DOCSLIB.ORG

Cage's Credo: the Discovery of New Imaginary Landscapes of Sound By

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Cage's Credo: the Discovery of New Imaginary Landscapes of Sound By JOHN CAGE: The Works for Percussion 1 Cage’s Credo: The Discovery of Percussion Group Cincinnati New Imaginary Landscapes of Sound by Paul Cox ENGLISH 1. CREDO IN US (1942) 12:58 “It’s not a physical landscape. It’s a term discovery of new sounds. Cage found an ideal for percussion quartet (including piano and radio or phonograph. FIRST VERSION reserved for the new technologies. It’s a land- incubator for his interest in percussion and With Dimitri Shostakovich: Symphony No.5, New York Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein scape in the future. It’s as though you used electronics at the Cornish School in Seattle, Published by DSCH-Publishers. Columbia ML 5445 (LP) technology to take you off the ground and go where he worked as composer and accompa- 2. IMAGINARY LANDSCAPE No. 5 (1952) 3:09 like Alice through the looking glass.” nist for the dance program. With access to a for any 42 recordings, score to be realized as a magnetic tape — John Cage large collection of percussion instruments and FIRST VERSION, using period jazz records. Realization by Michael Barnhart a radio studio, Cage created his first “Imagi- 3. IMAGINARY LANDSCAPE No. 4, “March No. 2” (1942) 4:26 John Cage came of age during the pioneer- nary Landscape,” a title he reserved for works for 12 radios. FIRST VERSION ing era of electronic technology in the 1920s. using electronic technology. CCM Percussion Ensemble, James Culley, conductor With new inventions improving the fidelity of The Cornish radio studio served as de facto 4. IMAGINARY LANDSCAPE No. 1 (1939) 6:52 phonographs and radios, a vast array of new music laboratory where Cage created and for 2 variable-speed turntables, frequency recordings, muted piano and cymbal, voices, sounds and music entered the American broadcast the Imaginary Landscape No. 1, DEUTSCH to be performed as a recording or broadcast. With Joey Van Hassel home. As a boy, Cage witnessed the inner work- considered one of the first electro-acoustic 5. IMAGINARY LANDSCAPE No. 2, “March No. 1” (1942) 6:49 ings of this new technology through his father, works composed in America. Cage’s score for percussion quintet the noted inventor, John Cage, Sr., who built a calls for muted piano, a large Chinese cymbal 6. IMAGINARY LANDSCAPE No. 3 (1942) 4:06 radio that ran on alternating current and plug- and two variable-speed turntables playing for percussion sextet. With Matthew Hawkins, Mark Katsaounis, Jacent Mraz ged into the family’s living room lamp. Cage Victor frequency records, one of sliding tones credits his father for inspiring his experimental and the other of single pitch tones. 7. IMAGINARY LANDSCAPE No. 4, “March No. 2” (1951) 4:29 SECOND VERSION approach to composition; an approach charac- Imaginary Landscape No. 1 was composed CCM Percussion Ensemble, James Culley, conductor terized by an obsessive quest for new sounds for a dance by Bonnie Bird and debuted on and for expanding the boundaries of what was Cornish’s “Hilarious Dance Concert” in March 8. IMAGINARY LANDSCAPE No. 5 (1952) 3:07 acceptable in music. The works included in this 1939. What is striking about the first perfor- SECOND VERSION, using recordings of Cage’s music. Realization by Michael Barnhart recording, Credo in Us (1942) and the five Im- mance is that the music was performed in the 9. CREDO IN US (1942) 15:00 aginary Landscapes, capture a crucial period in Cornish radio studio, then broadcast to the FRANÇAIS SECOND VERSION Cage’s development as he established the found- theatre next door, where it was used to accom- With 78-rpm recordings of Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No.3, Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra/Willem Mengelberg, Capitol EFL-2502. