Contact: A Journal for Contemporary Music (1971-1988) http://contactjournal.gold.ac.uk

Citation

Smith, Graeme. 1983. ‘’s Roaratorio: The Uses of Confusion’. Contact, 27. pp. 43-45. ISSN 0308-5066.

44 The complexity of the original text suggests an The traditional music in Roaratorio poses the same almost infinite number of readings; Cage's treatment problems of referentiality and sentimentality that simply gives expression to the conceptual implica- Cage pinpoints in Ives's music. As it is presented in tions inherent in Joyce's radical handling of the form the finished work, the musical material is somewhat of the novel. Joyce's challenge to the classic realist fragmentary, but even though the musical details of text, with its acceptance of the convention of an the sound product are not fully available to the omniscient narrator, is extended by Cage's pro- listener, certain extamusical associations ring loud cedures: all readings are equally acceptable, a and clear. Cage's predilection for this music has all random reading no less so than one dominated by the marks of a Romantic American view of Ireland; his Cage's declared enemies, creativity, taste, and use of it to impart 'Irishness', a sort of cosmetic memory. The mesostic reading points out that the atmosphere, is not only uninteresting (to echo his text, like the world, is capable of an infinite number of comment on Ives) but offensive to anyone who meaningful combinations. Aleatoric compositional regards traditional music as a self-sufficient form. procedures alert us to the musical potential of all After criticising Ives for his use of referential sound. material Cage praises him for his attitude to the The second layer of the work consists of a montage relationship between an individual line and the dense of sounds inspired by the book. As well as attempting polyphonic texture in which it might be situated. In in Listing through to build up all the such a musical situation, he says, there are two sounds described or alluded to by Joyce, Cage also possibilities: the line may 'emerge' or we may 'enter decided to characterise in sound all the places in'. By this he means that the arrangement of the mentioned in the book. His task was made easier in sounds may be such that the line will stand out, or we one respect by the recent publication of Louis Mink's may have to immerse ourselves in a dense texture A Finnegans Wake Gazetteer, 7 but the number of and find a line to follow. In the first case, everyone places proved to be too large. In the end 626 places hears the same. In the second it may be that what the were selected randomly from the book. There are 626 listener hears he or she hears alone. Cage thus pages in Finnegans Wake. Sounds from some of the contrasts Ives's referential themes with what he places were procured by Cage on a field trip to describes (without any pejorative suggestion) as 'the Ireland accompanied by John Fulleman, who also mud of Ives'. Ives's approach to polyphony, accord- assisted in the editing of the montage. Other sounds ing to Cage, invites the possibility of the listener's not were solicited from radio stations all round the world, knowing what is happening. the choice of sounds being left to the recipients of the The density of texture in Roaratorio is intended to requests. Finally extensive use was made of the obscure all the constituent sounds. Elements of the sound archive of WDR. first and second layers occasionally break through The use of places as a frame of reference recalls and make themselves recognisable. But the third Cage's directions for the realisation of the piece layer, because of the familiarity and potency of IV. In that work the randomly disposed conventional structures, is forever pushing itself out transparent sheets (familiar tools of his aleatoric of the 'mud'; even when it is obscured by the second compositional technique) are superimposed on a layer, its inexorable rhythm and musical syntax ring map of the performing area, and the instructions for on in the listener's mind until the sound becomes performance deduced from the combinations of point audible again and rejoins the mental construct that he and line that result. This is the principle of notation has maintained in its absence. The problem for the expanded, where position is taken to represent conceptual balance of the work is that the musical sound. In the compositional strategy for the con- material of the third layer is almost indestructible. In struction of the second layer in Roaratorio, the world, juxtaposing this highly structured music with the or at least that of the book, provides the 'score' of the somewhat randomly constructed first and second montage; in this world the places mentioned in the layers, Cage is always in danger oftoppling the work. text are like the imperfections in the paper which The focusing of the ear caused by the third layer is formed the basis of in 1952. clearly an example of an 'emerging' line in exactly the The third layer of sound in Roaratorio is provided sense Cage intended in his discussion of Ives's by a handful of Irish musicians. Having sought the work. advice of Ciaran MacMathuna, in charge oftraditional In practice, however, this third line does provide music for Radio Eire ann, Cage selected several of the the work with a reassuring musical continuity that is most highly regarded traditional performers to play missing in the other two layers. It sustains the in the work. 8 They were recorded and the tape mixed listener's attention in a way that the montage and down onto the other layers for the WDR performance, reading could not. Perhaps this is an example of the but they also later participated in the live perform- triumph of Cage's theatrical sense over his artistic ances. Their contribution is of the highest quality in philosophy. authenticity of style and skill of execution, but in the In a recent article in the Times Literary Supple- context of the work as a whole it raises difficulties of a ment, Wilfrid Mellers commented on a live perform- nature that Cage has discussed in his writings, but ance of Roaratorio in such a way as to show that he which he has been unable fully to resolve in his misses many of the most important points of the work. music. But through his very errors of judgment he demon- In his discussion of Ives's music in A Year from strates some of the inconsistencies in Cage's MondayS Cage makes several comments that have approach discussed above. Of the third layer he says: some bearing on Roaratorio. The first concerns the [The] folk musicians intermittently create their 'musics of anecdotal or folksy elements in Ives's work, of which necessity', which spring from the lives they've led in the he writes: contexts of tradition but which, going on, become at once historical and eternally present. What they make is not the The American aspects of his music strike me, as endearing artefacts of Western 'works' of art but a continuum, existing and touching and sentimental as they are, they strike me as within the flux we're surrounded by. That they endure the part of his work that is not basically interesting. If one is makes our awareness of chaos peculiarly poignant.ll going to have referential material like that I would be happier if it was global in extent rather than specific to one According to Mellers' s interpretation, the players are country as is the referential material of Ives' music.10 not so much playing music as expressing some natural, archaic, historical and social collective