a very superficial composer; which is actually using too strong a word as "composer" to describe him. His was a sound/noise experimentalist appealing to fringe group listeners, and perhaps to some university music students and professors trained in understanding the mechanics of sound void of emotions. Anyone trained in music these days could come up with the level of nooise and label it as music as he did, but to bring that to a level which the old masters did, which was certainly something that Cage never did (either because he didn't care to and or lacked the talent anyway), was his greatest shortfall. Like his music, there was nothing particular deep about his "philosophies". Intelligent listeners will ultimately judge for themselves what his output meant in the context of different cultures and time, and likely conclude that his music is about as relevant at best, the few minutes of life's precious moments wasted upon by listening to it.


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## Guest

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> In my opinion, John Cage was a very superficial composer


Which raises the question "How valuable is your opinion?"



HarpsichordConcerto said:


> His was a sound/noise experimentalist appealing to fringe group listeners, and perhaps to some university music students and professors trained in understanding the mechanics of sound void of emotions.


Critique of Cage by marginalizing anyone who enjoys his music or appreciates his contributions. Common approach, not very valuable or valid.



HarpsichordConcerto said:


> ...to bring that to a level which the old masters did, which was certainly something that Cage never did (either because he didn't care to and or lacked the talent anyway)


Well, this certainly illustrates the danger of using the values of one era to critique the values of another. It says nothing about Cage or his music or his influence or his philosophies. Nice empty dig about "talent," too. Come on HC, surely you can do better than that!



HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Like his music, there was nothing particular deep about his "philosophies". Intelligent listeners will ultimately judge for themselves what his output meant in the context of different cultures and time, and likely conclude that his music is about as relevant at best, the few minutes of life's precious moments wasted upon by listening to it.


Ah. And if intelligent listeners come (have already come) to the opposite conclusion,* you can ignore that, because you've already defined (silently) "intelligent listener" as someone who does not value Cage! Neat! Play dice with HC: "Heads I win; tails you lose."

*A conclusion that's only suggested, to be fair. The actual words don't quite hook up intelligibly: "is about as relevant at best, the few minutes of life's precious moments" is a pretty good example of a mixed construction, as good as I've seen since I left off teaching Freshman writing classes.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

My opinion above was largely irrelevant. I was just voicing it in a discussion forum. Although my opinion may be irrelevant and perhaps totally unqualified (I have no formal music training), the fact is my opinion is representative of what many listeners of classical music could think of his music.

Thanks for pointing out my grammatical error in the closing sentence. My fingers proceeded faster than my thoughts when I cramped it all down quickly. I won't edit it. I shall leave it all there for the world to pour shame on me.


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## Guest

Are opinions worth voicing just because you have them?

Anyway, you can change your post, and then I'll take out my reference to your syntactical gaffe and then no one will know!! (And I'll forget all about it, I promise.)


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> Are opinions worth voicing just because you have them?


Well, the last time I checked both America and Australia were free countries.



some guy said:


> Anyway, you can change your post, and then I'll take out my reference to your syntactical gaffe and then no one will know!! (And I'll forget all about it, I promise.)


It's alright. We all make big mistakes with what we write, just like Cage.


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## shmotrezoom

Hi folks---I'm baaack!

Some Guy--re your "Are opinions worth voicing just because you have them?"

Maybe, maybe not.

But it may also apply to John Cage's opinions.

"I have nothing to say, and I am saying it" pretty well sums it up.


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## Argus

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Well, the last time I checked both America and Australia were free countries.


You're confusing freedom of speech with general freedom, and even then you're point is arguable. Try walking down the street in the nuddy or not paying your taxes and see what happens.



shmotrezoom said:


> "I have nothing to say, and I am saying it" pretty well sums it up.


*I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry as I need it. *
"Lecture on Nothing" (1949)

You missed the key part of the quote out.

I own and have read a few times Silence: Lectures and Writings by Cage, and whilst he may raise some interesting points, he doesn't half spew out some Zen-influenced philosophical nonsense along the way. Then again, I don't like the writing styles of Joyce and Burroughs but they get some high praise, so what do I know. I find Earle Browne's and Cornelius Cardew's writings about similar subjects to be more cohesive.


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## StlukesguildOhio

In my opinion, John Cage was a very superficial composer

Are opinions worth voicing just because you have them?

Maybe, maybe not.

But it may also apply to John Cage's opinions.

Or to someguy's opinions... or mine.

Personally, I'm not blown away by Cage the composer... and why someguy may question why my opinions should hold any weight, I might counter in a like manner asking why his opinions to the contrary should be given any weight. I'm guessing that a great many of those who do listen to classical music on a regular basis have little or no use for Cage, although admittedly, a great many of those have probably not listened to a great deal of his work. But I'm not one who places to whole responsibility for the success or failure of a work of art upon the audience. I think that an artist or a work of art must pique the interest of the audience if the artist is to seriously expect the audience to invest the time and effort needed for a deeper understanding. How much of Cage's work pique the interest of the average classical listeners?

Have thrown out such thoughts, I'll now admit that I own some 4 discs of Cage's music. My most recent purchase was of Cage's _Singing Through_, a collection of songs. I find these works to be quite exquisite... intimate... delicate... sensual... beautiful, even. But I can imagine many might have difficulty with these stripped-down works difficult as they might also find his Works for Prepared Piano equally difficult... pointless... mere formalist games with sound/music. I sense links with earlier chant... and especially with Japanese music. Takemitsu and the music for Shakuhachi flute comes to mind. Having said that... I don't think that I would even begin to think of Cage as a musical giant... even of the 20th century.

I think that many who defend Cage have a problem with those who negate his work without having actually listened to anything by him. I think that the problem I have with the usual Cage threads is the manner in which his achievements seem overstated... especially the supposed conceptual "brilliance" of 4:33.


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## Guest

StlukesguildOhio said:


> ...those who negate his work without having actually listened to anything by him.


This is it, or mostly it, in a nutshell. The part left out is those who negate his work without having listened sympathetically or intelligently, by which I mean that you cannot listen to Cage with Mahler expectations (any more, though this comes up less often in conversation, than you can listen to Mahler with Monteverdi expectations). The listener has a job to do. Going by responses on online music threads, most listeners who respond to online music threads don't want to do any work at all.

As for opinions, it's nothing personal; an opinion to be valid has to backed up, with facts, with experience, with other opinions, and with thought. An opinion has to be something that's been thought out to be valid not just a knee-jerk reaction.

That's all there is to it, really. It's not about what makes my opinions valid or St's or HC's; it's about what makes _any_ opinion valid. Bare assertions just don't make the cut, that's all. Of course one is free to express any old opinion, valid or not. I was only asking what the point was in HC's empty assertions. Part of his freedom is that he can continue to make them. Part of mine is that I can continue to call him out.

Or not.


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## gr8gunz

marval said:


> Hi msegers,
> 
> Glad you liked it, I think it gave a good indication of what John Cage was like.


It sure does. He was a NUT!!


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## Guest

Well, whatever helps you sleep at night....


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## toucan

Some guy is determined to kill all conversation with his systematic and intemperate smear and insult on anyone who wont give in to the failed experiments of John Cage 

But of course, his resort to insult only reflects his lack of confidence in the merits of John Cage: the talents of Bach, Beethoven or Stravinsky, on the other hand, speak for themselves, therefore no one feels the urge to try and deligitimize those whose taste happens to direct them toward other composers

An inventor of genius, Cage? Not even that!

The prepared piano was not Cage's invention, it was Maurice Delage's, in *Ragamalika* (1912-1922). Was it a good invention? Not if you find the sounds produced by Cage unappealing. And even if those sounds were good and so the music produced from them, it would have been unworth the effort as very few performers are going to want to spend the time to prepare the damned piano for concert or recording.

The prepared piano reminds one of paintings (that may or may not be any good, as art) that are produced on canvases so large they cannot be exposed anywhere, even palaces.

Cage's ideas, better than his music? What ideas? That any sound is music? That is disputable at best. At the very least, it ought to be any sound organized by musicians! Or that sounds other than instrument-produced sounds are also music? Sure. But there is nothing new to that idea, as people have long enjoyed bird song or the sounds of wind blowing through reeds or tree-leaves and adults have a long history of amazing children by producing music out of dampened crystal glasses and children have a long history of amazing themselves by producing sound out of trash can lids or out of a string tied to a piece of curbed wood.

Chance music itself is not that new as some chance element existed in late medieval music (no wonder so many moderns have liked the late medievals as the spirit of experimentation already existed among them and love of innovation and modernity in the arts was invented not by the moderns but by the Gothicss).

With Cage aleatorism goes so far as to deny volition on the part of the composer: but a composer who denies himself all will to create is also a composer who denies himself opportunity to demonstrate he has talents worth showing off!

The chance element re-introduced to modern times by Cage did have one (unintended) positive consequence: it excited one of the genuinely great composers of the period immediately preceding ours, Witold Lutoslawski, into finally realizing his own talent. But Lutoslawski is another topic.

Perhaps Cage will be given by the music historians a place comparable to Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach or Ditters Von Dittersdorf: that of very minor composers who nonetheless came up with ideas, methods or systems, forms, that were put to better use by better guys (in the case of the younger Bach and Dittersdorf, the classical forms, better used by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, etc)


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## Guest

toucan said:


> Some guy is determined to kill all conversation with his systematic and intemperate smear and insult on anyone who wont give in to the failed experiments of John Cage


"He was a NUT" counts as conversation? Sounds more like a conversation killer to me.

And if you were interested in accuracy (as opposed to your own smeary and insulting agenda), then you'd know that the bulk of my comments in re Cage are about how people cannot seem to have a conversation about him, but rely almost exclusively on systematic and intemperate smears and insults.

Just look at your own phrase "failed experiments." That kind of question begging strategy (using a word like "failed" as if that were already proven), is often called "poisoning the well." Smearing indeed.



toucan said:


> But of course, his resort to insult only reflects his lack of confidence in the merits of John Cage: the talents of Bach, Beethoven or Stravinsky, on the other hand, speak for themselves....


Wow. This is almost too easy. I feel like I've suddenly been given a gun and a barrel full of fish and instructed to fire away!! The talents of Bach certainly never did speak for themselves. Not after his death, anyway. Mendelssohn had to speak for them, and speak and speak and speak until other people started to pay attention. Beethoven? Outside of Germany, people like Berlioz had to speak and speak and speak to convince people that that crazy guy's music (especially the later stuff) was worth performing and listening to.

Stravinsky.... But I've already slaughtered too many fish and am recoiling from the mayhem.



toucan said:


> And even if those sounds were good and so the music produced from them, it would have been unworth the effort as very few performers are going to want to spend the time to prepare the damned piano for concert or recording.


I attend hundreds of concerts a year around the world. I've seen dozens of concerts including some sort of preparation to the piano.

As for recordings, I guess you can check Amazon for yourself.



toucan said:


> Chance music itself is not that new as some chance element existed in late medieval music (no wonder so many moderns have liked the late medievals as the spirit of experimentation already existed among them and love of innovation and modernity in the arts was invented not by the moderns but by the Gothicss).


You realize you're paraphrasing one of Cage's ideas here? Since there is some chance element in all music, he said (not just medieval), what would happen if we _encourage_ that instead of trying to eliminate it?



toucan said:


> With Cage aleatorism goes so far as to deny volition on the part of the composer: but a composer who denies himself all will to create is also a composer who denies himself opportunity to demonstrate he has talents worth showing off!


Far from denying volition, Cage's career is one long demonstration of how strong that volition is.

And he certainly did not deny himself all will to create. He wrote music all his life, leaving many unfinished scores at his death.

(Just a wee pedantic note about aleatorism. That's a word that Boulez coined. It describes the largely European practice of opening up a determinate piece to carefully controlled bits of "chance" (a la Lutosławski). Cage's practice--largely associated with the US--was called indeterminacy, and was more philosophically sweeping than aleatory. Indeterminacy was the attempt to open up the whole situation to chance.)


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## Frasier

Cage was foremost a philosopher who found expression in sounds, intentional and otherwise. Anyone looking for traditional classical or Classical music will find Cage difficult.


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## tdc

I find Cage great supplementary music. A piece thrown in here and there feels like just what the doctor ordered sometimes, and nothing else will quite do. But I wouldnt be able to listen to his music all day like I could with Bach or Beethoven or Britten or Ravel etc.


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## Edward Elgar

toucan said:


> Some guy is determined to kill all conversation with his systematic and intemperate smear and insult on anyone who wont give in to the failed experiments of John Cage


Then why don't you give us authoritative reasons why the compositional compositions of Cage are not valid? "I just don't like it" is not a valid reason! 



toucan said:


> But of course, his resort to insult only reflects his lack of confidence in the merits of John Cage: the talents of Bach, Beethoven or Stravinsky, on the other hand, speak for themselves, therefore no one feels the urge to try and deligitimize those whose taste happens to direct them toward other composers


some guy has shot most of the fish in the barrel, but there's one left! 

Imagine you are in an early 19th century theater. A string quartet sit down and tune up. You are expecting a delightful sonata and instead get Beethoven's "Grosse Fugue".

The year is 1913 and you have gone to see a ballet. You are expecting dancing and prancing accompanied by appropriately dainty music and instead get Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring".

You are reacting to Cage in exactly the same way people reacted to Beethoven or any of the other greats you listed. Beethoven and Stravinsky are probably the most radical composers that have ever lived and their music took years to be recognized as great. This lamentable fact is due to negative attitudes that arise from a fear of the unfamiliar. Snobbery and stubbornness. Two attributes without which humanity would get along much better.


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## Argus

I've been listening to a fair bit of Cage over the last couple of weeks. I realise I'd not sampled the full gamut of his body of work. I still prefer his early percussion and prepared piano pieces over his indeterminate middle period, but some his later 80's compositions are quite lovely.

Here's a rundown of what I've been listening to:

A selection of his Number Pieces
Six Melodies
Thirteen Harmonies
Constructions
Amores
Bacchanale
Concerto for Prepared Piano
Daughters of the Lonesome Isle
Forever and Sunsmell
HPSCHD
The Seasons
Haikai
Music for Marcel Duchamp
Music for Amplified Toy Pianos
Radio Music
Fontana Mix

I don't like his electronic and tape pieces much. I find him best when he stays simple.

I'm sure all the Cage haters have just heard stuff like 4'33'', Imaginary Landscape, Music for Changes or of him playing unorthodox instruments and judge his entire career on that.


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## regressivetransphobe

Argus said:


> I'm sure all the Cage haters have just heard stuff like 4'33'', Imaginary Landscape, Music for Changes or of him playing unorthodox instruments and judge his entire career on that.


Yup. Seems like he's second only to Schoenberg in terms of perceived anarchist boogeymanism.

Speaking of 4'33'', I know it's more or less a thinly veiled essay on ambient sound, how we define music and so forth, but it always seems like a big postmodern joke on everybody when it's "performed". Pretty funny seeing a room full of grown-*** adults just sitting there uncomfortably in total silence (save for the low chorus of muted coughs and sniffs), pretending to "get" it. My, aren't we _avant-garde_.


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## Guest

regressivetransphobe said:


> Pretty funny seeing a room full of grown-*** adults just sitting there uncomfortably in total silence (save for the low chorus of muted coughs and sniffs), pretending to "get" it. My, aren't we _avant-garde_.


How do you know that they're uncomfortable?

How do you know that they're pretending?

There is no such thing, in the ordinary world, as total silence--that's the point.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> There is no such thing, in the ordinary world, as total silence--that's the point.


True but we don't need a pretentious composer to tell us that.


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## regressivetransphobe

some guy: A big point of 4'33'' is that "natural music" (or somesuch) is all around us, all the time. My point is by that logic, a formal "performance" of it is an ironic, empty gesture.

This is not a slight against Cage.


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## Guest

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> True but we don't need a pretentious composer to tell us that.


Hey, I know, let's have a pretentious poster remind us all the time, over and over again, of what we do and do not need.

(Oh, right. We've got one already.)


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## tdc

regressivetransphobe said:


> some guy: A big point of 4'33'' is that "natural music" (or somesuch) is all around us, all the time. My point is by that logic, a formal "performance" of it is an ironic, empty gesture.
> 
> This is not a slight against Cage.


I don't agree that its a completely empty gesture if its pointing out something useful - a deep concept. Its reminding us of something...no other composer had previously made this type of statement about music in a formal way, that actually forces people out of their comfort zones for 4 and a half minutes to listen to complete silence - I think this kind of thing could actually be a soul expanding exercise for many people in today's world. In my opinion it was an intuitive observation and a clever and valid artistic expression by Cage. I think if someone can just set aside the ego and do it without getting frustrated or looking down at the simplicity of it, it is useful. Some of the most powerful concepts in the world are the very simple ones - Cage's idea is not to be under estimated imo.

If Cage or others would've tried other compositions where nothing was played it would be uninspired certainly, but a one of a kind artistic statement pointing out the Zen and the 'music' in all things, strikes me as more of a thoughtful and calculated move on Cage's part, and one that I very much respect.


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## Meaghan

I remain unsure what to make of Cage, but at the very least I find him interesting. And I find 4'33' interesting. And I find his book, _Silence_, of which I have yet read only bits and pieces, interesting. Did you know he co-founded the New York Mycological Society? (Mycology is the study of fungi.)


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## Guest

tdc, It looks like you've attributed to me something that regressivetransphobe said. In his original post, the "some guy:" is him talking to me, not me talking. In your post, it looks like it's me talking.

I would never, just by the way, say what regressive said!

Just by the way, the piece in question is almost sixty years old. Any "message" it was supposed to make will of course have been long assimilated, making the "message" seem pointless or unnecessary. But a piece of music is about more than giving messages. A piece of music is about sound. And the important thing about the sounds in _4'33"_ is not that they're non-existent, or that they're very soft, or that they're made by uncomfortable auditors, or that they're ambient, or that they're any of the other things people have said about them in the past, but that they're unintended by the composer.

