# John Cage: Thirty Pieces for String Quartet.



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

John Cage's Thirty Pieces for String Quartet is made of four solo parts without overall score. Each solo alternates between 3 kinds of music: tonal, chromatic and microtonal. Each player rehearses alone. During performance, they sit far apart at points surrounding the audience.

What do you think of this music?

If you haven't heard it there's a performance on YouTube here


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> John Cage's Thirty Pieces for String Quartet is made of four solo parts without overall score. Each solo alternates between 3 kinds of music: tonal, chromatic and microtonal. Each player rehearses alone. During performance, they sit far apart at points surrounding the audience.
> 
> What do you think of this music?
> 
> If you haven't heard it there's a performance on YouTube here


I think "each player rehearses alone" is an innovative idea. Coordinating schedules and finding mutually acceptable times and places for rehearsals is one of the biggest challenges of chamber music.


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

I made it almost to the one-minute mark. Yay! Progress!

Kind regards, :tiphat:

George


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

U


Mandryka said:


> John Cage's Thirty Pieces for String Quartet is made of four solo parts without overall score. Each solo alternates between 3 kinds of music: tonal, chromatic and microtonal. Each player rehearses alone. During performance, they sit far apart at points surrounding the audience.
> 
> What do you think of this music?
> 
> If you haven't heard it there's a performance on YouTube here


So do you think it's a great example of modern music for classical music listeners?


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Here's what I think of this work: it's not pleasant enough as background music, and not interesting enough on its own.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

DaveM said:


> U
> 
> So do you think it's a great example of modern music for classical music listeners?


I'm not who this is addressed to, but I think _Thirty Pieces_ is a great example of the "concept-oriented" works that have become influential in some contemporary music circles. Not my favorite personally, but can be thrilling given specific circumstances.


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## Trout (Apr 11, 2011)

I find the piece interesting even if the individual lines are hard to separate from the recording. The music does suggest some long-term pointillist patterns and echoes between the lines, but I have no idea if that is at all what Cage intended. If not, it could be a larger comment on our ability to perceive musical relationships between the different instruments when they inherently don't exist. We are pattern-seeking individuals after all.

I can't imagine listening to a recording of it compares to hearing it live with the added spatial element. I would love to walk in an around a concert hall during a performance and note how drastically my perception of the work changes with my proximity to each of the performers.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I’ve listened to this quartet every day for about a couple of weeks, I think that The Bozzini Quartet make it extremely expressive, full of ineffable emotions. I love it.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I've remained a fan of John Cage's _String Quartet In Four Parts_ (1950) since first hearing it decades ago on black disc, in the LP box set titled _The Avant Garde String Quartet In The USA _, played by the Concord String Quartet. Most satisfying, after three movements and about 20 minutes worth of rather quiet and static music was the final movement titled Quodlibet, which makes the piece worth listening to. That Quodlibet has become one of my favorite Cage pieces, and it's brief. But I do enjoy about half of the John Cage stuff I've heard.

I understand that Cage did not favor recordings, so we should not expect him to have written the _Thirty Pieces_ (which I've heard on the Arditti Quartet recording) to be performed in any other way but live following the placement directions he provided. In some sense, a lot of Cage's music is more theatrical (meant to be seen as well as heard) rather than purely aural. It may seem problematical that a composer writes only for live performance where the audience must see the performers, yet most of music through our history was written in exactly this same way. Beethoven and the other past giants at least up till the 20th century had no concept of recording music, and so they expected the audience to see who was performing. Cage, and others in contemporary music, take this a step further to create specific visual constructs, and we should probably honor the composers' intentions. Still, I and many others listen to opera on disc recordings, without visuals, so count us as music fans. If we approach Cage's _Thirty Pieces_ as pure music it comes down to is it satisfying to me or is it not.

Each listener must decide for him/herself. Since there will probably not be a great many opportunities to hear the work performed in the way Cage prescribes, we should be satisfied that there are multiple recordings available. Perhaps we should all hear more than a single version before we make an aesthetic judgment for ourselves. We all know that there are many interpretations of each of the Beethoven symphonies, and not every one has gotten rave critical reviews. We all here seem to have our favorite recordings. Perhaps the same should be considered of Cage's music.

Even if I don't return to the _Thirty Pieces_, I will on occasion return to the _String Quartet In Four Parts_. That Quodlibet is worth hearing again.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

There are some interesting things in the early Quartet in four parts, though less so the Quodlibet for me. Apart from the 30 pieces for string quartet, the other one which I have very much enjoyed is the quartet Four. 

My feeling is that the Arditti 30 Pieces for String Quartet is less expressive and more agressive, and hence less satisfying IMO, than Bozzini, but in truth I’ve only listened to half the Arditti and then not so attentively!


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

SONNET CLV said:


> I've remained a fan of John Cage's _String Quartet In Four Parts_ (1950) since first hearing it decades ago on black disc, in the LP box set titled _The Avant Garde String Quartet In The USA _, played by the Concord String Quartet. Most satisfying, after three movements and about 20 minutes worth of rather quiet and static music was the final movement titled Quodlibet, which makes the piece worth listening to. That Quodlibet has become one of my favorite Cage pieces, and it's brief. But I do enjoy about half of the John Cage stuff I've heard.
> 
> I understand that Cage did not favor recordings, so we should not expect him to have written the _Thirty Pieces_ (which I've heard on the Arditti Quartet recording) to be performed in any other way but live following the placement directions he provided. In some sense, a lot of Cage's music is more theatrical (meant to be seen as well as heard) rather than purely aural. It may seem problematical that a composer writes only for live performance where the audience must see the performers, yet most of music through our history was written in exactly this same way. Beethoven and the other past giants at least up till the 20th century had no concept of recording music, and so they expected the audience to see who was performing. Cage, and others in contemporary music, take this a step further to create specific visual constructs, and we should probably honor the composers' intentions. Still, I and many others listen to opera on disc recordings, without visuals, so count us as music fans. If we approach Cage's _Thirty Pieces_ as pure music it comes down to is it satisfying to me or is it not.
> 
> ...


The String Quartet in Four Parts is also a favorite of mine. The then-young Cage was enthusiastic about it too, and originally planned to write more in the same vein, though he then moved in other directions. Whatever one thinks of his conceptual art, or conceptual art generally, it certainly has had a significant impact on contemporary culture.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

fluteman said:


> The String Quartet in Four Parts is also a favorite of mine. The then-young Cage was enthusiastic about it too, and originally planned to write more in the same vein, though he then moved in other directions.


Except . . . I always feel that there's much in common between the first three movements of The String Quartet in Four Parts and, for example, Four. The staticness of it. Or it least it can feel that way in some performances (i.e. _not _LaSalle --which is too willful IMO.)


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Except . . . I always feel that there's much in common between the first three movements of The String Quartet in Four Parts and, for example, Four. The staticness of it. Or it least it can feel that way in some performances (i.e. _not _LaSalle --which is too willful IMO.)


Maybe, but one listener's "static" is another listener's "meditative".


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