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.4, ation of electro-acoustic music in America. pany a rather curious dance about dismember- Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra/Dimitri Mitropoulos, Columbia M-468. Richard Wagner: Cage declares his interest in new electronic ment. The nineteen-year-old Merce Cunning- Lohengrin, Prelude to Act III, Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Frederick Stock, RCA Victor 7386-B. sounds in his 1940 manifesto, “The Future of ham was part of the troupe of dancers that Franz von Suppe: Light Cavalry Overture, BBC Symphony Orchestra/Adrian Boult, Music: Credo,” wherein he calls for the cre- moved among and hid behind large, mobile RCA Victor 11837-A ation of musical laboratories to promote the black shapes set against a black backdrop to, in part, create the illusion of floating body parts. tact microphone. For the coil, Cage suggested World War came along, I talked to myself, what made by Merce Cunningham and Jean Erdman Bird explained: “I discovered I could do things to the Group using an amplified Slinky ® (yes, do I think of the Second World War? Well, I (both members of the Martha Graham Dance like create a body that covered the whole the toy also known as the “original walking think it’s lousy. So I wrote a piece, Imaginary Company at the time), which was premiered stage… . You would see a head, Merce’s head, spring toy”); they create sounds ranging from Landscape No. 3, which is perfectly hideous.” on a program of works by young choreogra- ENGLISH way up, and then sliding down the side while rumbling thunder to explosions by striking or To depict this dark mood, Cage uses a bat- phers at the Bennington School of Dance in two sets of legs walked down the stage. It was stroking it with different materials, like a finger- tery of extra large tin cans and muted gongs August 1942. Subsequently performed in New fascinating. And I would have the rectangle nail or cloth. Other instruments include gradu- combined with an expanded electronic sound York City and Chicago, Credo marked the start interrupt the two, and they’d skitter away. Or ated tin cans, conch shell, ratchet, bass drum, palette using an oscillator, variable speed of Cage and Cunningham’s life-long collabora- you’d see only hands moving in space.” buzzer, water gong, metal wastebasket and a turntables (again playing frequency record- tion. As a dance-drama, a genre popularized Cage’s electro-acoustic score served as an lion’s roar. ings), a buzzer, amplified coil and amplified by Graham during the 1930s that combined ideal backdrop for Bird’s experiment in move- The designation “March” is ironic, perhaps marímbula (a Caribbean instrument with metal narration with dance, Credo departed from ment. By broadcasting his mix of electronic a reflection of Cage’s ambivalent feelings about tongues that are plucked, attached to a reso- Graham’s tidy narratives based on myths and and acoustic sounds, Cage created his own World War II. After a loud cacophonous intro- nant box). The work opens with a massive per- patriotic themes. Inspired instead by James disembodied soundscape — an ideal accom- duction, Cage teasingly introduces a quiet cussion and electronic noise texture followed Joyce, Dada, surrealism, and popular radio paniment for the macabre (yet humorous) march rhythm played on a tin can. This dra- by an eerie descending drone (using a record- dramas, their work explored the nuances and theme of the dance. matic contrast in dynamics, particularly the ing of an electric generator’s whine) sounding shadowy recesses of everyday life. DEUTSCH There are two versions of the Imaginary use of quiet sounds, are key elements of like an airplane about to crash. Cage returns The drama’s setting is “Westward Ho!” Landscape No. 2. The first, composed in 1940 Cage’s wartime works, as he describes in his to the electro-percussion texture in the final and takes place over “three generations.” It is for another dance (about trees) by Bird, was “Lecture on Nothing:” “Half intellectually and section, which concludes with an explosive a satire on the sterile conventions of American later withdrawn. The second, a quintet written half sentimentally, when the war came along, sound created striking the amplified coil. The middle-class life told through the perspective in 1942 for Lou Harrison’s percussion ensem- I decided to use only quiet sounds. There overall effect is, as Cage intended, one of of a feuding married couple, the doubly ble in San Francisco, was later re-titled Imagi- seemed to be no truth, no good, in anything impending destruction. named “Wife/Ghoul’s Rage” and “Husband/ nary Landscape No. 2,“March”. Since many big in society. But quiet sounds were like lone- The association of sound with ideas and Shadow.” Erdman recalled that the names of Cage’s percussion works were written for a liness, or love or friendship.” Conversely, loud feelings is central to Cage’s “intentionally ex- served as a point of departure for the dance combination of amateur and experienced per- sounds for Cage signified destruction and the pressive” wartime works. He describes this and signified the characters’ public and psy- cussionists, the parts vary