That, for the record, is what _4'33"_ is all about. It's the sounds that the composer has not specified. The sounds all around us all the time are interesting, just as interesting as the arrangements of sounds that can be made by people into pieces. As for it's being a "one-off," that's almost correct. (He did write a 0'00", too.) What it does is start a long season in Cage's life of writing indeterminate music. Indeterminacy is a way of writing music without specifying the things that composers had traditionally specified. Of making situations, as it were, where sounds will take place. That's what's revolutionary about _4'33"._ If you feel you have to slam the piece, go right ahead, but at least slam it for what it is not for what it isn't.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> Hey, I know, let's have a pretentious poster remind us all the time, over and over again, of what we do and do not need.
> 
> (Oh, right. We've got one already.)


I do it for fun; my profession is elsewhere, but I don't make a living out of being pretentious (referring to Cage).


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Why do we keep going on and on and on and on and on about _4'33"_? It's the most pretentious **** ever "written".


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## Guest

Why do YOU keep going on and on and on is the real question.

You can continue to derive pleasure from doing the same mindless bashing over and over and over and over again?

There must have been no winged flies where you lived when you were a kid!!


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## Argus

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I do it for fun; my profession is elsewhere, but I don't make a living out of being pretentious (referring to Cage).


And setting text from the Bible to music is in no way pretentious? Or even a composer believing that his music can communicate on a higher plane of being than mere speech?

I'll let you work out who I'm talking about. Hint: not John Cage.



> Why do we keep going on and on and on and on and on about 4'33"? It's the most pretentious **** ever "written".


I thought you'd already heard some opera. Wagner's opera, especially, must be a shoe in for that title.


----------



## Sid James

Just came here to post this "review" of a piece by John Cage, that I put on the "Exploring Modern & Contemporary Music" Thread. Oh dear, some of the usual arguments above, including some things said by "your's truly" as well, which I kind of now regret. Anyway, to be more positive, here's one of his works that I have enjoyed a lot -

*John CAGE* (1912-1992)

_*Credo in Us *_(1942)
For four performers - pianist, two percussionists, & a peformer playing recordings &/or radios

This is one of Cage's earliest works incorporating "real" and recorded sound. A friend of mine thought it was kind of "anarchist," but in a good/interesting way. It brings together some of Cage's interests in chance, non-determinism, subversion of the old & blending/contrasting it with the new. This is I think a "fun" piece. It involves the acoustic "real" players interacting with the sounds of the recordings. Here the introduction is something Russian (Tchaikovsky? Prokofiev? whatever) & in the second part (clip) below there's a bit of techno thrown in for good measure. Listen at about 1:54 in the second part/clip for some good old "honky tonk" piano. I think the parts for acoustic instruments are written down in a fairly traditional way but the recorded bits that can be thrown in can be different in every individual performance (Cage was to do more "radical" things, esp. regarding notation, later).

Piece in total lasts about 16 minutes, here on youtube split into 2 parts, watch out for the very "Cagean" touch of kind of spontaneous dancing.

Credo in Us - Part One

Credo in Us - Part Two

Wikipedia entry on the work - in English


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## regressivetransphobe

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I do it for fun; my profession is elsewhere, but I don't make a living out of being pretentious (referring to Cage).


There's a difference between being a part-time provocateur and a full-time pretentious hack. Speaking as someone who's sort of on the fence, I think Cage critics fail to make a convincing case for the latter describing him. Nasty, insubstantial cheapshots aren't enough.


----------



## Noak

The only thing I've heard by Cage that I've really enjoyed is The City Wears a Slouch Hat album that he did with Kenneth Patchen.


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## violadude

One of my favorite pieces by John Cage are the Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano. Anyone who doesn't like Cage's more experimental pieces might be pleasantly surprised by these. They very accessible. They sound inspired by Asian music to me, but I'm not expert on world music. I just love the sound of the prepared piano. The pieces as a whole kind of travel from darkness to light. A very "zen" piece.


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## Art Rock

Agree, these are excellent pieces. I have the two Naxos discs with Cage's works for prepared piano, which I recommend warmly.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

violadude said:


> One of my favorite pieces by John Cage are the Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano. Anyone who doesn't like Cage's more experimental pieces might be pleasantly surprised by these. They very accessible. They sound inspired by Asian music to me, but I'm not expert on world music. I just love the sound of the prepared piano. The pieces as a whole kind of travel from darkness to light. A very "zen" piece.


I enjoyed listening to the fourth link above. I agree there were some Asian sounding influences; in particular, Javanese? I could be wrong; regardless, it was an enjoyable piece.


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## Ravellian

I've been listening to the Sonatas and Interludes recently as well.. they definitely have a sort of melancholy, meditative feel to them. They surprised me by being much less dissonant than I thought they would be.. I would describe them more as modal than atonal. Very enjoyable set of pieces.


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## aleazk

Another "pleasantly surprisingly" pieces:

-Six Melodies, for violin and keyboard instrument (1950):






(they use a Rhodes electric piano here, which gives to the recording an even more "zen" sound)


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## millionrainbows

This 2-CD set is very good, and shows the very earliest keyboard compositions Cage did, right after studying with Schoenberg. Several of these first pieces are 12-tone (!) and show how Cage took the method and made it his own.









http://amzn.com/B000PHWDGC

Challenge: Does anybody here really understand 4'33"? If so, I'd be interested in hearing the explanation, before I tell you how I interpret the piece, what Cage's intention was, etc. This might be very tricky, and should separate the wheat from the chaff.


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## Noak

I've discovered that Cage's Number Pieces are, for the most part, amazing and very beautiful.


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## millionrainbows

Both of these works reveal an absurd, yet playful side of John Cage, and these works were created directly "by his hand," as opposed to his other works in which he strives to remove all traces of his personality, ego, self, or whatever it is called. The ridiculous narrated introduction to Variations IV ("In the grooves of this record is the music of avant-garde composer John Cage...") is priceless. I hear several instances of humor in these pieces: dogs barking, slowed-down laughter, the choices of sound sources in Variations IV which are highlighted, etc.


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## Ripvanwinkle

Cage was a whack job. Here he is picking strawberries for his next work, "Fruity Musc for 10 bushels". :lol:


----------



## Jeremy Marchant

johncagejohncage


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## Jeremy Marchant

Just to clarify, my previous post is an homage to _4'33._

I call it _"18x5, size may vary at other screen resolutions"_


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## BurningDesire

John Cage is far from pretentious. So few people ever use that word correctly, but it sure does make a nice invective for things you don't quite understand, no?


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## BurningDesire

John Cage was a great composer, a heroic artist as much as Beethoven was. He was also a very humble person. I love his work, particularly the ones where his personality is really allowed to come through, such as his gorgeous ballet "The Seasons", his "Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano", "Souvenir" for pipe organ, his "String Quartet in Four Parts", and "Child of Tree", and many other pieces of his. He wasn't about removing emotion from music, and you don't need to be an intellectual to get this stuff. Cage's music, as all music, can be enjoyed both emotionally and intellectually. A great composer, and one of my heroes as a composer.


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## Andreas

I wonder, has anyone every written a fugue on C-A-G-E? A quick Google search yielded no results. C-A-G-E would make for a nice sequence of ascending sixths.


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## BurningDesire

Andreas said:


> I wonder, has anyone every written a fugue on C-A-G-E? A quick Google search yielded no results. C-A-G-E would make for a nice sequence of ascending sixths.


Well Ives used a chord spelling "CAGED" in his song The Cage. :3

C-A-G-E does sound good though, somebody should use that as a theme


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## Crudblud

What I want to know is how people write fugues on names with letters not in that first group of 7. If you wanted to do a fugue on, for example, Mozart's name, would you hit A 26 times to get the Z?


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## norman bates




----------



## Meaghan

Today is his 100th birthday!


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## Crudblud

Happy birthday, Johnny boy! I'm about five minutes late in this time zone, but I'm sure he won't mind.


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## millionrainbows

As I understand it, 4'33" is like a framework, a prescribed space in which sound can happen. To experience a 'performance' of this piece, one listens to whatever sounds may occur within the prescribed time of four minutes and thirty-three seconds. So really, the piece does not have any "sounds" in it until we hear whatever it is we hear. This is definitely a "passive" Eastern idea of "letting things happen" instead of the Western way of "composing," determining, and controlling sounds.

Also, I think one of the key concepts in this piece, which never gets clarified, is its treatment of subjectivity, as opposed to objectivity. If you know and accept the above interpretation, which I believe is correct, then 4'33" reveals by its very premise the Eastern idea of *"total subjectivity,"* as opposed to a Western notion of *"objectivity."*

It works like this: since the performance of the work depends on the presence of, and the subjective experience of, *a listener,* then whatever sounds that comprise _that particular_ performance are _totally determined_ by the *internal experience *of the listener. Of course, this changes with every listener in every performance.

So Cage has made a "composition" which is not objectively validated by having "content, artistic merit," or even sound itself. It exists only in the experience of the listener.

In this regard, I consider this to be a very humanist gesture; I see this work as being "religious" in nature, since it involves a period of "silent sitting." *Surprise!* No wonder those people are nervous! _They're "meditating!"_

If you accept the above premise, then it's easy to see why Cage is either loved or despised and called a heretic for creating and publishing this work. This idea of his is very subversive to the Western Classical Tradition, which, as you all know, started out as music for the Church.


----------



## Mephistopheles

I saw this thread come up and thought you might be interested in this recent article: John Cage Centennial Festival: Will it silence critics in Washington?



Crudblud said:


> What I want to know is how people write fugues on names with letters not in that first group of 7. If you wanted to do a fugue on, for example, Mozart's name, would you hit A 26 times to get the Z?


I find it confusing too. One workaround is using solfege - do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti bags you an R, M, S, L and T along with the usual 7. I'm not sure what other tricks are available.


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## Guest

All pieces are frameworks in which sounds can happen.

No piece has any sounds in it until someone is listening.

Listening is not passive. 

(And listening to a piece that doesn't hand everything to you already complete and finished is a lot more active than hearing a familiar piece that you've heard over and over again.)


----------



## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> All pieces are frameworks in which sounds can happen.


All musical pieces are not _*simply*_ frameworks *only,* like 4'33" is.

In those music pieces other than 4'33" which you refer to, there is probably music notation, and this is probably performed to create those specific sounds; so there is probably "content" before the fact, and a correlation of the score to the sound as it is performed. The sounds probably don't just "happen" as in 4'33", they are determined by intent. There is probably intent and action involved, on the part of the composers and performers to create sounds in an artistic context, unlike 4'33".



some guy said:


> No piece has any sounds in it until someone is listening.


...Or until somebody plays it. But in most cases those musical pieces other than 4'33" which you refer to are pieces which have _intended_ sound. In Buddhism, there are three classes of action: 1) intent 2) speech 3) and action. Those pieces (other than 4'33" which you keep referring to) are probably using "virtual" sounds determined by a composer's _intent,_ and musicians _performing_ it _(speech and action)._

This is unlike 4'33," which has no "intent" as far as sound itself is concerned. Western musical compositions are notated, and then performed to create those specific sounds, so there is "content" and intent before the fact, and a correlation of the score to the realised sound as it is performed.



some guy said:


> Listening is not passive.


The dialectic that 4'33" reveals is the difference between "actively" composed sounds, and sounds which occur while listening, as in 4'33". In this sense, since there is no "intent" in 4'33" controlling the sounds (it's only a framework), the situation set up by Cage is "passive" or without intent by comparison.

Of course, a really good listener with artistic sensibility will "actively" focus his awareness on those sounds heard during a performance of 4'33", and perhaps hear them as "music," in contrast to the nervous, distracted, or foolish listener who merely laughs at farts, or is confused.



some guy said:


> (And listening to a piece that doesn't hand everything to you already complete and finished is a lot more active than hearing a familiar piece that you've heard over and over again.)


And I think that was one of John Cage's points.


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## millionrainbows

John Cage's work can be divided into four phases.

Phase one (1934-38), the early piano works which show him coming to terms with the twelve-note technique of his teacher Arnold Schoenberg:

Phase two (1939-42), dedicated mainly to percussion ensemble;

Phase three (1943-1948), prepared piano; and

Phase four (1951-present), which ushered in the use of chance.

So, as you can see by this timeline, 4'33" (1952) did not come until the very last phase of Cage's output. By that time, he had "given up" his personality, and tried to create art with as little "interference" as possible, relying on chance procedures. This approach is really "spiritual" or religious in nature, being a manifestation of Cage's Eastern perspective.

So it always seems to an extent absurd when I hear criticism of 4'33" and other works from this late period. The voices of the critics echo off the empty walls of an already abandoned ship. Why should Cage care? After all, it's not him, these are just "empty gestures."


----------



## BurningDesire

millionrainbows said:


> John Cage's work can be divided into four phases.
> 
> Phase one (1934-38), the early piano works which show him coming to terms with the twelve-note technique of his teacher Arnold Schoenberg:
> 
> Phase two (1939-42), dedicated mainly to percussion ensemble;
> 
> Phase three (1943-1948), prepared piano; and
> 
> Phase four (1951-present), which ushered in the use of chance.


I think thats a bit of an oversimplification. You could say Phase 1: 12-tone, Phase 2: prepared piano/percussion and influence of eastern ideas, Phase 3: Chance. The Chance period includes periods where he worked with other artists in happenings, and periods with music that is chance in the way that it is completely different in every performance (as opposed to fully notated pieces that were composed with chance), and even then, there are pieces through his later periods that call back to his more personal pieces from the 40s, like Cheap Imitation and Souvenir.


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## millionrainbows

BurningDesire said:


> I think thats a bit of an oversimplification. You could say Phase 1: 12-tone, Phase 2: prepared piano/percussion and influence of eastern ideas, Phase 3: Chance.


Mine is an oversimplification with 4 phases, then yours only has 3? Mine has more words, as well.

Your timeline:

Phase 1: 12-tone
Phase 2: prepared piano/percussion and influence of eastern ideas
Phase 3: Chance.

The early keyboard works were not all 12-tone, so I disagree with that categorization.

I don't see how you can separate "Eastern ideas" from "chance," as you have, but this seems to be the norm when discussing Cage. I see the 'chance' phase as an Eastern approach as well.

The earliest fully notated 'chance' pieces, I see as the beginning of the chance period (around 1950-51), and at the same time, since they are precisely notated, as having affinities with Boulez and Serialism.


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## arpeggio

*Dancing Around the Bride*

My wife and I occasionally like to visit Philadelphia. They frequently have concerts and recitals that we would attend and we also like going to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Our last visit was on November 15th through the 17th.

On November 15th we attended a performance of The Magic Flute that was staged by the Curtis Institute. It was really an unusual production. It was similar to scenes to the movie The Matrix. Sarastro looked like the sentient "Agent" Smith. I have not figured out the symbolic connection.

Friday afternoon we attended a performance of Alexander Nevsky with the Philadelphia Orchestra. They showed the movie with the orchestra playing all of the music cues.

That evening we went to a student recital at Curtis. We heard some extremely talented young people perform I see why I spent my life as a pension auditor.

Saturday afternoon we went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They had a special exhibit dedicated to John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Marcel Duchamp. Some of the exhibits were Cage's manuscripts of many of his works. His manuscript was almost a work of art. I like the way he wrote the treble clef sign. Even though many of these works were aleotoric, Cage had extremely detailed instructions on how they were to be performed.

I scanned in a copy of the brochure of the exhibit into a pdf file. I thought some would be interested in seeing it.

View attachment dancing around the bride.pdf


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## millionrainbows

arpeggio said:


> I scanned in a copy of the brochure of the exhibit into a pdf file. I thought some would be interested in seeing it.
> 
> View attachment 10544


Thanks, Arpeggio.

This document is _actual proof_ that John Cage was an artist, since this was an art event, and Cage is seen with other artists. That ought to shut the critics up.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> That ought to shut the critics up.


You bring up an interesting linguistic phenomenon, here, million. Just as "criticism" can mean both "negative statement" and "carefully reasoned opinion--positive, negative, or mixed" so "critic" can mean "carper" or "careful and reasonable evaluator."

The latter don't have any trouble seeing Cage as an artist; the former will always have trouble.

Ye have the carpers with you always.


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## Rapide

I have no troubles seeing Cage as an artist, specifically a con-artist.


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## KenOC

some guy said:


> Just as "criticism" can mean both "negative statement" and "carefully reasoned opinion--positive, negative, or mixed" so "critic" can mean "carper" or "careful and reasonable evaluator." The latter don't have any trouble seeing Cage as an artist; the former will always have trouble.


Ah, I understand now. A person who agrees with your point of view is a "careful and reasonable evaluator." One who disagrees is a "carper." I was confused for a moment there...


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## millionrainbows

I *know* who *John Cage* is. As for the rest of you here, I assume that you will die as you lived, in total anonymity.


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## BurningDesire

I love John Cage ^_^


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## Guest

You and me both, Burning. You and me both.

I just wish I'd been able to get to more events this year. I'll bet that one in New York recently with Petr Kotik and the S.E.M. Ensemble was to die for. I think I died a little not being able to get to that.

And the year is almost over. Oh well.

When's the next Cincinnati album coming out? Anyone know? That first one was exquisite.


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> Ah, I understand now. A person who agrees with your point of view is a "careful and reasonable evaluator." One who disagrees is a "carper." I was confused for a moment there...


You know, I've never heard of a critic being called a "carper". I thought this had something to do with fish - ergo, there's something fishy about this comment from someguy. Now, THERE'S a surprise!!

Could it be that poor old someguy has become confused with somebody who is constantly critical and complaining being a "carper"? Need to understand how to use the language better, someguy.


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## KenOC

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> You know, I've never heard of a critic being called a "carper". I thought this had something to do with fish...


At the risk of offending the censors, fish makes me think of this commercial...

(upon sober reflection, commercial removed...)


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> Ah, I understand now. A person who agrees with your point of view is a "careful and reasonable evaluator." One who disagrees is a "carper." I was confused for a moment there...


No, carpers are more distracting, especially when they jump out of the water and squirt you.


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> At the risk of offending the censors, fish makes me think of this commercial...
> 
> Are you _trying_ to get yourself banned?


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## arpeggio

Since the video I responding to was removed, my original post made no sense.


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## millionrainbows

Rapide said:


> I have no troubles seeing Cage as an artist, specifically a con-artist.


