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Today marks thirty years since John Cage's death. Cheerful existentialist, professional enfant terrible, innocent boy scout - Cage was everything. And if that hadn't been enough, he would have invented it anyway.John Cage (1912 - 1992) was a composer, draftsman, painter, poet, Zen Buddhist, inventor and mushroom expert (mycologist). A cultural and intellectual omnivore who lived day to day. He did not regard music as distraction or entertainment, but as a voyage of discovery into sounds from the immediate surroundings, free from interpretation and manipulation. He wanted to let sounds be themselves. Much of his curiosity came from Zen Buddhism, focused on simplicity, everyday life, detachment and peace of mind. Astonishment was innate to him; his father was an inventor of underwater vessels, his mother a journalist.
World of the Everyday
After his musical training with Henry Cowell and Arnold Schönberg, Cage began his career in the mid-1930s at the University of California as a composer in the dance department. Here he developed a keen eye for the breadth of the artistic landscape. Dance gave Cage the first impetus towards combinations of rhythm, structure and collaboration. In the late 1930s he took a position at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. There he was strongly influenced by dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, who would later become his life partner. Cage called Cunningham's work "certainly not an example of the specialized and fragmented art world but on the contrary of the open and unpredictable world of everyday life". Both saw the world as manifold, indeterminate and changeable. The two relied heavily on the use of chance methods to prevent themselves as artists from imposing their personal interpretations on the public.
Chance Operations
In the 1940s, Cage settled in New York. There he had much contact with visual artists such as Max Ernst, Piet Mondrian, André Breton, Jackson Pollock, Marcel Duchamp and Mark Tobey. Cage was impressed by the way Tobey used chance in his painting and drawing. But composer Christian Wolff showed Cage how he could concretely use the element of chance. According to the Chinese classical work I Ching, the questioner must toss three coins six times and formulate an answer according to the sequence that the final toss produces. "I use chance procedures to prevent the outcome from being influenced by my personal preference," said Cage, "this enables me to pursue new paths that I myself would never have thought possible." The relevance of this approach depends on the quality of the question posed. With his major piano work Music of Changes (1951), for example, the question was which key he should use, assuming only white keys could be used. But in Etudes Australes (1974-75), the chance operations were applied to the question of which case individual stars or groups should be coupled to certain keys. From 1951 onwards, Cage would use the methods described in the I Ching for most of both his music and his visual art.
Silence to Listen
That the use of chance does not always require a method is demonstrated by the composition 4'33" (1952), a three-part piece of indeed just over four and a half minutes for piano (or orchestra). During this piece the musician will not press the keys of the keyboard. The pianist thus produces no music. "Absolutely ridiculous", "stupid", "cheap trick", "the emperor's new clothes". These were initial reactions, which still arise regularly today. These are commentaries on a piece that takes the element of silence to the extreme but aims to make the audience listen. Cage on the premiere: "Silence in itself does not exist. During the first part you could hear the wind playing outside. In the second part the rain began to patter on the roof. And in the third part the listeners made all sorts of interesting sounds as they talked to each other or walked outside". With this composition, Cage inadvertently introduced the concept of framing by grouping unpredictable ambient sounds within a specific time period. And essentially he wanted to show that all sounds have sufficient potential in themselves to be music.
As an inventor, he became especially known for the concept of prepared piano. Here the interior of the instrument is drastically rebuilt. Hammers are fitted with nails, rubbers, thumbtacks and strings are connected to each other by elastic bands, respectively adjusted with matchsticks. Thus Cage transformed the piano into a percussion instrument - his old love. His Sonatas and Interludes (1946-48) is a classic in the genre.
More Intonation, Less Melody
Recently, his Number Pieces, approximately 40 pieces written between 1987 and 1992, are experiencing a revival. The numbering of these meditative explorations refers to the number of musicians each piece requires. What is new is that the musicians themselves can determine how long they want to play, albeit within certain limits. The melodic lines in this series are deliberately restrained, they tend more towards intonation. Cage did not want to impose himself. There is space that musicians and audiences are allowed to fill.
Cage avoided nothing in order to push the boundaries of sound art. Cacti, radios, rusty pan lids - he used everything to pull music as an art form out of its technical, craftspersonal and distant biotope. Cage paved the way for a more inclusive performance practice that has stretched and enriched the listening experience. Whether we like it or not, we are not rid of Cage for the time being.
Listening tips:
- Music of Changes - David Tudor, piano. Label: hat[now]ART 133
- Etudes Australes - Sabine Liebner, piano. Label: WERGO (4 CD box)
- Sonatas and interludes - Kate Boyd, piano. Label: Navona records
- Number Pieces - Apartment House. Label: Another Timbre (4 CD box)
- In a landscape - Kate Boyd, piano. Label: Navona records
Our partner JPC has a large selection of CDs and DVDs by and with works by john Cage,
Viewing tips:
DIY:
The app John Cage Prepared Piano for iPhone, iPad and Android. Compose your own pieces on prepared piano and share them on social media.
There is also an app 4'33" (iPhone only), on which the user can play the piece themselves, record ambient sounds and share them.