widely in difficulty. actions of large institutions, like governments heightened expressiveness in a catalog of his chological personas. This duality is also pre- On this recording, the Group performs all five and corporations. music that includes descriptions of the lyrical sent in the title, which Cage described in an parts with ease, in part by using specially cre- In contrast to the irony of the second prepared-piano works, like In the Name of the interview as a double entendre meaning both FRANÇAIS ated instruments (see DVD). Landscape, the Imaginary Landscape No. 3, Holocaust (1942) and The Perilous Night (1943- (“Credo”) I believe in the U.S. (United States) Composed in Chicago in April 1942, the written shortly before the second in February 44), as well as ensemble works like Credo in and I believe in us (you and me).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Digital Adaptions of the Scores for Cage Variations I, II and III
    Edith Cowan University Research Online ECU Publications 2012 1-1-2012 Digital adaptions of the scores for Cage Variations I, II and III Lindsay Vickery Catherine Hope Edith Cowan University Stuart James Edith Cowan University Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks2012 Part of the Music Commons Vickery, L. R., Hope, C. A., & James, S. G. (2012). Digital adaptions of the scores for Cage Variations I, II and III. Proceedings of International Computer Music Conference. (pp. 426-432). Ljubljana. International Computer Music Association. Available here This Conference Proceeding is posted at Research Online. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks2012/165 NON-COCHLEAR SOUND _ I[M[2012 LJUBLJANA _9.-14. SEP'l'EMBER Digital adaptions of the scores for Cage Variations I, II and III Lindsay Vickery, Cat Hope, and Stuart James Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University ABSTRACT Over the ten years from 1958 to 1967, Cage revisited to the Variations series as a means of expanding his Western Australian new music ensemble Decibel have investigation not only of nonlinear interaction with the devised a software-based tool for creating realisations score but also of instrumentation, sonic materials, the of the score for John Cage's Variations I and II. In these performance space and the environment The works works Cage had used multiple transparent plastic sheets chart an evolution from the "personal" sound-world of with various forms of graphical notation, that were the performer and the score, to a vision potentially capable of independent positioning in respect to one embracing the totality of sound on a global scale.
    [Show full text]
  • The William Paterson University Department of Music Presents New
    The William Paterson University Department of Music presents New Music Series Peter Jarvis, director Featuring the Velez / Jarvis Duo, Judith Bettina & James Goldsworthy, Daniel Lippel and the William Paterson University Percussion Ensemble Monday, October 17, 2016, 7:00 PM Shea Center for the Performing Arts Program Mundus Canis (1997) George Crumb Five Humoresques for Guitar and Percussion 1. “Tammy” 2. “Fritzi” 3. “Heidel” 4. “Emma‐Jean” 5. “Yoda” Phonemena (1975) Milton Babbitt For Voice and Electronics Judith Bettina, voice Phonemena (1969) Milton Babbitt For Voice and Piano Judith Bettina, voice James Goldsworthy, Piano Penance Creek (2016) * Glen Velez For Frame Drums and Drum Set Glen Velez – Frame Drums Peter Jarvis – Drum Set Themes and Improvisations Peter Jarvis For open Ensemble Glen Velez & Peter Jarvis Controlled Improvisation Number 4, Opus 48 (2016) * Peter Jarvis For Frame Drums and Drum Set Glen Velez – Frame Drums Peter Jarvis – Drum Set Aria (1958) John Cage For a Voice of any Range Judith Bettina May Rain (1941) Lou Harrison For Soprano, Piano and Tam‐tam Elsa Gidlow Judith Bettina, James Goldsworthy, Peter Jarvis Ostinato Mezzo Forte, Opus 51 (2016) * Peter Jarvis For Percussion Band Evan Chertok, David Endean, Greg Fredric, Jesse Gerbasi Daniel Lucci, Elise Macloon Sean Dello Monaco – Drum Set * = World Premiere Program Notes Mundus Canis: George Crumb George Crumb’s Mundus Canis came about in 1997 when he wanted to write a solo guitar piece for his friend David Starobin that would be a musical homage to the lineage of Crumb family dogs. He explains, “It occurred to me that the feline species has been disproportionately memorialized in music and I wanted to help redress the balance.” Crumb calls the work “a suite of five canis humoresques” with a character study of each dog implied through the music.