Are you _trying_ to get yourself banned?


----------



## millionrainbows

arpeggio said:


> My wife would like the wunder boner too.


I'm not sure where this is going. Apparently, I'm one of the few who still wishes to discuss the thread idea.


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## arpeggio

I a just trying to be silly. Sorry. Anyway the video was removed.


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## millionrainbows

arpeggio said:


> I a just trying to be silly. Sorry. Anyway the video was removed.


It's OK to be silly, as long as you are not using it as a tactic of distraction, or to trivialize the thread subject. But I can't know your intent; only you can know that.

So _two_ videos got removed? Somehow, this could only happen in a John Cage thread. That is a nice tactic, though; I'll make a note of that. Maybe Beethoven could use a 'fish de-boner' one of these cold, cold days later on.

Thanks goes out to Ramako: Boo! Did I scare somebody? Hey, it works on either end! Another case of "hidden symmetry." :lol:


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## Ripvanwinkle

I like Cage's "Silent Music" the best.


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## arpeggio

*Lecture on prepared piano*

While preparing an entry in another thread I discovered this interesting video which is a lecture on Cage's music for prepared piano. I thought the members of this thread might find it interesting. I have reviewed the previous entries and I could not find it. Hope you all find it interesting as I did.


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## BurningDesire

arpeggio said:


> While preparing an entry in another thread I discovered this interesting video which is a lecture on Cage's music for prepared piano. I thought the members of this thread might find it interesting. I have reviewed the previous entries and I could not find it. Hope you all find it interesting as I did.


I'd love to hear more of Drury's pergormances of Cage. I have his CD In a Landscape, which has some beautiful performances


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

See it can be done................ with commentary!


----------



## arpeggio

*Article on 4'33"*

While reviewing another forum one if the contributors reference a great article on _4'33"_. I think the Cage fans will love to read it. It is one of the best analysis I have ever read.

http://thehighhat.com/PopsClicks/005/433.html

​


----------



## Celloman

This thread does point out one pertinent fact: John Cage remains one of the most controversial figures in twentieth century music. No two people share the same opinion of him, it seems.


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## aleazk

Celloman said:


> This thread does point out one pertinent fact: John Cage remains one of the most controversial figures in twentieth century music. No two people share the same opinion of him, it seems.


In part, that's because nobody of these people knows Cage's oeuvre...





, Six Melodies.





, Second Construction.





, Third Construction.

Pretty amazing pieces.


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## BurningDesire

Celloman said:


> This thread does point out one pertinent fact: John Cage remains one of the most controversial figures in twentieth century music. No two people share the same opinion of him, it seems.


Well you could say that about every composer. If we're talking about general opinions, there are plenty of people who like Cage's music, and respect him as a composer, but they all might respect him in different ways. People who like and respect Bach, or Chopin, or Stravinsky, all might like or respect them and their work in different ways from one another.

I think modernist music is controversial in general. Cage does get a particularly unfair bad reputation, and that usually dissipates when somebody actually learns a thing or two about the man, particularly that he is about the furthest thing from a pretentious snob.


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## millionrainbows

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a Classical Music Forum. You have the right to listen to 4'33". If you do not have access to a performance of 4'33", one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights?

Okay, lean forward, put your hands against your computer, and spread your legs. Do I have permission to search your CD collection and computer music files? If not, we'll have to go downtown.


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## arpeggio

*Interview about cage*

In another thread one of Cage's many friends here made some unkind remarks about his music again. He mentioned a piece that Cage composed for electric chain saw. Well to my knowledge Cage never composed anything for electric chain saw. To make sure I conducted a search. Instead of finding a Sonata, Toccata or whatever for chain saw, I found an interesting interview of Lee Ranaldo, who is a rock musician who plays with the rock group Sonic Youth, concerning John Cage.

Last January the Philadelphia Museum of Art staged an exhibit concerning Duchamp, Cage, Cunningham they called Dancing Around The Bride. Mr. Renaldo appeared at one of the performances. My wife and I visited the Museum and attended one of the performances. (Note: We did not attend the performance with Mr. Ranaldo.)

Link to interview: http://www.sonicyouth.com/symu/lee/2012/12/22/lee-on-john-cage-january-2013/


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## arpeggio

*JFK Concert in Dallas*

I have discovered the following review of a concert with the Dallas Symphony to commemerate the assasination of JFK. One of the works was a piece by Cage. I have hesitated to post this because I can just imagine the reactions from the anti-Cage crowd.

Review of concert: http://bachtrack.com/review-nov-2013-dallas-soundings-jfk-memorial?destination=%2F4001%2Ffind-reviews%2Fcategory%3D1%3Bcomposer%3D926


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## millionrainbows

The latest thing I've heard of Cage's was that "opera." It's good, it's almost like listening to a real opera. It has interjections of early recordings in it. Like many Cage works, there seems to be an undercurrent of humor there, although it's not explicit, and very subtle. Maybe this is why many Cage-bashers resent him, as if he were thumbing his nose at tradition...and he may be. Nonetheless, I do not think Cage was "pulling our leg" or creating a hoax; I think he was very serious in everything he did, just not in an eyebrow-furrowing sort of way.


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## arpeggio

*Analysis of 4' 33"*

A member posted the following video in another thread. It appears to me that the member's motive is that he was critical of the 4' 33" and of the thread.

I think it is actually a pretty good explanation of the work.


----------



## arpeggio

*Review: John Cage's 'Thirty Pieces' has U.S. debut in St. Louis*

On January 24, 2014 the Saint Louis Symphony perfromed the U. S. premier of Cage's _Thirty Pieces for Five Orchestras_.

Form the reviews I found it appears to have been big success:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-thirty-pieces-st-louis-review-20140125,0,6149583.story#axzz2sO5NjTY3

http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/arts-and-theatre/reviews/robertson-and-musicians-give-cage-work-an-outstanding-u-s/article_83edde92-b0ad-53e3-bcb5-6cfb744ad9db.html


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## millionrainbows

John Cage has a large and varied body of work. Critics should listen to it, instead of constantly bringing up 4'33". The _*Sonatas and Interludes *_is a good starting place.


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## Morimur

*Beyond My Grasp*

Stockhausen, Ligeti, lachenmann, Sciarrino, Babbitt, Xenakis, Barrett, Ferneyhough, Hespos... Love them all. Cage? Beyond my grasp.


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## Guest

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Stockhausen, Ligeti, lachenmann, Sciarrino, Babbitt, Xenakis, Barrett, Ferneyhough, Hespos... Love them all. Cage? Beyond my grasp.


What Cage pieces, Lope? I'm not looking for a fight, I assure you. I really like the "constructions in metal", Fontana Mix, the string quartets ... Not very keen (really not keen at all) on the Europera series. In fact I'll go on record as saying I was bored rigid by his "Europeras" after about 11.84 minutes. Out of a concert lasting 45".


----------



## Guest

Lope, you've mentioned a bunch of European practitioners of through-composed music. (Which Barrett, by the way, Natasha or Richard?) Cage was an American, one. And the foremost practitioner of indeterminacy. So it's no wonder. Those are two very different trends in music. And require two very different kinds of listening.

Though, I should mention, once you've mastered both kinds, it feels the same in either case.

Anyway, for TalkingHead, a lot of composers mid-century were interested in boredom--in what caused it and in what it meant about art and the consumption of art. I think the general conclusion to all that thinking was that boredom is more a function of the background and the capacities of the auditor rather than of any putative external cause. Which is just a long-winded way of saying that what bores A will anger B will please C will thrill D.


----------



## Morimur

TalkingHead, to be perfectly honest, I find most of his work painfully tedious to listen to. Examples: Music of Changes, Thirteen Harmonies, Bird Cage, Quartets I-VIII... I could go on and on. To me, his work just seems like wallpaper. It's there but just barely; it doesn't demand my attention. Of course, that doesn't mean he was talentless. Quite the contrary. His musical aesthetic simply doesn't appeal to me. I do like his visual artwork though; a definite Japanese influence.


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## Morimur

some guy, I think you're probably right as to why I find Cage difficult to appreciate. Perhaps I'll come to appreciate his aesthetic in the future. After all, it was a while before I came to revere Stockhausen.


----------



## Guest

some guy said:


> [...] Anyway, for TalkingHead, a lot of composers mid-century were interested in boredom--in what caused it and in what it meant about art and the consumption of art. I think the general conclusion to all that thinking was that boredom is more a function of the background and the capacities of the auditor rather than of any putative external cause. Which is just a long-winded way of saying that what bores A will anger B will please C will thrill D.


Mid 20th, I assume you mean. Yes, figures of that era such as Cage certainly called into question all sorts of listening approaches and ideas about what 'constitutes' music, and those efforts have been very worthwhile and resonate even today. I must say that I have never read or heard of any article, paper or dedicated seminar focusing on the concept of 'boredom' in music, but I'm sure you will furnish me with the necessary references. As to the _Europera_ experience I had (live, and with a quick chat with Cage after its French première), I maintain I had moments of ennui having "got the message", as far as I understood it, after the first 15 minutes or so. Flying into the venue from London with most of the musicians booked to perform the work and talking with them confirmed what I felt later.


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## Morimur

Which Barrett? Richard; criminally underrated.


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## Guest

TalkingHead said:


> I must say that I have never read or heard of any article, paper or dedicated seminar focusing on the concept of 'boredom' in music, but I'm sure you will furnish me with the necessary references.


I wish I were that ept.

I'm recalling, perhaps imperfectly, that Cope talks about this in his still unparalleled survey of twentieth century music, _New Directions in Music._


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## Rhombic

tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick tack tick.


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## Rhombic

Has anyone noticed that 4:33 in seconds is 273 seconds, being 273 K = 0ºC?


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## KenOC

Rhombic said:


> Has anyone noticed that 4:33 in seconds is 273 seconds, being 273 K = 0ºC?


What a coincidence! My dentist and I were talking about that just yesterday!


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## Jobis

A little torn about this person. 

On some days I revile him as an anti-art, anti-music charlatan who was the equivalent of Marcel Duchamp to the music world.

On more positive days i'm merely indifferent to him, just slightly irritated he gets so much attention. 

Just what is so remarkable about him saying the obvious things everyone else already was aware of but couldn't be bothered to put into words? The fact that people can pretend to find 4'33 interesting or a topic of discussion is astounding to me; as a statement its equivalent to some of the more mundane revelations some acquaintances of mine have had while stoned. 

I'm guessing these are the same people who don't believe there can be such a thing as 'bad' art at which point I have to wonder why they think their opinion is worth anything at all?


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## aleazk

Ok... we all got the point that 4'33'' is "crap"... now, that's just one, yes, just one of the pieces composed by Cage. So, for example, what about this?. In that piece, you will find everything which is needed for being called a "musician", excellent rhythmic, timbral and textural control.

Ligeti also composed (unaware of Cage's work) a piece which consisted in one sound followed by minutes of silence... tell me, please, if you also consider Ligeti an anti-art, anti-music charlatan then...

So, yeah, 4'33'' or the Ligeti piece, maybe not masterpieces, etc., but, please, lets move on... this is getting boring...


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## Jobis

aleazk said:


> Ok... we all got the point that 4'33'' is "crap"... now, that's just one, yes, just one of the pieces composed by Cage. So, for example, what about this?. In that piece, you will find everything which is needed for being called a "musician", excellent rhythmic, timbral and textural control.
> 
> Ligeti also composed (unaware of Cage's work) a piece which consisted in one sound followed by minutes of silence... tell me, please, if you also consider Ligeti an anti-art, anti-music charlatan then...
> 
> So, yeah, 4'33'' or the Ligeti piece, maybe not masterpieces, etc., but, please, lets move on... this is getting boring...


The difference is Ligeti was a man of genius, and no one remembers him solely for that silent work. Cage on the other hand...

I just find Cage's work so unremarkable in comparison to his contemporaries (I personally prefer the percussion works of Xenakis for example) that he isn't really worthy of note.


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## aleazk

Jobis said:


> The difference is Ligeti was a man of genius, and no one remembers him solely for that silent work. Cage on the other hand...
> 
> I just find Cage's work so unremarkable in comparison to his contemporaries (I personally prefer the percussion works of Xenakis for example) that he isn't really worthy of note.


Neither of those things answer my comment*. You called Cage "anti-art, anti-music" for composing things like 4'33''. Ligeti also composed a piece of that kind, ergo, Ligeti is also "anti-art, anti-music"...

You called Cage a "charlatan". I provided examples in which Cage shows he can compose pieces which are "musical in the traditional sense".

I'm being a logic extremist here in order to answer to an extremist's position. Of course, you can think Cage is far from being the best composer of the XXth century, but to call him an anti-art, anti-music charlatan is ridiculous...

*The Xenakis pieces were composed more than 35 years after the Cage (!)


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## Guest

Jobis said:


> [...] I just find Cage's work so unremarkable in comparison to his contemporaries (I personally prefer the percussion works of Xenakis for example) that he isn't really worthy of note.


Fair enough. I have a different opinion to the one you express above and share Aleazk's enthusiasm for Cage's 'constructions in metal' series. As to Cage being "[not] really worthy of note", that does seem to be denying, dare I say, the 'juggernaut of history'.


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## Blancrocher

Jobis said:


> The difference is Ligeti was a man of genius, and no one remembers him solely for that silent work. Cage on the other hand...


Incidentally, Richard Taruskin observes near the beginning of an essay, "The Scary Purity of John Cage," that "the superstitious category 'genius' was made for the likes of John Cage." It can seem almost miraculous to those who admire some of his music (I don't know anyone who admires _all_ of it) that Cage did so well despite lacking the kind of intensive musical training that various members of Talk Classical have evidently received. I personally enjoy listening to Cage--and occasionally reading him: he's one of those few composers who speaks really well for himself.

In any case, I don't object to jokes about 4'33'' any more than I'd object to unfair comments about Pachelbel's Canon. Such things are essential to music forums and probably to all civilized conversation.


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## Guest

Blanc, vous êtes adorable. Of course, you're quite right, none of us in our right senses admires _*every*_ ink drop penned by Cage. But it's always 'the thought that counts'.


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## classifriend

all of you focusing your criticism in his indeterminate music should listen to The Seasons (performed by Dennis Russell Davies; Margaret Leng Tan and the American Composers Orchestra). i promise you'll see another side of Cage. the 2000 album from the ECM new series includes also the pretty Seventy-Four and the Concerto for Prepared Piano and Orchestra, which are ear candy compared to the works Cage is hated for


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## KenOC

classifriend said:


> all of you focusing your criticism in his indeterminate music should listen to The Seasons (performed by Dennis Russell Davies; Margaret Leng Tan and the American Composers Orchestra). i promise you'll see another side of Cage. the 2000 album from the ECM new series includes also the pretty Seventy-Four and the Concerto for Prepared Piano and Orchestra, which are ear candy compared to the works Cage is hated for


Now settle down. I'm sure nobody "hates" Mr. Cage, or his works either. And it's Henry Cowell's birthday, surely a time for merriment.


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## classifriend

KenOC said:


> Now settle down. I'm sure nobody "hates" Mr. Cage, or his works either. And it's Henry Cowell's birthday, surely a time for merriment.


sadly, i've known people who despise him. how can anyone hate this sweet old man?


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## arpeggio

*Anti-Cage Sentiments*



KenOC said:


> Now settle down. I'm sure nobody "hates" Mr. Cage, or his works either. And it's Henry Cowell's birthday, surely a time for merriment.


Come on Ken. We have both seen the tremendous venom directed at Cage and his fans over the years.


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## Morimur

I am still trying to understand Cage's music. I remain indifferent to it. It's as if the music has nothing to say. Anyway, I'll continue listening for an epiphany.


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## Guest

Fair enough. I would recommend his First, Second and Third Constructions in Metal which you can easily check out on YouTube. The problem there is the sound quality and level of performance. The ideal solution (in terms of Cagean evangelizing) would be performances of these works by the world-renowned *Percussions de Strasbourg*, who unfortunately seem to have no YouTube Cage stuff. Let me assure you that this is an ensemble who knows how to bring a Cage score alive.
But I'm not going to despair or get all 'uppity' if others fail to see the interest in the guy. I also love eating snails.


----------



## Jobis

aleazk said:


> Neither of those things answer my comment*. You called Cage "anti-art, anti-music" for composing things like 4'33''. Ligeti also composed a piece of that kind, ergo, Ligeti is also "anti-art, anti-music"...
> 
> You called Cage a "charlatan". I provided examples in which Cage shows he can compose pieces which are "musical in the traditional sense".
> 
> I'm being a logic extremist here in order to answer to an extremist's position. Of course, you can think Cage is far from being the best composer of the XXth century, but to call him an anti-art, anti-music charlatan is ridiculous...
> 
> *The Xenakis pieces were composed more than 35 years after the Cage (!)


I think the fundamental difference in the Ligeti piece is the fact it was punctuated by a note. For me that makes all the difference in the world.

My next-door neighbour can compose pieces that are musical in the traditional sense, it doesn't make him a genius.

The logical extreme extrapolation of Cage's views are that sounds of a dog barking and wind rustling in the trees are no more or less meaningful than the entire works of say, Beethoven.


----------



## Jobis

Blancrocher said:


> Incidentally, Richard Taruskin observes near the beginning of an essay, "The Scary Purity of John Cage," that "the superstitious category 'genius' was made for the likes of John Cage." It can seem almost miraculous to those who admire some of his music (I don't know anyone who admires _all_ of it) that Cage did so well despite lacking the kind of intensive musical training that various members of Talk Classical have evidently received. I personally enjoy listening to Cage--and occasionally reading him: he's one of those few composers who speaks really well for himself.
> 
> In any case, I don't object to jokes about 4'33'' any more than I'd object to unfair comments about Pachelbel's Canon. Such things are essential to music forums and probably to all civilized conversation.


Since when was being a good composer about speaking well for yourself? That's the typical folly of our age, to focus more on the man than the art.

I don't see how appeals to authority can make him a genius; that comment says far more about Mr. Taruskin than Cage.

The lack of musical training seems more a fault on his part, perhaps a wilful ignorance and rejection of Western Classical music traditions, which I can't sympathise with. Somehow he gets honoured and revered for his cultural appropriation of certain eastern philosophies and attitudes towards music? Its just baffling to me.