    [Show full text]
  • John Cage's Entanglement with the Ideas Of
    JOHN CAGE’S ENTANGLEMENT WITH THE IDEAS OF COOMARASWAMY Edward James Crooks PhD University of York Music July 2011 John Cage’s Entanglement with the Ideas of Coomaraswamy by Edward Crooks Abstract The American composer John Cage was famous for the expansiveness of his thought. In particular, his borrowings from ‘Oriental philosophy’ have directed the critical and popular reception of his works. But what is the reality of such claims? In the twenty years since his death, Cage scholars have started to discover the significant gap between Cage’s presentation of theories he claimed he borrowed from India, China, and Japan, and the presentation of the same theories in the sources he referenced. The present study delves into the circumstances and contexts of Cage’s Asian influences, specifically as related to Cage’s borrowings from the British-Ceylonese art historian and metaphysician Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. In addition, Cage’s friendship with the Jungian mythologist Joseph Campbell is detailed, as are Cage’s borrowings from the theories of Jung. Particular attention is paid to the conservative ideology integral to the theories of all three thinkers. After a new analysis of the life and work of Coomaraswamy, the investigation focuses on the metaphysics of Coomaraswamy’s philosophy of art. The phrase ‘art is the imitation of nature in her manner of operation’ opens the doors to a wide- ranging exploration of the mimesis of intelligible and sensible forms. Comparing Coomaraswamy’s ‘Traditional’ idealism to Cage’s radical epistemological realism demonstrates the extent of the lack of congruity between the two thinkers. In a second chapter on Coomaraswamy, the extent of the differences between Cage and Coomaraswamy are revealed through investigating their differing approaches to rasa , the Renaissance, tradition, ‘art and life’, and museums.
    [Show full text]
  • Cage's Early Tape Music
    The Studio as a Venue for Production and Performance: Cage’s Early Tape Music Volker Straebel I When John Cage produced his Imaginary Landscape No. 5, probably the first piece of American tape music, in January 1952, he had been researching means of electronic sound production for at least twelve years. The main layer of his text The Future of Music: Credo, falsely dated 1937 in Cage’s collected lectures and writings Silence, but probably written between 1938 and 1940,1 places sound production by means of electrical instruments at the end of a development which increases the use of noise to make music, which would extend the variety of sounds available for musical purposes. The influence of Luigi Rus- solo’s L’arte dei rumori of 1913 is obvious, a manifesto that appeared in print in English translation for the first time in Nicolas Slonimsky’s Music since 1900 in 19372 and that Cage must have been aware of in 1938, when he stated in the program notes of a Percus- sion Concert presented by his ensemble in Seattle on December 9, that »percussion music really is the art of noise and that’s what it should be called.«3 In 1939, Cage created Imaginary Landscape No. 1 utilizing test-tone records played at variable speeds at the radio studio of the Cornish School in Seattle. The score, engraved and published by C. F. Peters in the early 1960s, specifies the Victor Frequency Records being used and indicates the resulting frequencies when played at 33 1/3 or 78 rpm.
    [Show full text]
  • On Long Words Avoiding Zimin Patterns Arnaud Carayol, Stefan Göller
    On Long Words Avoiding Zimin Patterns Arnaud Carayol, Stefan Göller To cite this version: Arnaud Carayol, Stefan Göller. On Long Words Avoiding Zimin Patterns. 34th Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2017), Mar 2017, Hannover, Germany. pp.19:1- 19:13, 10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2017.19. hal-01803632 HAL Id: hal-01803632 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01803632 Submitted on 30 May 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. On Long Words Avoiding Zimin Patterns Arnaud Carayol1 and Stefan Göller∗2 1 Université Paris-Est, LIGM (UMR 8049), CNRS, ENPC, ESIEE, UPEM, Marne-la-Vallée, France [email protected] 2 LSV, CNRS & ENS Cachan, Université Paris-Saclay, Paris, France [email protected] Abstract A pattern is encountered in a word if some infix of the word is the image of the pattern under some non-erasing morphism. A pattern p is unavoidable if, over every finite alphabet, every sufficiently long word encounters p. A theorem by Zimin and independently by Bean, Ehrenfeucht and McNulty states that a pattern over n distinct variables is unavoidable if, and only if, p itself is encountered in the n-th Zimin pattern.
    [Show full text]
  • © in This Web Service Cambridge University
    Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-01432-9 - John Cage and David Tudor: Correspondence on Interpretation and Performance Martin Iddon Index More information Index Adams, John D. S. 196 Brown, Carolyn 13, 28, 32, 34, 63, 82, 99, 107, Adler, Stella 108 108, 109, 112, 115, 116, 122, 126, 128, 147, Agamben, Giorgio 213–15 148, 158, 211 Ajemian, Anahid 6, 8, 12 Brown, Earle 13, 28, 31, 32, 34, 46, 50, 82, 99, Ajemian, Maro 5, 6, 8, 9, 12 104, 106, 107, 109, 115, 119, 124, 147 Amey, Frank, 95, 111, 112, 114, 116, 121, December 1952 110, 211 128, 129 Four Systems (1952–54) 93 Amey, Nikky 111, 114 Indices (1954) 197, 211 Antheil, George 26, 34 Trio for 5 dancers (1953) 32 Antonio, Emile de 96 Brücher, Ernst 113, 116, 119 Artaud, Antonin 13, 29 Buhlig, Richard 25 Auster, Paul 1 Bussotti, Sylvano 96, 104, 105, 106, 107, 112 5 Piano Pieces for David Tudor 96, 113 Babbitt, Milton 133 Butterfield, Don 81, 82, 158 Composition for Viola and Piano (1950) 16 Bach, Johann Sebastian 30 Cage, John Barab, Seymour 4, 6, 8, 9, 34 0′00″ (1962) 114, 140, 204 Barber, George 8 1′5½″ for a String Player (1953) 32 Barrault, Jean-Louis 27, 29 26′1.1499″ for a string player (1955) 45 Bauermeister, Mary 113, 118, 126, 131, 166 27′10.554″ for a percussionist (1956) 45 Bauman, Alvin 16 31.57.9864″ for a pianist (1954) 45, 46, 48 1 Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb 215 33 /3 (1969) 156 Becker, John 31 34′46.776″ for a pianist (1954) 19, 45–47, 48, Beethoven, Ludwig van 114, 175 80, 160, 173, 211 Behrman, David 197 4′33″ (1952) 7, 19, 32, 41, 43–45, 46, 47, 48, Berberian,
    [Show full text]
  • EMPTY WORDS Other
    EMPTY WORDS Other Wesley an University Press books by John Cage Silence: Lectures and Writings A Year from Monday: New Lectures and Writings M: Writings '67-72 X: Writings 79-'82 MUSICAGE: CAGE MUSES on Words *Art*Music l-VI Anarchy p Writings 73-78 bv WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS Middletown, Connecticut Published by Wesleyan University Press Middletown, CT 06459 Copyright © 1973,1974,1975,1976,1977,1978,1979 by John Cage All rights reserved First paperback edition 1981 Printed in the United States of America 5 Most of the material in this volume has previously appeared elsewhere. "Preface to: 'Lecture on the Weather*" was published and copyright © 1976 by Henmar Press, Inc., 373 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10016. Reprint pernr~sion granted by the publisher. An earlier version of "How the Piano Came to be Prepared" was originally the Introduction to The Well-Prepared Piano, copyright © 1973 by Richard Bunger. Reprinted by permission of the author. Revised version copyright © 1979 by John Cage. "Empty Words" Part I copyright © 1974 by John Cage. Originally appeared in Active Anthology. Part II copyright © 1974 by John Cage. Originally appeared in Interstate 2. Part III copyright © 1975 by John Cage. Originally appeared in Big Deal Part IV copyright © 1975 by John Cage. Originally appeared in WCH WAY. "Series re Morris Graves" copyright © 1974 by John Cage. See headnote for other information. "Where are We Eating? and What are We Eating? (Thirty-eight Variations on a Theme by Alison Knowles)" from Merce Cunningham, edited and with photographs and an introduction by James Klosty.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding Music Past and Present
    Understanding Music Past and Present N. Alan Clark, PhD Thomas Heflin, DMA Jeffrey Kluball, EdD Elizabeth Kramer, PhD Understanding Music Past and Present N. Alan Clark, PhD Thomas Heflin, DMA Jeffrey Kluball, EdD Elizabeth Kramer, PhD Dahlonega, GA Understanding Music: Past and Present is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu- tion-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This license allows you to remix, tweak, and build upon this work, even commercially, as long as you credit this original source for the creation and license the new creation under identical terms. If you reuse this content elsewhere, in order to comply with the attribution requirements of the license please attribute the original source to the University System of Georgia. NOTE: The above copyright license which University System of Georgia uses for their original content does not extend to or include content which was accessed and incorpo- rated, and which is licensed under various other CC Licenses, such as ND licenses. Nor does it extend to or include any Special Permissions which were granted to us by the rightsholders for our use of their content. Image Disclaimer: All images and figures in this book are believed to be (after a rea- sonable investigation) either public domain or carry a compatible Creative Commons license. If you are the copyright owner of images in this book and you have not authorized the use of your work under these terms, please contact the University of North Georgia Press at [email protected] to have the content removed. ISBN: 978-1-940771-33-5 Produced by: University System of Georgia Published by: University of North Georgia Press Dahlonega, Georgia Cover Design and Layout Design: Corey Parson For more information, please visit http://ung.edu/university-press Or email [email protected] TABLE OF C ONTENTS MUSIC FUNDAMENTALS 1 N.