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## Sudonim

Wait a second. It's not as if Cage was a complete neophyte when it came to "musical training." He studied with Henry Cowell, Lazare Lévy, and Arnold Schoenberg. He may have been an unconventional student and was definitely an iconoclast, but I certainly don't get the idea that he was some kind of amateur (in the "unskilled" rather than "unprofessional" sense).


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## Blancrocher

Jobis said:


> Since when was being a good composer about speaking well for yourself? That's the typical folly of our age, to focus more on the man than the art.


I mentioned that by the way, but of course you're right. I wouldn't recommend one listen to a composer on the basis of who s/he is--with the possible exception of Frederick the Great.


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## classifriend

*(this post isn't directed to anyone especifically)* did schoenberg think he was "destroying" traditional music? no he didn't. did Cage think that? well, that's likely to be, but as Schoenberg said, evolution in music comes naturally and i'm glad it comes in the right time, after all, our dear old music continues to exist and be performed. did we really want a hundred more years of Romanticism? i don't think so, it was exhausted in its composition form and it was already turning into something else at the end of the 19th century, with or without Schoenberg. following the annoying pattern that i speak with, i didn't wanted another 50 years of Serialism, as much as i like it, and i thank the New York School for creating, again, a new meaning to music (especially Cage, obviously). of course, i never had problems with subversive art, actually it attracts me a lot, so i think it's always good to have new perspectives without having to dump the old ones, that are equally important to me. that said, i can understand people not liking Cage's music, but having any feelings towards him that are more than indifference is something i don't really get and that applies to any composer. let's just cheer history is cumulative


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## OldFashionedGirl

I just listen to John Cage 4'33. That was incredible beautiful. Best modern piece ever!!! My soul was moved. Oh! I want to cry.


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## aleazk

"_Five Stone Wind_" (1988)

Very cool piece:


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## violadude

OldFashionedGirl said:


> I just listen to John Cage 4'33. That was incredible beautiful. Best modern piece ever!!! My soul was moved. Oh! I want to cry.











...............................


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## scratchgolf

Honestly, the 4'33" jokes are about as fresh as the following overplayed composer puns..

Liszt = List
Haydn = Hidin'
Bach = Back
Chopin = Shoppin'

It takes quite a bit of wit and talent to pull these off without sounding completely stale and played out. Most times the attempt at humor is painfully unfunny.


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## science

Sid James said:


> I think that the reason why Cage can still be such a 'controversial' figure is that people who haven't heard any of his actual music (as opposed to simply hearing or reading about 4'33") start ignorantly judging his whole output. I think these people can be very inflexible and unwilling to correct their assumptions by learning about the actual facts.
> 
> For example, I bought a cd yesterday of Cage's music, in the EMI American Classics series, and have been pleasantly surprised. The piece _*Credo in Us *_is especially engaging, incorporating snippets of Dvorak's _Symphony No. 9 _(on vinyl records), radio broadcasts, and music played live by the pianist and percussionist. The non-live sounds are turned up and down, becoming a kind of orchestra/accompaniment to the live players. There is a dialogue, and sometimes the players subvert the recorded/radio material, sometimes they complement it. There's alot of collage going on in this work, such as when (towards the end) the pianist starts belting out what sounds like a honky-tonk tune. The most amazing thing is that this innovative piece was composed in the 1940's, about a decade before Varese started using taped sounds in his own music.
> 
> Another interesting thing is that he actually composed for a variety of instruments, from prepared piano, to toy piano and even carillon (bells). So he was probably one of the most versatile composers around.


And this from a guy who has been hounded essentially off talkclassical for not being modernist enough.


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## science

So I went through this thread looking for recording recommendations, and I found only a couple from millionrainbows.

Here's a task, folks. What are your favorite cage recordings?

Mine are:

View attachment 62114
View attachment 62115
View attachment 62116


View attachment 62117
View attachment 62118


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## tortkis

There are so many, but my favorite at this moment is Freeman Etudes. It is an aleatory piece, but it keeps grabbing me. Probably it is because of the characteristic unpredictability and the beautiful sound of Arditti's violin.

















I like most of Cage's works: early experimental pieces, percussion pieces, lovely pieces composed around the end of 1940s, chance operation, number pieces, ... except for Europera which I am not sure how I feel about, and spoken pieces I have not heard yet.


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## arpeggio

science said:


> So I went through this thread looking for recording recommendations, and I found only a couple from millionrainbows.
> 
> Here's a task, folks. What are your favorite cage recordings?
> 
> Mine are:
> 
> View attachment 62114
> View attachment 62115
> View attachment 62116
> 
> 
> View attachment 62117
> View attachment 62118


Mine is the one with the Chicago Symphony.


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## SilverSurfer

Two more:







How to remain unmoved by Mrs. Uitti's voice (Kansas?)?








A very special present for his birthday.


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## science

Well done, guys! Now we're getting somewhere!


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## dgee

Hideous cover - very good performance:


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## SilverSurfer

One more, with one of our figures, Carles Santos, playing the piano in Amores:


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## science

The last few posts might be the first productive discussion of John Cage's music in the history of the internet. This deserves a wikipedia page, if not a Lifetime movie.


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## science

science said:


> So I went through this thread looking for recording recommendations, and I found only a couple from millionrainbows.
> 
> Here's a task, folks. What are your favorite cage recordings?
> 
> Mine are:
> 
> View attachment 62114
> View attachment 62115
> View attachment 62116
> 
> 
> View attachment 62117
> View attachment 62118


I'll update that with linked images:

I did it wrong! Let's try again:


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## science

And:


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## Guest

How 'bout those huge number pieces? The Freeman Etudes keep you on your toes... 110 engulfs you.


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## Albert7

Cage, you are awesome... thanks for being an early influence on Feldman.


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## elmago

Despite Cage being a controversial figure, some of his music is outstanding. His piano output is really impressive and more of it should be played.


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## Selby

elmago said:


> Despite Cage being a controversial figure, some of his music is outstanding. His piano output is really impressive and more of it should be played.


Which piano pieces in particular appeal to you?


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## Albert7

I would like to apologize on behalf of the TC forum about that 4' 33" thread... Your pieces are deeply embedded in a unique world which teeter (sp?) between the worlds of music and non-music. It forced me to rethink how I ought to listen to music and I think you deeply for that.


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## Dim7

some guy said:


> Anyway, for TalkingHead, a lot of composers mid-century were interested in boredom.


I find it rather interesting that somebody can be interested in boredom. I hope this post bores you.


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## Albert7

Dim7 said:


> I find it rather interesting that somebody can be interested in boredom. I hope this post bores you.


What is one man's boredom is another man's excitement.


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## MoonlightSonata

Can anyone recommend some of the Number Pieces? I've been rediscovering them today, and I would like to hear some more.


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## SeptimalTritone

Here you go Moonlight!


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## tortkis

MoonlightSonata said:


> Can anyone recommend some of the Number Pieces? I've been rediscovering them today, and I would like to hear some more.


My favorite is Two[SUP]4[/SUP] for Violin and Shō. I think the ethereal sound of shō fits the work very well. The version for violin and piano is also good. One[SUP]9[/SUP] (for shō) and 108 (played simultaneously) is another favorite.


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## Guest

MoonlightSonata said:


> Can anyone recommend some of the Number Pieces? I've been rediscovering them today, and I would like to hear some more.


Four, Fourteen, Fifty-Eight, Sixty-Eight, 108-110, etc


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## Dim7

⁮⁮⁮⁮⁮⁮⁮⁮⁮⁮⁮⁮⁮⁮⁮⁮


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## Stirling

John Cage: Thirteen Harmonies


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## Klassic

SeptimalTritone said:


> John Cage: Fifty-Eight


For me this piece is lacking in variation, same formula throughout. It does however, for a _very_ short space of time, offer a refreshing break from too much classical noise.


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## clavichorder

Dim7 said:


> I find it rather interesting that somebody can be interested in boredom. I hope this post bores you.


Knowing you, you aren't joking. Perpetually metacognitive.


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## SeptimalTritone

Klassic said:


> For me this piece is lacking in variation, same formula throughout. It does however, for a _very_ short space of time, offer a refreshing break from too much classical noise.


Well, thanks for listening. I definitely appreciate it.

As far as the lack of variation goes: the slowly evolving sound mass with wind instruments popping in and out, some of them with one note, some of them with small gestural figures, makes for a really expressive, somewhat noise genre-ish piece.


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## AnthonyCornicello

The Cage Number pieces present an ingenious solution to the concept of non-measured notation. Since the performers are given "variable time brackets" and, usually, sustained notes, the music exists in chronometric time only, as there is no discernible meter in any form. The later pieces began to make use of melodic fragments rather than single sustained pitches.

Cage's post-1950 music is not really about variation and development. It's not about the connection between sounds, more about their coexistence. The music is not intended to have any meaning. Perhaps that is the hardest part about understanding his music.

I should note here that I was involved with editing (proof-reading) a lot of the number pieces. There were all done in Finale (which I was not using at the time), so I did not do any of the copying myself. I did get to see the originals, often getting them from John's loft and bringing them to our office. My favorites are the last ones: Thirteen (not Thirteen Harmonies, which is not a "Number" piece), as well as Two6, which is for Sho and Piano. Towards the end, he was starting to stretch out on the concept, but they were always these quiet, meditative pieces.


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## Klassic

I have this to say about Cage (though I am not much of a fan of his music) I believe he was an _exceedingly_ important musical philosopher/theorist. I love his free ideas and everyone else should to!


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## seven four

Big fan of Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano.


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## hreichgott

Me too. Sonatas and Interludes means something to me. And I'm not ashamed to say so


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## fluteman

The meditative String Quartet in Four Parts has long been a favorite of mine.


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## science

Here is an article about Cage from Brainpickings.


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## Xenakiboy

seven four said:


> Big fan of Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano.


Same, I've listen to that work/cycle more than any other Cage piece. It's very cool and nice to relax to while listening!


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## christomacin

Can't say I really hold with the direction his music ultimately went, but I do think he was making a sincere attempt to push music in a fresh direction , but like many of his generation ended up a blind alley. Still, I do think there was some legitimate talent there (his early works indicate that), but it got lost in translation somehow.

These two works are genuinely attractive :









Also, the Music for Prepared Piano isn't particularly beautiful but it is intriguing:


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## millionrainbows

I come from a visual art background, so Cage is relatively easy for me to accept. Art is art.


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## PeterFromLA

Hey million, I thought your background was the musical rather than visual arts. I'm surprised, as you write about music quite expertly...


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## tortkis

John Cage: Electronic Music for Piano (1964)

_"This score was written on a sheet of letterhead paper from a hotel in Stockholm. It is cryptic, and contains only a written instruction for the use of parts from Music for Piano 4-84, reliant upon electronic equipment (microphones, amplifiers, and oscilloscope) and a constellation from an astronomical chart."_ - www.johncage.org

Ciro Longobardi (piano), Agostino Di Scipio (computer and live electronics)













This is a beautiful realization of the "cryptic" score. The piano is played delicately, and the electronic sounds are subtle and elegant. Another interpretation by Chen, which I heard only a short sample of, sounds more harsh and noisy.


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## tortkis

The Complete String Quartets Vol. 1 - The Arditti Quartet (mode)









This 1988 live recording includes two 30-minute long works for string quartet using time brackets: Music for Four (1987/8, world premiere) and Thirty Pieces for String Quartet (1983). I think this disc has been OOP, but digital album is now available for download. Both are eventful compared with the later works, and Thirty Pieces is more modernistic. The Arditti Quartet plays masterfully as always.


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## millionrainbows

PeterFromLA said:


> Hey million, I thought your background was the musical rather than visual arts. I'm surprised, as you write about music quite expertly...


Wow, thank you, Peter. No, I had a hard time with music education. I took 3 semesters of music theory, and learned a little piano. I had a very good ear. I played guitar, so in the 1970s it was not recognized, and you have to be a pianist anyway, because the whole system is based on diatonic scales. It turned out that I am really a chromatic thinker, so I had to start from square one and learn on my own, questioning everything. I have a large collection of music theory books, and still continue to study. Next, is neo-Riemann theory. I'm interested in "sacred geometry" and how this applies to guitar, and jazz.


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## eugeneonagain

millionrainbows said:


> I'm interested in "sacred geometry" and how this applies to guitar, and jazz.


Is that from a Monty Python sketch?


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> I come from a visual art background, so Cage is relatively easy for me to accept. Art is art.


In what way does a visual art background contribute to your understanding of Cage? I have worked in visual art all my life, although I settled upon music as an occupation. As a painter composing form in space I find a greater affinity with the deliberate structures and expressive gestures of the tonal tradition than with anything peculiarly Cagean.


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## aleazk

Millions, do you know what a differentiable manifold is? A metric? A Levi-Civita connection? The Riemann curvature tensor? A tensor? A geodesic curve? A fibre bundle? A holonomy? Etc.

If not, then please stop using the word geometry, which is more than the platonic solids and their pseudo-mystical interpretations of 2500 years ago...

If you are _that_ interested in geometry, I could recommend you some _actual_ differential geometry books.

Btw, there seems to be some actual musical theorization using real geometry, done by this Dimitri Tymoczko guy. What I saw seemed correct and rigorous, i.e., doesn't seem a crackpot, although using orbifolds to understand the tonality of a Mozart piece seems a bit like an overkill to me...


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## tortkis

Early Music (Edition Wandelweiser)









Edwin Alexander Buchholz (accordian / bugari bayan anatomic) and Joanna Becker (violin) bring rich timbre and soothing harmony to Cage's probably most melodic and accessible works: Dream (1948), In A Landscape (1948), Six Melodies (1950) and Souvenir (1983). Souvenir is unusual as his music around the period. The American Guild of Organists, who commissioned it, requested a work that is similar to Dream.


----------



## Portamento

11pm. _Freeman Etudes_.

Ah.


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## tortkis

Freeman Etudes is one of my favorite Cage's works. I have been enjoying the excellent Arditti on Mode for some years, and I am now listening to Fusi's recording (Stradivarius), which I think is played very delicately. There are 3 complete recordings of Freeman Etudes. I have not heard the other one.










I also listened to the first recording of the work by Paul Zukofsky (1979), whom Cage learned the technical aspects of violin with and composed the etudes for. Zukofsky recorded only the first eight etudes.

_"The Etudes are both fascinating and frustrating for many reasons. They are the most difficult music I have ever played, yet they are also extremely violinistic. They have endless phrasal possibilities, none of which were intentional in the creation."_ - Zukofsky
http://www.musicalobservations.com/recordings/cp2_103.html


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## Mandryka

If someone could say something to help me appreciate the freeman etudes I’d be really pleased, whenever I’ve tried to listen to anyone playing them they sound utterly random to me. By contrast I can enjoy the piano etudes as a duet for two hands.


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## Larkenfield

The _Freeman Etudes_ I've heard seem more deliberately "fragmented" or "disjointed" than random-one of the tendencies, it seems, for a certain line of modernism. I can understand the breaking up of the long lyrical lines associated with classicism and romanticism, but I do question how satisfying it is. I doubt whether Paganini would have considered these difficult or instructive to play at all because of the noticeable space between the fragments, though still requiring a great deal of focus and concentration to execute well:


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## tortkis

I like Freeman Etudes because it sounds random and totally unsentimental, not causing any ordinary emotions yet it puts my mind in a certain state. It is calming and exciting, cold and lyrical. It is like nature and artifact at the same time, like irregular sounds of dropping water or extremely elaborated miniature. I enjoy the precise details, pleasant sounds of violin itself. I am not sure what is special about this work compared with other aleatory pieces, it may be something to do with the physicality of the instrument and the particular way randomness is mapped to pitch, duration of notes/silence, dynamics, rhythm.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> In what way does a visual art background contribute to your understanding of Cage? I have worked in visual art all my life, although I settled upon music as an occupation. As a painter composing form in space I find a greater affinity with the deliberate structures and expressive gestures of the tonal tradition than with anything peculiarly Cagean.


It's well known that John Cage was more influenced and formed by the New York art scene than he was by musical tradition. I just recently read that somewhere. I've known it all along, long ago, back in 1970.


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## millionrainbows

aleazk said:


> Millions, do you know what a differentiable manifold is? A metric? A Levi-Civita connection? The Riemann curvature tensor? A tensor? A geodesic curve? A fibre bundle? A holonomy? Etc.
> 
> If not, then please stop using the word geometry, which is more than the platonic solids and their pseudo-mystical interpretations of 2500 years ago...
> 
> If you are _that_ interested in geometry, I could recommend you some _actual_ differential geometry books.
> 
> Btw, there seems to be some actual musical theorization using real geometry, done by this Dimitri Tymoczko guy. What I saw seemed correct and rigorous, i.e., doesn't seem a crackpot, although using orbifolds to understand the tonality of a Mozart piece seems a bit like an overkill to me...


Yes, the Dmitri Tymoczko book is very good, in that he explains things clearly and in context, and doesn't get bogged-down in definitions. The book is about music, and how different geometric models can help us see it more clearly, as well as compose. The simplest model is the circle of fifths, but he explains the underlying properties of different models (such as number lines) and how these differ from each other, and how each one has a particular use.

There are some very good reviews on the back of the dust cover. I suggest you look into it.


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## millionrainbows

Mandryka said:


> If someone could say something to help me appreciate the freeman etudes I'd be really pleased, whenever I've tried to listen to anyone playing them they sound utterly random to me. By contrast I can enjoy the piano etudes as a duet for two hands.


Cage is exploring the idea of "advanced notation" and what is humanly possible to play using it. There is an element of humor in this idea as well, although it's a kind of abstract humor derived from knowing this. The score is _ridiculously_ complex, and there is an element of humor there. Paul Zukofsky, who it was written for, gave up on it and walked away in frustration (and I find humor in that). Irvine Arditti was finally able to play it, because his chops are so much better than Zukofsky's were ( I find that amusing). Arditti gave Cage some feedback, as he had to finish the work after Zukofsky bailed, and so they settled on "As fast as humanly possible" as the new meta-direction (I find that humorous). I guess if the end result is not pleasing as music, then it's OK to just write it off as "a bunch of noise" ( I find this humorous as well). I think this explanation is humorous.


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## Mandryka

What is special about the notation? I remember that Sabine Liebner thought that her interpretation of the Etudes Australes - which is unique in that each piece lasts about 7 minutes long - is somehow indicated by some aspect of Cage’s score which all others ignore. 

Presumably the score in the Freeman Etudes is as open to interpretation as the Etudes Australes, and that there’s scope for the violin player to romanticise them by finding stories and narratives, like Claudio Crismani does in the piano etudes. 

Why did Cage feel the need to write 32 of them?

As far as I know he produced three sets of etudes, Australes, Freeman and Boreales. Has anyone explored the Boreales?


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## joen_cph

The Boreales were unknown to me. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etudes_Boreales

There´s a you-tube of all the 4 piano etudes which I now sampled a bit, but superficially. 
Very fragmented-sounding and static, at least on the surface of it.
It is well recorded here:










There are also 4 Etudes Boreales for Cello, but not my cuppa; 
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/john-cage-works-for-cello

here's no.1


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## aleazk

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, the Dmitri Tymoczko book is very good, in that he explains things clearly and in context, and doesn't get bogged-down in definitions. The book is about music, and how different geometric models can help us see it more clearly, as well as compose. The simplest model is the circle of fifths, but he explains the underlying properties of different models (such as number lines) and how these differ from each other, and how each one has a particular use.
> 
> There are some very good reviews on the back of the dust cover. I suggest you look into it.


As I said, I read a bit of the book (there's a free online version in the author's page). It seemed fine to me, although not particularly interesting or more insightful than the already existing standard theory, the geometric part seems like an overkill to me. Again, there seems to be a gap between those who are thoroughly familiar with mathematics and have used it in really profound applications (both in physics as well as pure math) and those who are only superficially familiar with it and only know these applications in music and maybe some other elementary applications as well. I don't mean to sound derogatory with this, it's just an observation, if it floats your boat, I have nothing against that. But, in my case, having seen geometry in action in other realms (like General Relativity, Yang--Mills fields, Hamiltonian mechanics, etc., the applications in physics are really endless), I have, due to that, a rather clear idea regarding what are the profound insights that geometrical ideas bring to those fields and when it's worth the trouble of applying those complex concepts. In this musical example, I really don't see the necessity of geometry for having a clear understanding of tonal harmony, even when, indeed, it can be applied to it and some musical notions be re-interpreted in geometric language. But the gain in insight is not that big, at least to me, so it's not worth the trouble for me. This often happens in physics too.


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## Mandryka

It would be nice to know how the etudes were written, i can't make sense of what Wikipedia says! I'd like a recipe so I can compose one of my own. Could someone write an Etudes Australes computer programme to generate them? How much of the process was following an algorithm with some random component built in, how much was inspiration?

I looked at some images of the Etudes Australes and they look more or less like regular music except there is no tempo or time signature or dynamic or articulation or any other indication. All it seems to tell us is relative pitch and relative note length using standard notation. And there are these funny little lines with a hook at the end underneath the staves, a bit like pedal.

So can I conclude that the unspecified things - tempo, ornaments, rests etc are left to the performer's discretion, the performer's job is to turn this "framework" into something good to hear?

And what are those little lines about? pedal?

It would be nice to hear from someone who's played one of them.









There's a view I've heard, that when someone writes some music he has an idea of what it sounds like in his head, and he tries to write that idea down. Did Cage have an idea of how these etudes sound in his head?


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## tortkis

Mandryka said:


> I looked at some images of the Etudes Australes and they look more or less like regular music except there is no tempo or time signature or dynamic or articulation or any other indication. All it seems to tell us is relative pitch and relative note length using standard notation. And there are these funny little lines with a hook at the end underneath the staves, a bit like pedal.


_"An open note is to be held as long as possible beyond the succeeding closed note, the leap to the next note (whether open or closed) being made at the last possible moment. Where more than one closed note follows an open note, a pedal-like notation is given. The open note is then to be sustained as long as the pedal continues."_ - Cage



> There's a view I've heard, that when someone writes some music he has an idea of what it sounds like in his head, and he tries to write that idea down. Did Cage have an idea of how these etudes sound in his head?


Since the etudes were composed using chance operation, it is likely that the composer didn't know how they would sound like.

_"Though the notation is determinate [...], the use of chance operations is not as an aid in the making of something I had in mind; rather, a utility to let sounds arise from their own centers freed from my intentions. I just listen. For this reason, also, the use of star maps; to aid in the finding of a music I do not have in mind."_ - Cage


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## Mandryka

Thank you Tortkis. Let me rephrase one of my questions, which was really about performers’ discretion. After Cage had written an etude using his notation, did he have a conception of how it should sound? That’s to say, how tightly does the the notation determine the performance? 

Cage may have used randomness to remove some of his will, his intention. But in practice is it just replaced by the performer’s will? 

I would like someone to make a YouTube video where they write a piano piece in the style of these etudes australes using Cage’s method.


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## philoctetes

aleazk said:


> As I said, I read a bit of the book (there's a free online version in the author's page). It seemed fine to me, although not particularly interesting or more insightful than the already existing standard theory, the geometric part seems like an overkill to me. Again, there seems to be a gap between those who are thoroughly familiar with mathematics and have used it in really profound applications (both in physics as well as pure math) and those who are only superficially familiar with it and only know these applications in music and maybe some other elementary applications as well. I don't mean to sound derogatory with this, it's just an observation, if it floats your boat, I have nothing against that. But, in my case, having seen geometry in action in other realms (like General Relativity, Yang--Mills fields, Hamiltonian mechanics, etc., the applications in physics are really endless), I have, due to that, a rather clear idea regarding what are the profound insights that geometrical ideas bring to those fields and when it's worth the trouble of applying those complex concepts. In this musical example, I really don't see the necessity of geometry for having a clear understanding of tonal harmony, even when, indeed, it can be applied to it and some musical notions be re-interpreted in geometric language. But the gain in insight is not that big, at least to me, so it's not worth the trouble for me. This often happens in physics too.


Let's face it, this is the way theories in the arts are bottled nowadays, with all the features attributable to scientific systems even though they have little in common. This allow people who have never solved an ODE, who don't know that i is a number, the nerve to pretend they know what they're talking about. Twenty years ago I argued with my lit-doc sister about uncertainty principles in art, and I lost because she's the less informed one and doesn't know it. We no longer talk about those things now. I've had a similar experience with millions with the same outcome he's much more congenial now than he was then. So I don't bother trying to tell these people what they don't know as long as they continue to argue about it. I am happier to hold back and focus on my own ignorance and what I want to learn. While millions is reading Riemann music theory, I'm reading about the theory of Indian music: did you know that the minor seventh is voiced by the elephant?


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## Albert Berry

I find Cage's musical output gimmicky, much like the art of Andy Warhol. It makes money, but does it make music? I quote my late brother: "If it doesn't have rhythm, harmony and melody, it isn't music."


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## philoctetes

There is music for listeners and music for the people who play it. Different rules apply. The idea that music must have clear rhythm or melody is a listener's bias. I believe entertainment is not essential to music but is DERIVED from music. 

When musicians play for themselves, they often break rules that listeners demand. They extemporate, improvise, and experiment. I have a few jazz theory books on the harmonic foundations for this. What cracks me up most of all is how a huge % of music listeners claim to require rhythm in music, yet they have complete phobia for the interesting poly rhythms used in modern jazz, e.g Paul Motian and his followers....

I recall a latin quotation from last week's court hearings that I could apply to conservative tastes in music.


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## philoctetes

Cage is important as an aesthetic innovator. The Cage aesthetic is a huge influence that actually has positive effects on people, just don't attribute that to Cage or make them listen to his actual work and the public will be happy to hear his voice derived through others, from Miles to Wadada to Kaiser and Chen and so on, pick your own faves... through all the uses of silence for dramatic emphasis in modern music and soundtracks... so the argument against him is what's most annoying, most detrimental, most anti-progressive argument of all, stale as a dead horses breath..


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## Albert Berry

The rhythm need not be Oom-Pa-Pa. My iPhone is blue toothed to the hearing aids. Music on my phone includes classical organ (Craig Cramer), Dixieland Jazz (The Left Bank Bearcats), U2, American Authors, Pachelbel and Jean-François Paillard. 
And for another Genre, [6] on the FM band in my radio is C&W.

I find Cage tiresome for the most part. It's empty music.


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## Mandryka

philoctetes said:


> Let's face it, this is the way theories in the arts are bottled nowadays, with all the features attributable to scientific systems even though they have little in common. This allow people who have never solved an ODE, who don't know that i is a number, the nerve to pretend they know what they're talking about. Twenty years ago I argued with my lit-doc sister about uncertainty principles in art, and I lost because she's the less informed one and doesn't know it. We no longer talk about those things now. I've had a similar experience with millions with the same outcome he's much more congenial now than he was then. So I don't bother trying to tell these people what they don't know as long as they continue to argue about it. I am happier to hold back and focus on my own ignorance and what I want to learn. While millions is reading Riemann music theory, I'm reading about the theory of Indian music: did you know that the minor seventh is voiced by the elephant?


As a logician, I sometimes get annoyed that there are people who know that 1 is a number, people who have never looked at ZF, and then have the nerve to pretend to know what they're talking about. And don't get me started about infinity.


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## philoctetes

Then let's avoid each other and be the worse off for it as a species, but better off as individuals.

Have fun reinventing the wheel while others fly over your head. Ther's obviously good reason that music theorists cite mathematicians and not logicians for inspiration. Even if we sense it's a sham, the scientists among us should feel honored. These cross-references, while they may divide the argumentative, also serve to get people to think and read more adventurously, and that's good. I just give up trying to argue about fundamentals with someone who can't do the fundamental math itself.

I'm in the mood for Norgaard. There is always a bigger number, isn't there? a/b -> inf as b->0, for all a, so if you problems with inf, you have problems with zero as well, but perhaps don't know it. So much for logic.

Maybe we should eliminate negative numbers too.


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## aleazk

Since we are in a Cage thread, let's use the usual terminology of these battles. I think that the framing of musical concepts into supposed complex and rigorous mathematical systems is mostly gimmicky. Not that math can't be used in music. I have no problem with serial composers using concepts and terms from set theory, congruences, transformations, finite groups, matrices, etc., since it's actually pertinent there. But when they cease to be useful, better to stop adding more mathematical concepts. But some others seem to think that the more baroque in appearence something is presented, then the more insighful and profound must be, just because of that. And when some others with a more extensive background in those mathematical tools point out the lack of any genuine or interesting motivation for their use, they are ignored or criticized.

If they teach something in math is to present theories in the most simple and conceptually economic way possible.


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## Mandryka

philoctetes said:


> Then let's avoid each other and be the worse off for it as a species, but better off as individuals.
> 
> Have fun reinventing the wheel while others fly over your head. Ther's obviously good reason that music theorists cite mathematicians and not logicians for inspiration. Even if we sense it's a sham, the scientists among us should feel honored. These cross-references, while they may divide the argumentative, also serve to get people to think and read more adventurously, and that's good. I just give up trying to argue about fundamentals with someone who can't do the fundamental math itself.
> 
> I'm in the mood for Norgaard. There is always a bigger number, isn't there? a/b -> inf as b->0, for all a, so if you problems with inf, you have problems with zero as well, but perhaps don't know it. So much for logic.
> 
> Maybe we should eliminate negative numbers too.


I don't have a problem with infinity, I have a problem about people talking about it with an air of authority who haven't studied the continuum hypothesis.


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## philoctetes

Ya know, I'll take a $15 CD of Cage over a $M self-shredding Banksy any day. 

But there is something very 4'33" about the Banksy. The reactions of elitists at the auction was priceless.


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## aleazk

philoctetes said:


> Then let's avoid each other and be the worse off for it as a species, but better off as individuals.
> 
> Have fun reinventing the wheel while others fly over your head. Ther's obviously good reason that music theorists cite mathematicians and not logicians for inspiration. Even if we sense it's a sham, the scientists among us should feel honored. These cross-references, while they may divide the argumentative, also serve to get people to think and read more adventurously, and that's good. I just give up trying to argue about fundamentals with someone who can't do the fundamental math itself.
> 
> I'm in the mood for Norgaard. There is always a bigger number, isn't there? a/b -> inf as b->0, for all a, so if you problems with inf, you have problems with zero as well, but perhaps don't know it. So much for logic.
> 
> Maybe we should eliminate negative numbers too.


I think the guy who did this geometric theory of tonality knows what he's talking about, but deludes himself in thinking he did some discovery with profound implications for music. And then you have the mere repeaters, who cannot really grasp the concepts at hand, but do grasp the delusion and make it transitive to themselves for having the 'merit' of reading about this theory.


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## tortkis

Mandryka said:


> Thank you Tortkis. Let me rephrase one of my questions, which was really about performers' discretion. After Cage had written an etude using his notation, did he have a conception of how it should sound? That's to say, how tightly does the the notation determine the performance?
> 
> Cage may have used randomness to remove some of his will, his intention. But in practice is it just replaced by the performer's will?
> 
> I would like someone to make a YouTube video where they write a piano piece in the style of these etudes australes using Cage's method.


As far as I understand, Cage was lenient to differences from the score if they were due to the limitations of the performers' skills, the instruments, or the circumstance, as long as the performers tried to follow the score as much as possible and didn't use their cliche. I read that Tudor altered certain parts of the score when he played Music of Changes. I don't know what Cage thought about it. When they were working on Freeman Etudes, Cage agreed with Zukofsky (though reluctantly) that _"the individual violinist, when it became absolutely necessary, would make such changes [e.g. expanding time, changing stringing, timbre substitutions, etc.] as he or she saw fit, preserving the original and its intent to the greatest possible extent."_ Ichiyanagi, who played Cage's works with him, said that Cage was very sensitive about playing differently from fixed scores, and when there was openness (unspecified in the scores), he had his preferred way to interpret it.


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## Mandryka

Claudio Crismani's recording of the etudes is so different from the rest, I find it hard to recognise as the same music sometimes if I compare what he does to (eg) Liebner, Sultan . . .


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## arpeggio

I am not a fan of Cage. For every Cage work that I like there are a least a dozen that I hate.

In spite of this I enjoy reading these discussions. For me I prefer them to debates on who was a greater Mahler conductor: Bernstein or Karajan.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

May this thread run as long and ASLSP


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## arpeggio

Another Cage work I found that is very tonal:


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## millionrainbows

Mandryka said:


> If someone could say something to help me appreciate the freeman etudes I'd be really pleased, whenever I've tried to listen to anyone playing them they sound utterly random to me. By contrast I can enjoy the piano etudes as a duet for two hands.


You're not supposed to "comprehend" them or "appreciate" them, so you're doing fine, as long as you listen.


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## millionrainbows

Albert Berry said:


> I find Cage's musical output gimmicky, much like the art of Andy Warhol. It makes money, but does it make music? I quote my late brother: "If it doesn't have rhythm, harmony and melody, it isn't music."


I love "gimmicks" for what they are. BTW, there's plenty of rhythm in the "Five Dances" for prepared piano.


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## JAS

millionrainbows said:


> You're not supposed to "comprehend" them or "appreciate" them, so you're doing fine, as long as you listen.


That seems to me like it is some kind of appreciative comprehension.


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## millionrainbows

JAS said:


> That seems to me like it is some kind of appreciative comprehension.


It's simply accepting sound for what it is: sound.

Interesting: I was listening to a WERGO sampler, which had one of Karlheinz Stockhausen's _Klavierstücke._ It was followed by John Cage's _Book of Changes._ I was surprised; I liked the John Cage better!


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## Enthusiast

It must be hard running a newspaper these days. The Guardian ran a story today about John Cage's expertise (and books) about mushrooms. Quite interesting, actually.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/19/mushrooms-mortality-john-cage-fungi-mycology


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## JAS

Enthusiast said:


> It must be hard running a newspaper these days. The Guardian ran a story today about John Cage's expertise (and books) about mushrooms. Quite interesting, actually.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/19/mushrooms-mortality-john-cage-fungi-mycology


That may be the most interesting thing I have ever read about Cage. (It is actually nice to read something that isn't about COVID and/or politics.) I suppose the only connection is that his music is based on composing, and his mushroom interest on decomposing.

And I am glad that I don't have a taste for skunk cabbage, especially now that I know about its deadly cousin.


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## Mandryka

JAS said:


> That may be the most interesting thing I have ever read about Cage. (It is actually nice to read something that isn't about COVID and/or politics.) I suppose the only connection is that his music is based on composing, and his mushroom interest on decomposing.
> 
> And I am glad that I don't have a taste for skunk cabbage, especially now that I know about its deadly cousin.


There's a famous thing he said, I'll dig it out if anyone's interested, where he compares the experience of music to the experience of hunting for mushrooms.


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## Guest

Mandryka said:


> There's a famous thing he said, I'll dig it out if anyone's interested, where he compares the experience of music to the experience of hunting for mushrooms.


Didn't he specifically mean 'the experience of (composing his) music'?


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## Mandryka

No, the experience of listening, the idea was something like, when you’re looking for mushrooms, you walk down a forest path and notice some things, and then you walk down the same path later on and notice other things, mutatis mutandis for the experience of music - that’s all.


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## Mandryka

> Guy Nearing told us it's a good idea when hunting mushrooms to have a pleasant goal, a waterfall for instance, and having reached it, to return another way. When, however, we're obliged to go and come back by the same path, returning we notice mushrooms we hadn't noticed going out.


(in Cage's _The Mushroom Book_)

Here the changing pathways or noticing things on the same route help prevent observers from becoming attached to their environment or from losing their capacity from discovery.

Rob Haskins (in _Anarchic Society of Sounds_) claims that the idea of paying attention to a subset of an experience is central to Cage's model of listening. The walk = the experience of listening; the mushrooms = the music. Each time you revisit new aspects come to mind, things you previously noticed are ignored.

Personally I found this way of listening really liberating.