    [Show full text]
  • Imaginary Landscape -- Electronics in Live Performance, 1989 and 1939
    Imaginary Landscape -- Electronics in Live Performance, 1989 and 1939 by Nicolas Collins lecture presented at Audio Arts Symposium, Linz, September 1988 Consider John Cage's Imaginary Landscape #1. Written in 1939 for two record players, test records of electronic tones, muted piano, and cymbal, it is one of the first pieces of live electronic music, and on this rests its fame. But less obvious aspects of the composition are worth noting as well. Instead of using any of the expensive electronic instruments of the time, such as the Ondes Martinot or Theremin, Cage chose the record player -- an affordable appliance, never before thought of as an "instrument," which could theoretically be played by anyone. With a prophetic eye toward alternative performance venues, the score specifically suggested that the piece be performed for "recording or broadcast." Finally, the sounds were indeed placed in a landscape, organized in a radical new way that mimicked the way sounds exist in life, rather than forcing them to "sound like some old instrument" (as Cage complained in his 1937 manifesto, The Future of Music: Credo). This intertwining of technology with its musical and social implications distinguished this piece from any other music of the time and also from any electronic music produced by other composers for over 25 years. Imaginary Landscape was truly New Music. If 1939 can be declared the birthdate of Live Electronic Music, it was a birth that was in many ways premature. As a genre it did not come of age until the late 1960's and early 1970's, with the music of Alvin Lucier, David Behrman, Robert Ashley, Gordon Mumma, Pauline Oliveros, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Phil Glass, Maryanne Amacher, LaMonte Young, David Tudor, and their contemporaries and students.
    [Show full text]
  • A Performer's Guide to the Prepared Piano of John Cage
    A Performer’s Guide to the Prepared Piano of John Cage: The 1930s to 1950s. A document submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS in the Keyboard Studies Division of the College-Conservatory of Music By Sejeong Jeong B.M., Sookmyung Women’s University, 2011 M.M., Illinois State University, 2014 ________________________________ Committee Chair : Jeongwon Joe, Ph. D. ________________________________ Reader : Awadagin K.A. Pratt ________________________________ Reader : Christopher Segall, Ph. D. ABSTRACT John Cage is one of the most prominent American avant-garde composers of the twentieth century. As the first true pioneer of the “prepared piano,” Cage’s works challenge pianists with unconventional performance practices. In addition, his extended compositional techniques, such as chance operation and graphic notation, can be demanding for performers. The purpose of this study is to provide a performer’s guide for four prepared piano works from different points in the composer’s career: Bacchanale (1938), The Perilous Night (1944), 34'46.776" and 31'57.9864" For a Pianist (1954). This document will detail the concept of the prepared piano as defined by Cage and suggest an approach to these prepared piano works from the perspective of a performer. This document will examine Cage’s musical and philosophical influences from the 1930s to 1950s and identify the relationship between his own musical philosophy and prepared piano works. The study will also cover challenges and performance issues of prepared piano and will provide suggestions and solutions through performance interpretations.