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## millionrainbows

You forage for mushrooms down a forest path, then find some mushrooms, and eat a few. You then return down the same path, only your eyes are so friggin' dilated that you notice details that you'd never seen before.


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## millionrainbows

"I think that if anything is sufficiently complex, it will eventually reveal a layer of profundity." Hey, that sounds like something John Cage would have said.


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## Enthusiast

Cage's organ project ...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/05/slowly-does-it-chord-changes-in-639-year-long-organ-piece


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## erki

Me liking Cage have no problem liking Bach, Mahler, Rossini etc. However often people who like Bach, Mahler, Rossini have problem liking Cage.


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## Mandryka

Enthusiast said:


> Cage's organ project ...
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/05/slowly-does-it-chord-changes-in-639-year-long-organ-piece


Let me take the opportunity to recommend this CD


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## flamencosketches

I'm listening to a bit of Cage in belated celebration of his birthday, just the Sonatas & Interludes for now. These always remind me of Gamelan music. I find them quite accessible, though people who demand that music feature "development" may find themselves bored. 

Cage was a master, and his music is a vast and truly endless treasure trove. One could spend an eternity in it. It's a shame that for so many people his name means 4'33", nothing more, nothing less. In any case, the impact he's had on the world of music and beyond is indelible. Happy birthday to the master...


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## millionrainbows

Mandryka said:


> Let me take the opportunity to recommend this CD
> 
> View attachment 142616


...if you like the sound of organs. It might serve well as something to play on Sunday morning to wake up your neighbors.


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## Enthusiast

^ Not if it takes 639 years to finish the piece.

A reference to the article posted.


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## millionrainbows

Mandryka said:


> Let me take the opportunity to recommend this CD
> 
> View attachment 142616


It looks like he's got people manipulating the stops separately. I betcha that sounds good.


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## SanAntone

I am bumping this thread so I can keep it on my screen. Pardon the otherwise silly post.


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## SanAntone

A couple of quotes from my recent reading:

"Later I attended the premiere of the solo violin piece One10 (1992) at Goucher College on 4 April 1993. Cage made this unusual work to accompany an engaging sculpture installation by Mineko Grimmer, an inverted pyramid of ice that she encrusted with pebbles and suspended from the roof of the space; she also placed a pool of water on the floor and a copper wire between pool and sculpture. As the ice melted, the pebbles fell into the pool. Sometimes the pebbles struck the wire, producing a short sound; but sometimes they missed the wire entirely and I heard only the noise the pebbles made when they struck the water. As the violin music-which consisted solely of harmonics sustained for long periods-continued over the work's 24-minute duration, an unusual effect set in quite unlike any Western classical music I have ever heard. My mind became still, barely on the edge of consciousness. The opportunity to experience the span of time as a dynamic entity disappeared and I could no longer perceive the passing minutes. One 10' s premiere offered the possibility to enter an alternative state of consciousness that stands outside ordinary modes of perception."

- _John Cage_ (Critical Lives) by Rob Haskins

"CAGE SAID THAT he regarded 4′ 33″-his "silent piece"-with utmost seriousness. For him it was a statement of essence. Three years before he died, he told an interviewer: "No day goes by without my making use of that piece in my life and in my work. I listen to it every day.… I don't sit down to do it; I turn my attention toward it. I realize that it's going on continuously. So, more and more, my attention, as now, is on it. More than anything else, it's the source of my enjoyment of life." The important thing about having done it, he said, "is that it leads out of the world of art into the whole of life." And so it does."

- _Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists_ by Kay Larson

"In the mid-40s I worked with a musician from India who came to study in the West, and she was alarmed about the influence that Western music was having on Indian traditions. She told me that the traditional reason for making a piece of music in India was "to quiet the mind thus making it susceptible to divine influences." Meanwhile my friend Louis Harrison was reading a 16th-century English text and found the exact same reason given for writing a piece of music. Then I began to wonder: what is a quiet mind and what are divine influences?"

-- John Cage


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## SanAntone

Here's how the article* in Grove describes Cage:

_American composer. One of the leading figures of the postwar avant garde. The influence of his compositions, writings and personality has been felt by a wide range of composers around the world. He had a greater impact on music in the 20th century than any other American composer._

A description of his last period of activity.

_In 1987 Cage wrote a piece for flute and piano entitled Two, the first of a series of 43 compositions over his last five years of output that together form the major final phase of work. Their common ground is twofold: first, they all consist of mostly short fragments of music (often single notes) which have a flexible placement in time through a system of "brackets" - a range of times (given in minutes and seconds) indicate the period during which the musical fragment may begin and another range the period during which the music must be completed. Secondly, each piece is named by the number of performers involved; superscripts distinguish compositions for the same number of players (e.g. Two, Two2, Two3, etc.). These two features have led to these works being referred to as the "time bracket" or "number" pieces. Austere and spiritually powerful, they represent a return to pure music for Cage, without thematic associations. At the same time, the compositional techniques employed are not the focus of the work, as was the case in the 1950s, the last period in which Cage was concerned with exclusively musical issues. Indeed, by the later numbers in the series, the composition process was simply a matter of randomly selecting a range of pitches and a handful of pitches within that range, and of chance determination, within broad limits, where the bracket timings would fall. The technique of these pieces is no more than the brush with which Cage applied his sonic paint. And yet they exhibit a tremendous spectrum of sonorities, effects and moods. If proof were needed they demonstrate once and for all the depth of Cage's musical imagination and vision._

I think it is disingenuous for any classical music listener to claim that John Cage is not a serious composer. While it is perfectly valid to express the opinion that his music is not for you, it is quite another thing to denigrate his legitimate place within the community of classical music composers.

* Pritchett, J., Kuhn, L., & Garrett, C. (2012, July 10). Cage, John. Grove Music Online. Retrieved 17 Nov. 2020, from https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/g...92630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002223954.


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## erki

Just listened John Cage - Souvenir (for organ). Nice!


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## SanAntone

*The Piano Concertos*

_Concert for Piano and Orchestra _(30:05)
(1957/58)
David Tudor, piano
Ensemble Modern
Ingo Metzmacher, conductor

_Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra_ (9:12 / 9:30 / 4:58)
(1951, first CD recording)

_Fourteen_ (20:00)
(1990, first recording)
Stephen Drury, piano & bowed piano
Callithumpian Consort
Charles Peltz, conductor

View attachment 146076


This excellent recording is, I think, mandatory for any person interested in John Cage.



> This major release marks the first time that all of John Cage's Piano Concertos have been collected on one disc. It is especially valuable because it brings together two of Cage's favorite pianists -- the legendary David Tudor and renowned new-music champion Stephen Drury.
> 
> Here Tudor makes a rare appearance as piano soloist with Germany's acclaimed Ensemble Modern for the Concert for Piano and Orchestra. This is the last performance of David Tudor at the piano, recorded at 1992's Cage Festival in Frankfurt (which sadly became a memorial as Cage passed away shortly before the performances).
> 
> The Concert for Piano and Orchestra is an ever-expanding galaxy of sonic possibilities with the principle of independence. With no master score; orchestral players may start anywhere in his or her part according to their independently derived timetable. The pianist swims in the same sort of musical aquarium as the orchestra, not only producing traditional sounds on the keyboard, but also playing inside the instrument, along with unspecified auxiliary noise sources. Cage's comment on the expansive and contradictory nature of this sound universe is telling: "The only thing I was being consistent to in this piece was that I did not need to be consistent."
> 
> Drury is the soloist for the beautifully exquisite Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra, one of the last works in his early style, and Cage's final work for piano with ensemble, Fourteen. The Concerto is about the conflict between structure and freedom, between improvisation and order which Cage describes as "a drama between the piano, which remains romantic, expressive, and the orchestra, which itself follows the principles of oriental philosophy." With the prepared piano, altered by the insertion of objects between the strings, the pressing of a key yields not a single tone but a complex sonority. At the core of the 22-piece orchestra is a large array of percussion -- including instruments like an amplified slinky, a "water gong" (a Cage invention), and a radio. The orchestra is, in effect, a continuation of the prepared piano whose sonorities follow each other as a "melodic line without accompaniment", to quote Cage. Cage worked extensively with Drury and conductor Charles Peltz in rehearsing this work.
> 
> In Fourteen, the instruments play independently from each other; producing only simple pitches, which tend to be either very long or isolated, brief events. The solo piano is not played conventionally, rather its strings are bowed with rosined nylon fishing line, producing an ethereal, mysterious sound. Using the bowed piano's unique sound as a focus, and bracketing and mirroring the achievement of the Concerto for Prepared Piano, Cage creates in Fourteen a music which defines silence and is defined by silence.


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## SanAntone

_"When John Cage was born in 1912, the automobile was only just entering mass production. California had not yet become a snarl. Most of the Los Angeles basin was a quiet sprawl of two-lane roads, bungalows, dairies, truck farms, and dry fields baking in the sun. A network of roadways extended out from the city center, and you could drive in your open-top roadster to the orange groves of Riverside or the port of Long Beach, with hardly another car in sight.

The wilderness was as close as yesterday; settlers' bones still spoke to the living. A sublime light, constantly shifting, sifted white radiance onto the noonday and tinted the evening sky an infinitely clear cerulean, the color of heaven. This translucent sage-scented envelope of light and distance was never far from the daily routine of those who lived within it. Anything was possible in California, since the frame was so huge. This fusion of California luminism and West Coast transcendentalism was the first of Cage's "givens," a gift he honored all his life."_

- Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists by Kay Larson

It is easy to forget that we are defined by our environment. Cage was born into a very different world then we know today and I must assume it formed his outlook in ways that we might be unable to accurately gauge. I can't help but envy living in the California described in this excerpt. Hardly any cars, industrial sounds, fewer people and little urban blight.

The sentence, "Anything was possible in California, since the frame was so huge," seems so important for a composer like Cage.


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## SanAntone

*Four Walls *
giancarlo simonacci (piano), lorna windsor (voice), david simonacci (violin), ars ludi percussion ensemble

View attachment 146144


Complete works for piano & voice
Complete works for piano & violin

A good recording of some important Cage works.


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## millionrainbows

SanAntone said:


> *Four Walls *
> giancarlo simonacci (piano), lorna windsor (voice), david simonacci (violin), ars ludi percussion ensemble
> 
> A good recording of some important Cage works.


I agree. These are a series of new (meaning not liscenced reissues) recordings on Brilliant. Dirt cheap, and very good recordings/performances.


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## Mandryka

millionrainbows said:


> I agree. These are a series of new 9meaning not liscenced reissues) recordings on Brilliant. Dirt cheap, and very good recordings/performances.


He did a listenable recording of Scelsi's music with cello with his brother.


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## flamencosketches

SanAntone said:


> A couple of quotes from my recent reading:
> 
> "Later I attended the premiere of the solo violin piece One10 (1992) at Goucher College on 4 April 1993. Cage made this unusual work to accompany an engaging sculpture installation by Mineko Grimmer, an inverted pyramid of ice that she encrusted with pebbles and suspended from the roof of the space; she also placed a pool of water on the floor and a copper wire between pool and sculpture. As the ice melted, the pebbles fell into the pool. Sometimes the pebbles struck the wire, producing a short sound; but sometimes they missed the wire entirely and I heard only the noise the pebbles made when they struck the water. As the violin music-which consisted solely of harmonics sustained for long periods-continued over the work's 24-minute duration, an unusual effect set in quite unlike any Western classical music I have ever heard. My mind became still, barely on the edge of consciousness. The opportunity to experience the span of time as a dynamic entity disappeared and I could no longer perceive the passing minutes. One 10' s premiere offered the possibility to enter an alternative state of consciousness that stands outside ordinary modes of perception."
> 
> - _John Cage_ (Critical Lives) by Rob Haskins
> 
> "CAGE SAID THAT he regarded 4′ 33″-his "silent piece"-with utmost seriousness. For him it was a statement of essence. Three years before he died, he told an interviewer: "No day goes by without my making use of that piece in my life and in my work. I listen to it every day.… I don't sit down to do it; I turn my attention toward it. I realize that it's going on continuously. So, more and more, my attention, as now, is on it. More than anything else, it's the source of my enjoyment of life." The important thing about having done it, he said, "is that it leads out of the world of art into the whole of life." And so it does."
> 
> - _Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists_ by Kay Larson
> 
> "In the mid-40s I worked with a musician from India who came to study in the West, and she was alarmed about the influence that Western music was having on Indian traditions. She told me that the traditional reason for making a piece of music in India was "to quiet the mind thus making it susceptible to divine influences." Meanwhile my friend Louis Harrison was reading a 16th-century English text and found the exact same reason given for writing a piece of music. Then I began to wonder: what is a quiet mind and what are divine influences?"
> 
> -- John Cage


I'd have loved to have seen that Grimmer installation.

Always good to see some activity in the Cage thread. Cage is a composer I initially had some trouble with, but whom I now love (when the time is right, which is not always). I find the prepared piano music, the percussion music, and (some of) the Number Pieces all to be quite accessible given that the listener is open to these kinds of music.

Mandryka, I remember you broke Cage down into four categories (either earlier in this thread or on the other board, I forget) and I personally found it very helpful for understanding his music. Do you remember this, and would you care to repost it for the benefit of possible new listeners reading this thread? If not I will have to dig it up some time, I found it interesting.


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## flamencosketches

millionrainbows said:


> I agree. These are a series of new (meaning not liscenced reissues) recordings on Brilliant. Dirt cheap, and very good recordings/performances.


Agreed, very very good! I got a Schleiermacher 2CD on MDG with some overlapping repertoire around the same time as I got this (both were around $5 brand new or something absurd like that so I figured why not both?) and I still have yet to even open the Schleiermacher because I've been so impressed with this one. There is also "Music for Piano and Percussion" with the same pianist and the Ars Nova Percussion Ensemble, which is awesome and contains an excellent Credo in US, one of my favorite early Cage pieces.


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## SanAntone

_IN 1935, John Cage held both life models in his hands: Schoenberg's rule-bound compositional calculations (which must have reminded him of the mathematical methods he devised when he first started composing music in Europe) and Russolo's wide-open acceptance of any sounds at all. Gradually, over the next two years, Cage turned against Schoenberg's system. The break came in Schoenberg's class on harmony, when Cage recognized that he simply wasn't interested. Although Schoenberg took harmony seriously, what Cage cared about was noise.

Several times I tried to explain to Schoenberg that I had no feeling for harmony. He told me that without a feeling for harmony I would always encounter an obstacle, a wall through which I wouldn't be able to pass. My reply was that in that case I would devote my life to beating my head against that wall-and maybe that is what I've been doing ever since. Harmony is a vertical stack of notes all sounded at once, with the result that individual notes are like voices absorbed into a chorus. Cage's West Coast individualism (edging toward anarchism) rebelled. His alarm was not just musical, but also social: Schoenberg's method is analogous to modern society, in which the emphasis is on the group and the integration of the individual into the group.

In the two years he studied with Schoenberg, Cage discovered something profound about himself. He recognized the essential importance of identifying the question that is the ground or basis of all the answers. His pithy statement of purpose-" What can be analyzed in my work, or criticized, are the questions that I ask"-originates in this moment. This insight would shape his course in music and his spiritual path as well.

Decades later, as self-knowledge deepened, Cage would look back down this road: My composition arises out of asking questions. I am reminded of a story early on about a class with Schoenberg. He had us go to the blackboard to solve a particular problem in counterpoint (though it was a class in harmony). He said, "When you have a solution, turn around and let me see it." I did that. He then said: "Now another solution, please." I gave another and another until finally, having made seven or eight, I reflected a moment and then said with some certainty: "There aren't any more solutions." He said: "OK. What is the principle underlying all of the solutions?" I couldn't answer his question; but I had always worshipped the man, and at that point I did even more. He ascended, so to speak. I spent the rest of my life, until recently, hearing him ask that question over and over. And then it occurred to me through the direction that my work has taken, which is renunciation of choices and the substitution of asking questions, that the principle underlying all of the solutions that I had given him was the question that he had asked, because they certainly didn't come from any other point. He would have accepted that answer, I think. The answers have the question in common. Therefore the question underlies the answers._

- Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists by Kay Larson

*John Cage - Variations I*






Eberhard Blum, flute

The ten-minute Variations I is Cage already at work with his chance operations, influenced by Duchamp on one side, his love of silence on another, and Zen on still another. It's haunting hyperactivity, all done in a register that later became rare for Cage -- one where dynamic range ceased to matter and the piano and other percussion shape an unknown sound world, giving it a face as it enters ours. [allmusic.com]


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## SanAntone

*An Interview with Merce Cunningham and John Cage*






In the spring of 1981, during a residency at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, choreographer Merce Cunningham and composer John Cage sat down to discuss their work and artistic process. As frequent collaborators, Cage and Cunningham pioneered a new framework of performance. Their novel approach allowed for mediums to exist independently, or rather cohabitate, within a performance, thus abandoning the co-dependent model of dance and music. Cage and Cunningham go on to discuss the methodology and motivations behind chance operations, a term used to describe artistic decisions based on unpredictability. Wanting to free himself of his likes and dislikes, Cage describes how Zen Buddhism influenced his work, leading him to use tools of chance. These new methods, adopted by both Cunningham and Cage, overturned a whole foundation of thought around music, movement, and the process of creating art.


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## SanAntone

This short clip produced by some local news organization is hilarious to me. The funniest thing about it are the news commentators, with their trained broadcasting delivery, all serious and earnest, it is the perfect foil for John Cage's serendipity. There are a few interesting moments when Cage breaks through this opaque inanity with a little pearl of insight into his art. Then the little bit of meaningless banter at the end by the two news people ties it all up with a little bow.


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## SanAntone

I am thinking today that the most important American composers are *Charles Ives*, *Elliott Carter* and *John Cage*.


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## SanAntone

*Some excerpts from Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists by Kay Larson.
*
Love for ordinary sounds was still bubbling through Cage's vision. Cage expanded on his Futurist beliefs in another prescient manifesto, "The Future of Music: Credo," published in 1940.

The text leads off with Russolo-style fireworks:

_Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. _

As in his 1939 manifesto, Cage laid out a future that actually arrived as predicted.