    [Show full text]
  • Schuermer.Pdf —
    Auditive Perspektiven 4/2012 - 1 Anna Schürmer „…es wäre ein Akt der Nächstenliebe, sie zu zerschmeißen…“ John Cage und technische Medien: Random zwischen Differenz und Wiederholung You see I don’t have a sound equipment here... zipien – abhängt, unabhängig von den gewählten I didn’t enjoy listening to records. kompositorischen Mitteln, seien sie nun technischer I was always interested in sound. oder instrumentaler Natur. Dem soll durch eine Ge- genüberstellung John Cages sprachlicher und kompo- John Cage ist ein Paradox, auch in Bezug auf seinen sitorischer Äußerungen zur technischen Reproduzier- Umgang mit technischen Medien. Einerseits positio- barkeit von Musik und dem ästhetischen Einsatz von nierte er sich wie kaum ein anderer Künstler zur Me- Medientechniken auf der einen Seite sowie seinem in- dientechnik; er reflektierte die Thematik nicht nur in strumentalen Schaffen auf der anderen Seite nachge- Vorträgen und Schriften1, sondern war treibende Kraft gangen werden. Beispielhaft wird hier das Concert for für die Entwicklung der amerikanischen Tape Music Piano and Orchestra (1958) herausgehoben, in dem und schuf mit Werken für Plattenspieler, Tonband und Cage auf keinerlei technische Medien zurückgreift und Radio zahlreiche Medien-Kompositionen2. Anderer- das dennoch Aufschluss über die hier aufgeworfenen seits können oder müssen gerade diese als kritische Fragen verspricht. Das Klavierkonzert kann als Haupt- Auseinandersetzung mit der Kunstmusik im Zeitalter werk der 1950er Jahre gelten, seit deren Beginn sich ihrer technischen Reproduzierbarkeit betrachtet wer- Cage bedingungslos dem Zufall als kompositorischem den, die Cage immer wieder mit Unbehagen kommen- Prinzip zugewendet hat. Die Aleatorik, das instrumen- tierte. Einerseits setzte Cages kompositorisches tal eingesetzten Prinzip des Random, kann als anar- Schaffen auf einfache Wiederholbarkeit, andererseits chisches Manifest und als künstlerischer Akt gegen betonte er das Ereignis der Aufführung und die Aktion technische Reproduzierung und für die Betonung des des klingenden Augenblicks.
    [Show full text]
  • JOHN CAGE: SIXTEEN DANCES SIXTEEN DANCES (1951) JOHN CAGE 1912–1992 [1] No
    JOHN CAGE: SIXTEEN DANCES SIXTEEN DANCES (1951) JOHN CAGE 1912–1992 [1] No. 1 [Anger] 1:27 SIXTEEN DANCES [2] No. 2 [Interlude] 3:07 [3] No. 3 [Humor] 1:43 [4] No. 4 [Interlude] 2:06 BOSTON MODERN ORCHESTRA PROJECT [5] No. 5 [Sorrow] 2:01 GIL ROSE, CONDUCTOR [6] No. 6 [Interlude] 2:17 [7] No. 7 [The Heroic] 2:40 [8] No. 8 [Interlude] 3:29 [9] No. 9 [The Odious] 3:10 [10] No. 10 [Interlude] 2:20 [11] No. 11 [The Wondrous] 2:05 [12] No. 12 [Interlude] 2:09 [13] No. 13 [Fear] 1:24 [14] No. 14 [Interlude] 5:12 [15] No. 15 [The Erotic] 3:10 [16] No. 16 [Tranquility] 3:51 TOTAL 42:12 COMMENT By David Vaughan At the beginning of the 1950’s, John Cage began to use chance operations in his musical composition. He and Merce Cunningham were working on a big new piece, Sixteen Dances for Soloist and Company of Three. To facilitate the composition, Cage drew up a series of large charts on which he could plot rhythmic structures. In working with these charts, he caught first glimpse of a whole new approach to musical composition—an approach that led him very quickly to the use of chance. “Somehow,” he said, “I reached the conclusion that I could compose according to moves on these charts instead of according to my own taste.”1 The composer Christian Wolff introduced Cage to theI Ching, or Book of Changes, which COMPANY CUNNINGHAM DANCE OF MERCE COURTESY PETERICH, GERDA PHOTO: (1951).
    [Show full text]