_We want to capture and control these sounds, to use them not as sound effects but as musical instruments. _

Every film studio, Cage noticed, had a staggering variety of sound-making options. He saw some of that potential himself in the sliding tones of his own _Imaginary Landscape No. 1 _- sounds made by controlling amplitude and frequency of phonograph recordings and creating rhythms "within or beyond the reach of anyone's imagination."

Though Cage couldn't know the infinite variety of sounds that would be available decades later through digital synthesizers and all manner of new means (including record sampling), he sensed that momentous changes were coming.

Most inventors of electrical musical instruments have attempted to imitate eighteenth-and nineteenth-century instruments, just as early automobile designers copied the carriage. Cage saw a rapidly unfolding future where pure creativity would leap all traditional boundaries - including the rule of the orchestra. It is now possible for composers to make music directly, without the assistance of intermediary performers.

_Any design repeated often enough on a sound track is audible.… The composer (organizer of sound) will be faced not only with the entire field of sound but also the entire field of time. No rhythm will be beyond the composer's reach. 
_
Cage, of course, had ultimate faith in his own system.

_Percussion music is a contemporary transition from keyboard-influenced music to the all-sound music of the future. Any sound is acceptable to the composer of percussion music; he explores the academically forbidden "non-musical" field of sound insofar as it is manually possible. _

And for the first time, his manifesto introduced a second line of text - expressed entirely in capital letters - that threads its way through the body of the piece like a voice from the in-rushing future.

I BELIEVE THAT THE USE OF NOISE / TO MAKE MUSIC / WILL CONTINUE AND INCREASE UNTIL WE REACH A MUSIC PRODUCED THROUGH THE AID OF ELECTRICAL INSTRUMENTS / WHICH WILL MAKE AVAILABLE FOR MUSICAL PURPOSES ANY AND ALL SOUNDS THAT CAN BE HEARD. PIE PANS AND WOOD

_I spent a day or so conscientiously trying to find an African twelve-tone row. I had no luck. I decided that what was wrong was not me but the piano. I decided to change it. _

Then the memory of Henry Cowell's fingers plucking and stroking the piano strings floated through Cage's mind.

_I went to the kitchen, got a pie plate, brought it into the living room and placed it on the piano strings. I played a few keys. The piano sounds had been changed, but the pie plate bounced around due to the vibrations. So he next tried nails, but they slipped. Then why not use bolts or screws, which would certainly stay put? And they did. _

The metal muted the sound and added a tinny resonance-really interesting. He inserted screws, rods, bolts, felt weather stripping-and lo!-a piano reborn as a percussion instrument.

_I wrote the _Bacchanale_ quickly and with the excitement continual discovery provided. _

The prepared piano would serve Cage well for decades. Chiming and bonging, the piano shed its tradition-bound identity and would become the sonic equivalent of a modernist gamelan. This is lighthearted music, rapid and joyous. It carries no classical baggage. It seems to have sprung from a spirited heart. The repertoire of new sounds would appear to be almost inexhaustible.

IT'S NATURAL TO accept Cage's story of the prepared piano's invention. But we can also take a hypothetical leap that brings us high into the clouds, looking down over the whole pine-green town of Seattle and its cold rain-forest islands in the stream of wilderness-and farther down toward the parched plains of Los Angeles.

In our vision, *Cowell* is only one of Cage's heroes now leaning over his shoulder. There are others. *Oskar Fischinger* turns from his camera and congratulates Cage on realizing that everything has a spirit waiting to be heard. The prepared piano sings a duet with the screws and bolts, their humble hardware voices released at last.

*Luigi Russolo* shakes his Futurist dice and tells Cage not to worry. All sounds are born equal. All sounds are good, even if they ring from a pie plate or a strip of felt. *Tobey* reminds Cage of the walk they took to the Japanese restaurant. Every leaf, every crack in the sidewalk, every sound is alive when observed with bare attention, Tobey says.

All his teachers have deposited subtle traces in his consciousness. And in turn, his invention becomes his teacher. Cage discovers that if he wants the same sound in the next performance of the prepared piano, he has to save the exact bolt or screw. If he uses a new screw, the tone qualities will change. An iota of chance has entered the picture.

_When I first placed objects between piano strings, it was with the desire to possess sounds (to be able to repeat them). But, as the music left my home and went from piano to piano and from pianist to pianist, it became clear that not only are two pianists essentially different from one another, but two pianos are not the same either. Instead of the possibility of repetition, we are faced in life with the unique qualities and characteristics of each occasion. Liberating the voices of ordinary objects frees them to be unique. Two screws (or wheel hubs or teakettles) sing differently. You have to listen in a new way-not looking for musical perfection, but hearing sounds with the equanimity of an artist who absorbs everything that comes into view.
_
*John Cage : Bacchanale*






Lindsy Lev plays prepared piano. Dancers: Amanda Owen, Kaitlyn McDermitt.


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## SanAntone

"Cage's aesthetic would be permeated by a delight in the everyday, the non-fetishizing of objects and the celebration of activity as the most important creative act of all."

"Cage's interest in Zen brought about a decisive sea change in his life and thought. His methods led to the gradual abandonment of his own taste in the making of his compositions. The Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra exemplified his new aesthetic orientation. In the concerto he had already moved towards eliminating his own compositional intervention by arraying his pre-composed materials in charts: simple, game-like moves around the various cells of the charts determined the unfolding of these materials in the time span of the composition, resulting in an unusual assortment of sounds and continuity. For the last movement, Cage used the I Ching to generate hexagram numbers corresponding to these moves, removing himself from the process even further."

- John Cage (Critical Lives) by Rob Haskins

*John Cage - Credo in Us* (1942)






Performed by Third Coast Percussion 
(Clayton Condon, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin and David Skidmore).

Fascinating work that incorporates classical symphonic music via phonograph recordings and random radio broadcasts as well writing for the piano in both a percussive manner and in a bluesy style.


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## SanAntone

"Zen and Taoism agree: Name it and you've made it something other than what it is. Divide it with conceptual thought and you've created all dualistic thinking. Put yourself first and you've disturbed the Way. Try to "get somewhere" and you will lose contact with the ground. Embrace "not knowing" and you will know everything you need. As the Tao Te Ching says (in a superb recent translation):

TAO called TAO is not TAO. 
Names can name no lasting name. 
Nameless: the origin of heaven and earth. 
Naming: the mother of ten thousand things. 
Empty of desire, perceive mystery. 
Filled with desire, perceive manifestations. 
These have the same source, but different names. 
Call them both deep
Deep and again deep: The gateway to all mystery….

Therefore sages cling to the One And take care of this world; 
Do not display themselves 
And therefore shine; 
Do not assert themselves 
And therefore stand out; 
Are not complacent 
And therefore endure; 
Do not contend 
And therefore no one under heaven 
Can contend with them."

"As 1950 ended, Cage brought all his metaphysical research to bear on the third movement of Concerto for Prepared Piano and Orchestra. He wrote it by asking questions, throwing coins, and accepting the I Ching's answers. He devised a chart of thirty-two simple moves, which would generate sounds when the I Ching told him which number to pick. He also added silences to the mix of possible chart sounds. The remaining thirty-two numbers out of the sixty-four possible hexagrams would leave pauses of differing durations, when the instruments would be unsounded. In the third movement, piano and orchestra-previously governed by different charts-now have the same chart, the same guidance system. They speak each other's musical language. "The final movement is one of the great revelations of Cage's oeuvre," writes concert pianist Stephen Drury. The piano is at last released "from the hunger for self-expression" and merges its voice with the orchestra. The organizing principle that piano and orchestra have shared all along is expressed by their common ground in silence.

"In the Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra, Cage, in stripping away the sounds of the piece and reducing it to silence, shows us the heart of the music," Drury writes. Cage's journey through the 1940s ended in February 1951 with the last movement of Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra, James Pritchett has written. A new vision was taking the place of the old.

_'These [chance-created] pieces, like virtually all of my work since the late forties [sic], early fifties, are non-intentional. They were written by shifting my responsibility from making choices to asking questions. The questions were answered by means of I Ching chance operations. Following my studies with Suzuki Daisetz in the philosophy of Zen Buddhism, I have used in all my work, whether literary, graphic, or musical, I Ching chance operations in order to free my mind (ego) from its likes and dislikes, trusting that this use was comparable to sitting crosslegged, and in agreement with my teacher that what Zen wants is that mind not cut itself off from Mind but let Mind flow through it.'"_

- Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists by Kay Larson


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## SanAntone

This is one of the best recordings of a variety of John Cage works, done by a pianist and conductor/orchestra who are very good interpreters of the music.

*John Cage: The Seasons*
Margaret Leng Tan, American Composers Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies

View attachment 146652




> The first appearance of the work of John Cage on ECM is cause for celebration. This recording goes beyond the artistic-nihilistic gestures and the anarchic-Zen gags to get at the essence of Cage's musical thought. Cage's playfulness can't be - and shouldn't be - muzzled, of course, but here one also experiences the beauty and the sensuality of the compositions, thanks to the input of two musicians who worked closely with the composer: conductor Dennis Russell Davies and pianist Margaret Leng Tan. The album includes a premiere recording of 'Seventy-Four' which Cage wrote especially for the American Composers Orchestra.


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## SanAntone

"When I first began to work on "chance operations," I had the musical values of the twentieth century. That is, two tones should (in the twentieth century) be seconds and sevenths, the octaves being dull and old-fashioned. But when I wrote The _Music of Changes_, derived by chance operations from the I Ching, I had ideas in my head as to what would happen in working out this process (which took about nine months). They didn't happen!-things happened that were not stylish to happen, such as fifths and octaves. But I accepted them, admitting I was "not in charge" but was "ready to be changed" by what I was doing. 

_Music of Changes_ represents a "radical overhaul" of Cage's compositional methods, "which made him, more than all his previous innovations and experiments, the real pioneer" of American music, writes German concert pianist Herbert Henck. It's also the start of his heretical reputation (in tradition-minded music circles) as an inscrutable, difficult, irritating "philosopher" who gave up writing traditional music and abandoned a composer's obligation to infuse his tastes and decisions into his art.

In _Music of Changes_, Cage explored his recent revelations. He set up multiple charts for sounds, durations, and dynamics. Each chart displays sixty-four cells in eight-by-eight ranks. Each cell is numbered to correspond to one of the I Ching's sixty-four hexagrams. Odd-numbered cells generate piano sounds, including an occasional percussive thud or harp-like sweep of strings. Even-numbered cells generate silences.

_Music of Changes_ is even more precisely structured than _Sonatas and Interludes_.

All the numbers-number of units in a section, number of measures, changes of tempo and so on-were determined by chance operations. There were twenty-four charts (eight for sounds and silences, eight for amplitudes, eight for durations) and their use was fluid: "[ T] hroughout the course of a single structural unit, half of them [are] mobile and half of them immobile," Cage wrote. The "mobile" charts were replaced after being used, while the "immobile" charts remained in use. Cage's system could evolve; he had merely to alter the instructions. The apparent rigidity was actually quite adaptable.

In performance, _Music of Changes_ seems very much "like Cage." Sounds alternate with silences. Clusters of piano phrases erupt in small explosions set off from each other by brief haltings, like suspended breaths. A poet will read her work before a microphone in this way. At first the rigor of the discipline feels jagged and strained. If you keep paying attention, though, something opens up. Cage's refusal to give us what we want-some emotional identifier-begins to expand the scope of _Music of Changes_. The piano's voice is not allowed to be anything but itself. As self-identification disappears, lightness and clarity arise.

Jean-Jacques Nattiez has examined the question of "what _Music of Changes_ owes to the dialectic of order and freedom" that was taking place in Cage's mind during his transit through the 1950s. Cage's system for _Music of Changes_ was orderly in the extreme. Nattiez points out that it even contained an homage to Schoenberg. The charts used "all twelve tones" of Cage's old composition teacher's system, as Cage himself admitted. He was working off his debt to Schoenberg in his own way.

The rigorous structure established by the throw of coins fascinated Cage's young friend and colleague Pierre Boulez, and "partially contributed to the development of the total serial technique" in Europe, Nattiez writes. But Cage would occupy this realm of chance-composed twelve-tone music for just a year. By the end of 1951, which is also the beginning of the end of Cage's debt to Schoenberg, the impulse away from order and toward freedom would take Cage into ever-larger moral and spiritual realms.

[Q:] A great many people would be baffled by the suggestion that they should respond neither emotionally nor intellectually to music. What else is there?

[Cage:] They should listen. Why should they imagine that sounds are not interesting in themselves?…"

- Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists by Kay Larson

*John Cage: Music of Changes* - III.
David Tudor


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## SanAntone

*John Cage | Sonatas and Interludes* (Thomas Nicholson)


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## SanAntone

"If you type "indeterminacy" into Google's search engine, you get four categories of response. The first references are to John Cage. The second group cites quantum physics. The third category points to literature; the fourth, philosophy. What do they have in common? All four systems call into question the all-too-human proposition that we can ultimately know what we're talking about.

The physics term "quantum indeterminacy" is succinctly summed up in Wikipedia: "Prior to quantum physics, it was thought that (a) a physical system had a determinate state which uniquely determined all the values of its measurable properties, and conversely (b) the values of its measurable properties uniquely determined the state." Newtonian physics was determinate; it suggested that the world could be subjected to precise description. A different picture of the universe was taking shape in the twentieth century. "Precise description" was turning out to be a great cosmic prank.

In 1958, as John Cage prepared to present musical indeterminacy to the Darmstadt audience, Werner Heisenberg's autobiographical account of his development of the Uncertainty Principle entered the book market in English translation. In the 1920s, Heisenberg had noticed that the observer perfectly interpenetrates both with the act of observation and the thing being observed. Nobody knew what to make of it. By that point, "relations of uncertainty" or the "principle of indeterminacy" had displaced Newton's laws of certainty and had obliged Heisenberg to come up with his Uncertainty Principle. Telling the story of his discovery in Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science, Heisenberg described a quantum reality in which "probability functions" rule. He proposed that "observation plays a decisive role in the event and that the reality varies, depending upon whether we observe it or not." In developing the Uncertainty Principle, after long discussions with his mentor Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in 1925, Heisenberg walked off his confusion in a park and repeated to himself "again and again the question: Can nature possibly be as absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?""

- Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists by Kay Larson


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## Mandryka

SanAntone said:


> "If you type "indeterminacy" into Google's search engine, you get four categories of response. The first references are to John Cage. The second group cites quantum physics. The third category points to literature; the fourth, philosophy. What do they have in common? All four systems call into question the all-too-human proposition that we can ultimately know what we're talking about.
> 
> The physics term "quantum indeterminacy" is succinctly summed up in Wikipedia: "Prior to quantum physics, it was thought that (a) a physical system had a determinate state which uniquely determined all the values of its measurable properties, and conversely (b) the values of its measurable properties uniquely determined the state." Newtonian physics was determinate; it suggested that the world could be subjected to precise description. A different picture of the universe was taking shape in the twentieth century. "Precise description" was turning out to be a great cosmic prank.
> 
> In 1958, as John Cage prepared to present musical indeterminacy to the Darmstadt audience, Werner Heisenberg's autobiographical account of his development of the Uncertainty Principle entered the book market in English translation. In the 1920s, Heisenberg had noticed that the observer perfectly interpenetrates both with the act of observation and the thing being observed. Nobody knew what to make of it. By that point, "relations of uncertainty" or the "principle of indeterminacy" had displaced Newton's laws of certainty and had obliged Heisenberg to come up with his Uncertainty Principle. Telling the story of his discovery in Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science, Heisenberg described a quantum reality in which "probability functions" rule. He proposed that "observation plays a decisive role in the event and that the reality varies, depending upon whether we observe it or not." In developing the Uncertainty Principle, after long discussions with his mentor Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in 1925, Heisenberg walked off his confusion in a park and repeated to himself "again and again the question: Can nature possibly be as absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?""
> 
> - Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists by Kay Larson


Why do you think Cage was interested in introducing his particular types of indeterminacy into music? What was he trying to achieve?

(Of course a standard score underdetermines many aspects of a performance - I wonder if that's connected to Cage style indeterminacy.)

If I think of contemporary music, the pendulum looks as though it swung the other way a while ago. Think Ferneyhough's scores and his wish that performers execute them with no compromises.


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## SanAntone

Mandryka said:


> Why do you think Cage was interested in introducing his particular types of indeterminacy into music? What was he trying to achieve?
> 
> (Of course a standard score underdetermines many aspects of a performance - I wonder if that's connected to Cage style indeterminacy.)
> 
> If I think of contemporary music, the pendulum looks as though it's swinging the other way now. Élianne Rodigue's Occam series, written for a single musician and instrument, seems to take determinacy to new levels, maybe.


Cage was a part of the artistic ferment of the late 40s-early 50s that also included the Abstract Expressionist painters. The idea of art being seen as a process and not an object was articulated by Harold Rosenberg in an article "The American Action Painters," published in December 1952. The painting was not an object as much as the documentation of an event.

Cage saw the production of music as process, as well, and chance procedures producing a work with indeterminate possibilities for the performer was all part of his aesthetic philosophy and Zen beliefs, which allowed for the composition process/event to continue occurring with each performance, producing new results.

Listening to his talk at Darmstadt is instructive of these ideas, as well as the response from the European avant-garde community. Cage made something of a splash, challenging the European cultural dominance, accusing them of being imprisoned by the past.


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## Mandryka

I’ll listen to the lecture later. Boulez talks about the impact he made at Darmstadt, like a breath of fresh air, is what he says, because he was so anti methodologies for composition, though Boulez suggests that ultimately his impact in Europe was pretty insignificant. Boulez may not be totally right about that. 

Cardew was impressed by the way that a piece like Variations II could inspire performers to play creatively, because in a sense they’re making their own score - and I think that paved the way for classical musicians to think seriously about the possibilities for improvisation within the structure of a composition. This is what Richard Barrett is about. 

Ferneyhough is interesting because in a way he seems to say the opposite - that by making the musician go through the hoop of trying to execute an impossibly precisely and ridiculously detailed score, something magic will happen to the music he makes.

Anyway, for me what I like about all of this is that composers are thinking of the music in performance, how to make it alive and exciting for listeners and musicians.


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## SanAntone

Mandryka said:


> I'll listen to the lecture later. Boulez talks about the impact he made at Darmstadt, like a breath of fresh air, is what he says, because he was so anti methodologies for composition, though Boulez suggests that ultimately his impact in Europe was pretty insignificant. Boulez may not be totally right about that.
> 
> Cardew was impressed by the way that a piece like Variations II could inspire performers to play creatively, because in a sense they're making their own score - and I think that paved the way for classical musicians to think seriously about the possibilities for improvisation within the structure of a composition. This is what Richard Barrett is about.
> 
> Ferneyhough is interesting because in a way he seems to say the opposite - that by making the musician go through the hoop of trying to execute an impossibly precisely and ridiculously detailed score, something magic will happen to the music he makes.
> 
> Anyway, for me what I like about all of this is that composers are thinking of the music in performance, how to make it alive and exciting for listeners and musicians.


Ferneyhough scores are so complex and make such demands on the limits of a performer's technique, that Ferneyhough does not really expect them to play the score exactly. His hope is that by presenting this kind of score it will produce the effect he is after, without necessarily being note perfect, something which he intentionally put out of reach for performers. This is another form of indeterminacy.


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## Mandryka

SanAntone said:


> Ferneyhough scores are so complex and make such demands on the limits of a performer's technique, that Ferneyhough does not really expect them to play the score exactly. His hope is that by presenting this kind of score it will produce the effect he is after, without necessarily being note perfect, something which he intentionally put out of reach for performers. This is another form of indeterminacy.


Yes that's the sort of thing, but not the limitations of the performer, the limitations of the instrument. Here's his comment in the score of Cassandra's Dream Song



> notes:A valid realization will only result from a rigorous attempt to reproduce as many of the textural details as possible: such divergences and impurities as then follow from the natural limitations of the instrument itself may be taken to be the intentions of the composer. No attempt should be made to conceal the difficulty of the music by resorting to compromises and inexactitudes (i.e.  of rhythm) designed to achieve a superficially more polished result. On the contrary the audible (and visual) degree of difficulty is to be drawn as an integral structural element into the fabric of the composition itself. The piece as it stands is, therefore, not intended to be the plan of an ideal performance. The notation does not represent the result required: it is the attempt to realize the written specifications in practice which is designed to produce the desired (but unnotatable) sound-qualit's.


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## SanAntone

John Cage: "In the early 1950s I began using chance operations to write my music, and after I became acquainted with the I Ching (The Chinese Book of Changes), I used it extensively. I apply chance operations to determine the frequency, amplitude, timbre, duration and placement of different elements in my music. The chance operations allow me to get away from the likes and dislikes of my ego so that I can become attentive to what is outside of my own psychology and memory. By using chance operations I am accepting what I obtain. Instead of expressing myself, I change myself. You might say I use chance operations instead of sitting meditation practice."






This is one of Cage's few "number" pieces that does not utilize time-brackets. Being inspired by a remark of Sofia Gubaidulina, i.e. "There is an inner clock," Cage created a composition consisting of 36 lines of music, each containing 5 measures. Within each line, 31 events occur: 5+7+5+7+7, as in Japanese Renga poetry. The pianists play a measure in their own tempo, but the next measure may only be played when both have completed the previous.


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## SanAntone

As Cage himself indicates: "There are keyboard aggregates, combinations of quarter notes without stems, and single whole notes, prepared tones if accompanied with a P, bowed, plucked or mutes tones if not so accompanied. The [symbol of a small circle with an x through it] is an auxiliary sound characterized by its being long sustained (e.g. a gyroscope or top in contact with the interior piano structure); it is to be used only once with respect to each piano. The damper pedals of all pianos used are to be held down throughout. The notations describe instruments which are available at all times to the pianist for use. In a single performance no particular continuity is to be thought of as indicated.

*Cage : One2*
Sabine Liebner


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## SanAntone

*Was John Cage the greatest composer of the 20th century?*

Who was the greatest composer of the 20th century? This was the question asked recently on a popular Classical Music forum. Many names were put forward: Bartok, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, my choice was *John Cage*, but even some argued for Mahler.

This raises the question how could a composer that died in 1911 be considered the greatest composer of the next 90 years? The most common argument put forward was because of the composers he influenced, which included Arnold Schoenberg, Dmitri Shostakovich, Benjamin Britten and many others. Any of these composers could be considered the greatest, and they in turn influenced younger composers.

My choice of John Cage is not popular, and he might not even be considered a composer at all. So many think of him more as a philosopher that it has become a cliché. But it is how his thinking produced great music that matters to me. His _Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano_ is a modern classic; his _Concert for Piano and Orchestra_ also very important. And both beautiful in indescribable ways. In his last decade he produced dozens of works, his "number pieces", which can be seen as the culmination of his life's work, are likely to become chamber music classics of the late 20th century.

The myriad methods he used for composing and notating his work produced music that challenged how we think of music. Beyond _4'33"_, his _Song Books_, music that involved contact microphones on cactus, and kitchen furniture, that incorporated spoken text and stage action - his work took us beyond the boundaries of how we perceive music. And the music is beautiful.

He in turn influenced a generation of composers, including *Morton Feldman*, *Christian Wolff*, *Earle Brown* and even composers such as *Pierre Boulez* and *Karlheinz Stockhausen* were influenced, however briefly, by John Cage.


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## Mandryka

Liza Lim has written a solo violin piece called The Su Song Star Map. The map in question is an ancient one and looks like this









Some aspects of the music eventually found their way into the much bigger piece Extinction Events, and in the booklet she says



> Her materials include tracings of a ninth-century Chinese star map (recycled from an earlier violin solo The Su Song Star Map, 2018)


I wonder if these tracings are similar to Cage's.

Here's the piece


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## SanAntone

Mandryka said:


> Liza Lim has written a solo violin piece called The Su Song Star Map. The map in question is an ancient one and looks like this
> 
> View attachment 147499
> 
> 
> Some aspects of the music eventually found their way into the much bigger piece Extinction Events, and in the booklet she says
> 
> I wonder if these tracings are similar to Cage's.
> 
> Here's the piece


*This article* of hers addresses the importance of some Cage's ideas in her composition process.


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## Mandryka

Good find! 


Wxjnxemjcnemcnns


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## SanAntone

Interview from 1963 with questions challenging Cage on a number of issues.








> A lively 1963 interview of John Cage by Jonathan Cott. The discussion covers several aspects of Cages creative process and aesthetic. At every turn Cott antagonizes Cage with challenging questions. In addition, he quotes from numerous sources (including Norman Mailer, Michael Steinberg, Igor Stravinksy and others) criticizing Cage and his music. Includes a performance of Aria with Fontana Mix featuring vocalist Cathy Berberian.


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## arpeggio

“In music, silence is more important than sound.” – Miles Davis


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## SanAntone

John Cage: A Book of Music (1944)


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## fbjim

SanAntone said:


> Ferneyhough scores are so complex and make such demands on the limits of a performer's technique, that Ferneyhough does not really expect them to play the score exactly. His hope is that by presenting this kind of score it will produce the effect he is after, without necessarily being note perfect, something which he intentionally put out of reach for performers. This is another form of indeterminacy.


ah, so Ferneyhough is who wrote the soloist parts of the Beethoven's 9th finale!

(i couldn't resist, sorry)


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## cheregi

I recently wrote this rather long and relatively uninformed piece in response to Grete Sultan's recording of Cage's Etudes australes, but it became a vehicle for broader thoughts about Cage and his context. If anyone feels compelled to read, I would love to hear peoples' thoughts and/or criticisms.


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## Mandryka

cheregi said:


> I recently wrote this rather long and relatively uninformed piece in response to Grete Sultan's recording of Cage's Etudes australes, but it became a vehicle for broader thoughts about Cage and his context. If anyone feels compelled to read, I would love to hear peoples' thoughts and/or criticisms.


The score of the Etudes is, I think, quite unusual, durations are specified by the physical length of the signs. I was told that Sabine Liebner took this very seriously, measured the score out accurately with a ruler. If that's right, her execution is what Cage was intending more or less. A friend of mine, a pianist, once said to me that there is very little if any scope for discretion in the score -- maybe Cage thought that the pianist's role is to execute, not to be creative.

This essay by Claudio Crismani takes an unusual point of view about playing the Etudes Australes



> ETUDES AUSTRALES": A PLANETARY JOURNEY
> 
> John Cage is without a doubt one of the most extraordinary figures in today's musical world. In Cage's works the Sonic Phenomena' are isolated, even separated, from any reference whatsoever to rhythm, harmony, melody and development: the sequence of these sounds is determined by the ancient Chinese 1-Ching and therefore appears, and I stress appears, to be random.
> 
> Cage introduced this Random Element' into contemporary western music in the early 1950's. What followed was a re-evaluation of the hitherto traditional figures of Composer and Performer. This proved to be a provocative and determined challenge for those who were still assessing the heritage of the Vienna School (Stockhausen and Boulez, for instance).
> 
> Cage became a reference point, a prophet and provocateur: but all prophets are above all natural provocateurs, are they not?
> 
> This was then linked to a new way of perceiving, and therefore writing music, which was innovative in its fundamental elements, such as time and melody.
> 
> In his book entitled 'A Year From Monday' John Cage says: "we have played Winter Music many times recently; I remember that when we played it for the very first time, the pauses were very long and the sounds seemed to be very much separated in space. They were of no hin-drance whatsoever to each other. In Stockholm, when we played at the Opera, I realised that Winter Music had become melodic. Christian Wolf had foreseen this a few years earlier when he told me that: "what we create today will inevitably become melodic."
> 
> The Etudes Australes are of fundamental importance in Cage's numerous works written for piano. This is due to the sheer size of the Etudes Australes, (two parts divided into four volumes, each of which is divided into eight studies) and to Cage's extraordinary exploitation of piano sounds, that is his use of the keyboard and therefore of the sounds produced by the piano.
> 
> In the Etudes Australes Cage transcribed, or translated, Stellar Maps of the Southern Hemisphere taken from the book Atlas Australis' into musical signs and paths.
> 
> According to Cage: "when music is played, the correspondence between space and time should result in the music sounding as it appears." In each study both the exact pitch of each note and the seemingly random sequence (1-Ching) of the notes themselves are written with great precision; there is no absolute rhythmic pattern; instead, the amount of time to be taken into consideration between one note and the next and between one chord and the next while the music is being played is carefully written. The music is therefore independent of gravity, as would occur during a journey into outer space. In Cage's fertile imagination, the musician playing the Etudes Australes is compared to the captain of a team of astronauts. In each study the harmonic resonance created by the piano's strings are dead), stated. These are obtained with the use of the sustaining pedal and by keeping certain keys depressed throughout the Study by means of purpose-built rubber objects.
> 
> This music is devoid of a narrative th= e proper. It is rather series of feelings be experienced bravely 'on the spot.'
> 
> The duration of each Study is linked to the visionary nature of its graphic plan. I also believe that the perfection of the piano's strings is of paramount importance, too.
> 
> With regard to the Etudes Australes, a brilliant observation was made by the critic James Rosenbaum in his book One day with John Cage'. According to Rosenbaum: "In a purely visual context an extremely interesting phenomenon occurs: when one is looking at the horizon in an attempt to find an indefinite and indefinable point in space where the blue line limiting the view of the surface of the sea and that of the visible heavens become one, our eyes perceive images which do not exist, images which the laws of physics do not allow us to see; this phenomenon is known to sailors as 'Morgan le Fay'. With regard to hearing, in conditions of absolute silence we hear noises or sounds which we would not perceive otherwise. These circumstances of 'static sound' have provided us with and influenced the writing of some of the most memorable pieces of music for piano, such as the Finale of the Chopin's Second Sonata, the beginning of Scriabin's Fifth Sonata, Debussy's 'Canope' Prelude and John Cage's 'Etudes Australes'."
> 
> Mention was made earlier of Cage's being inspired to write the Studies by a series of Stellar Maps, or perhaps by an imaginary journey across the Southern Hemisphere; in the light of these considerations, the Artistic Producer Eduardo Ogando and I would like to dedicate this recording of the Etudes Australes to the memory of the most romantic and visionary of all cosmonauts, to the bravest of visitors to this planet: 'To the Small Prince and to its Creator Antoine de Saint-Exupery.'
> 
> Claudio Crismani (Translation: The Office - Ts)


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## cheregi

Mandryka said:


> The score of the Etudes is, I think, quite unusual, durations are specified by the physical length of the signs. I was told that Sabine Liebner took this very seriously, measured the score out accurately with a ruler. If that's right, her execution is what Cage was intending more or less. A friend of mine, a pianist, once said to me that there is very little if any scope for discretion in the score -- maybe Cage thought that the pianist's role is to execute, not to be creative.
> 
> This essay by Claudio Crismani takes an unusual point of view about playing the Etudes Australes


I'll have to listen to Liebner's recording. I listened to Sultan's recording because Cage specifically wrote the piece for her, for example not using any intervals greater than a 9th because of Sultan's hand size, and I believe he was very happy with her recording when he heard it. It would be interesting, given the restrictive nature of the score, to compare the two recordings. The lack of scope for discretion in the score was a big part of what interested me in the first place, and compelled me to write - Cage has such a reputation for being all about freedom, but in this piece, even though he has freed his compositional process in a certain sense, the score is so, so autocratic. I don't think this indicates any hypocrisy or failure on his part, just, maybe, a certain insufficiency in popular narratives around his aesthetic aims...


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## Mandryka

cheregi said:


> I'll have to listen to Liebner's recording. I listened to Sultan's recording because Cage specifically wrote the piece for her, for example not using any intervals greater than a 9th because of Sultan's hand size, and I believe he was very happy with her recording when he heard it. It would be interesting, given the restrictive nature of the score, to compare the two recordings. The lack of scope for discretion in the score was a big part of what interested me in the first place, and compelled me to write - Cage has such a reputation for being all about freedom, but in this piece, even though he has freed his compositional process in a certain sense, the score is so, so autocratic. I don't think this indicates any hypocrisy or failure on his part, just, maybe, a certain insufficiency in popular narratives around his aesthetic aims...


I don't know whether he thought that highly prescribed music like the Etudes and Variations II come from a place which is compatible with the music written with time brackets, it's an interesting question. Neither do I know if he was writing both types of scores at the same period in his life.

Re the piano Etudes I quite like Sultan in small doses, I've never enjoyed Liebner, Crismani is a great pleasure to hear but what he does may not be kosher Cage, he's too wilful.

I've never explored the violin or cello etudes.

The interesting thing for me is how all these hard core rationally composed pieces sound so similar. Structures 1a (Boulez), Music of Changes, Post Partitions (Babbitt) - all the same! But the way of generating the score was so different.


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## cheregi

Mandryka said:


> I don't know whether he thought that highly prescribed music like the Etudes and Variations II come from a place which is compatible with the music written with time brackets, it's an interesting question. Neither do I know if he was writing both types of scores at the same period in his life.
> 
> Re the piano Etudes I quite like Sultan in small doses, I've never enjoyed Liebner, Crismani is a great pleasure to hear but what he does may not be kosher Cage, he's too wilful.
> 
> I've never explored the violin or cello etudes.
> 
> The interesting thing for me is how all these hard core rationally composed pieces sound so similar. Structures 1a (Boulez), Music of Changes, Post Partitions (Babbitt) - all the same! But the way of generating the score was so different.


The observation that all those pieces sounds so similar is really funny to me - I remember reading somewhere that Boulez and most of the other Europeans were really philosophically opposed to most of what Cage was doing. How much does it matter the process used to achieve the results in terms of assessing what a work of art is doing, I guess, becomes the question.

I think I've also read that Cage was dissatisfied with how a lot of people performed his piano music (I think this was before the etudes), that they tended to 'romanticize' it, emphasizing the 'tonal-passing' parts and giving it too much sense of narrative. I wonder what Cage would have to say about Crismani, and if we should care.


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## Enthusiast

This was quite an interesting article. I don't really know enough about Cage's development to evaluate it.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/25/how-john-cage-the-great-disrupter-had-the-last-laugh-by-writing-beautiful-music


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## SanAntone

Enthusiast said:


> This was quite an interesting article. I don't really know enough about Cage's development to evaluate it.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/25/how-john-cage-the-great-disrupter-had-the-last-laugh-by-writing-beautiful-music


I've posted a number of times that Cage's final period produced some of his best work. Another Timbre is one of my favorite labels.

Thanks for the article.


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## SanAntone

*John Cage : Hymns & Variations*






Latvian Radio Choir · Sigvards Kļava
John Cage: Choral Works

Of experimentalism, John Cage wrote: “Nothing was lost when everything was given away. In fact, everything is gained.” Can the same be said for control? If we give up control, do we gain more than we lose? 

I don’t know. But it seems like a worthwhile thought experiment. While Cage provides patterns and, occasionally, pitch ranges for his choral artists, he assumes no more control over the specific pitches—or, for that matter, the instruments playing them. It’s a gamble, but in the hands and vocal chords of Sigvards Kļava and the Latvian Radio Choir, everything is gained. (Olivia Giovetti. "A Year of Listening," December 15, 2022. _VAN Magazine_)


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## SanAntone

*John Cage : Litany for the Whale*
Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier

This is a landmark for Cage, Paul Hillier’s group and everyone else. Hillier says he has been interested in Cage for years – as a composer and not just an influence – and now his own considerable advocacy, which has meant so much to Arvo Part, has turned Cage into a troubadour of our global village.

The Theatre of Voices’ collection jumps right in at the deep end with _Litany for the Whale_ (1980), a 25-minute monody with two uncannily similar voices (Alan Bennett and Paul Elliott) using only five notes in antiphonal phrases. Shut your eyes and this ritual could almost be Gregorian chant, austere and liturgical, since there are powerful associations with these voices in early music repertoire.






“I have been performing, reading, looking at, and listening to John Cage's work for years - I number myself amongst those who consider him to be an important composer and not simply an important influence. One of the earliest Theatre of Voices concerts, at London's Almeida Festival in 1990, was devoted primarily to Cage's music, and, since then, I seem to have been working toward this recording.” - Paul Hillier


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