John Cage (1912-92)

[Mandryka]

I've a hard time relating to the latter part of Cage's career - perhaps the part where chance becomes more important. Maybe I'll get there some day. Meanwhile I love his prepared piano stuff. Recently I've been listening to the Arditti release: Cage: 44 Harmonies from Apartment House - 1776 & Cheap Imitation and enjoying it very much. I've a dozen or so Cage releases that I really love. But I don't get the Etudes and other "random" sounding stuff.

What was Apartment House originally? Was it for violin/(prepared?) piano duo? That Arditti release is an arrangement of something.

L

[Mandryka]

John Cage is misunderstood, he took many ideas from Webern,

What ideas from Webern?

[milk]

I don't know what Webernian's referring to in particular but I know that Cage (along with Feldman specifically) shared radical views on time and perception of time. To be as non-academic as possible in describing it: A slow paced 40/50 minute Cage/Feldman piece can feel like a 5 minute piece and a 5 minute piece can feel like a complete Mahler symphony.
Essentially the took the same view but approached it from the opposite angle as Webern did

Yes, it seems that the influence of Cage on Feldman was a kind of freedom for Feldman. Yet I don't see huge similarities beyond this important influence. I feel like Cage is a really important influential force in music generally/widely (for example, far afield, on Eno's ambient music) but sometimes, ok sometimes, it feels like music is besides the point. He's conceptual like Duchamp or something. Perhaps Cage is more "important" but I love Feldman's music more. Feldman is always about sound and music - maybe in the usual way that music is abstract. Still, I love Cage's early/middle work. It's so inventive.

[San Antone]

I don't know what Webernian's referring to in particular but I know that Cage (along with Feldman specifically) shared radical views on time and perception of time.

Cage was opposed to the Europeans who set up his work ASLSP (As Slow as Possible) in which the work will take 639 years to complete.  He wrote the work for piano and wanted the work to be structured around the natural decay of the tones.  When he found out about the organ version in which they fitted weights to the organ so that each tone could last indefinitely he expressed his opposition.  The work is still going on.  But Cage was a humanist and wanted his music to express the human spirit, not abstract ideas about time.

He also put together a performance of the Satie work Vexations, a work Satie wrote without bar lines which consists of a short theme in the bass whose four presentations are heard alternately unaccompanied and played with chords above.  Satie instructed that the theme be played 840 times.  Cage got pianist volunteers to play for periods of time and they performed all 840.  I am not sure how long it took, but probably over 24 hours.

Feldman used long works to stretch the consciousness of the audience.  After we listen for 4 or 6 hours our sense of perception goes through changes.  People who stayed to listen to long periods of the Vexations performance also described a shift in how they perceived the work and even the space around them.

Yes, it seems that the influence of Cage on Feldman was a kind of freedom for Feldman. Yet I don't see huge similarities beyond this important influence. I feel like Cage is a really important influential force in music generally/widely (for example, far afield, on Eno's ambient music) but sometimes, ok sometimes, it feels like music is besides the point. He's conceptual like Duchamp or something. Perhaps Cage is more "important" but I love Feldman's music more. Feldman is always about sound and music - maybe in the usual way that music is abstract. Still, I love Cage's early/middle work. It's so inventive.

Feldman was quoted as saying that Cage gave him and other young composers "permission" to follow their muse.  But Cage always thought of himself as a composer (later also a visual artist) but resisted the idea of himself as a philosopher.   While he admired Duchamp and took inspiration from him, Cage was not out to "make a point" necessarily, but to write musical compositions that might make people think, yes, but primarily the music was to be enjoyed for what it was.

Feldman was a student of Cage and for about five years they were very much involved.  But Feldman did not use Cage's techniques.  There is a famous story of one of their first meetings and Feldman played Cage one of his compositions.  Cage asked him "how did you write that" and Feldman responded "I don't know", which delighted Cage.  Feldman was a very intuitive composer.  He wrote music according to what he felt and internally heard.  Many of his works revolve around a few pitches or chords but the small variations and when a change is added it was all dictated by his internal muse.

Which is very different from Cage's wish to remove himself from the composing and turn it over to chance operations.

Cage's late number pieces are some of his best music, IMO.  Do listen to them.

[Mandryka]

I don't know what Webernian's referring to in particular but I know that Cage (along with Feldman specifically) shared radical views on time and perception of time. To be as non-academic as possible in describing it: A slow paced 40/50 minute Cage/Feldman piece can feel like a 5 minute piece and a 5 minute piece can feel like a complete Mahler symphony.
Essentially the took the same view but approached it from the opposite angle as Webern did

I don't understand this fascinating post at all, can you spell it out with examples?

[Mandryka]

Feldman used long works to stretch the consciousness of the audience. 

If you can find some comments by Feldman about why he wrote such long music, then I'd love to read them.

[Mandryka]

Cage was opposed to the Europeans who set up his work ASLSP (As Slow as Possible) in which the work will take 639 years to complete.  He wrote the work for piano and wanted the work to be structured around the natural decay of the tones.  When he found out about the organ version in which they fitted weights to the organ so that each tone could last indefinitely he expressed his opposition.  The work is still going on.  But Cage was a humanist and wanted his music to express the human spirit, not abstract ideas about time.

This I didn't know and it's interesting - it's like he was interested in the same sort of thing as Stockhausen in Natürlich Dauern.

I'd be very interested in the details of Cage's opposition to the organ performance.

[San Antone]

If you can find some comments by Feldman about why he wrote such long music, then I'd love to read them.

Regarding Feldman's ideas about long pieces, I know I've read comments from him about them, but I can't find the interview on the web or where I read them.  It could be in Give My Regards to Eighth Street.  However, this section from Alex Ross's long article on Feldman echos what I was getting at.

Extreme length allowed Feldman to approach his ultimate goal of making music into an experience of life-changing force, a transcendent art form that wipes everything else away. To sit through performances of the two biggest works—I heard Petr Kotik's S.E.M. Ensemble play the five-hour-long "For Philip Guston" in 1995, with phenomenal purity of tone, and the Flux Quartet play the six-hour-long "String Quartet (II)" in 1999, with tireless focus—is to enter into a new way of listening, even a new consciousness. There are passages in each where Feldman seems to be testing the listener's patience, seeing how long we can endure a repeated note or a dissonant minor second. Then, out of nowhere, some very pure, almost childlike idea materializes. Most of the closing section of "For Philip Guston" is in modal A minor, and it is music of surpassing gentleness and tenderness. But it inhabits a far-off, secret place that few travellers will stumble upon.

This I didn't know and it's interesting - it's like was interested in the same sort of thing as Stockhausen in Natürlich Dauern.

I'd be very interested in the details of Cage's opposition to the organ performance.

It was incorrect for me to write that Cage spoke out publicly about the Halberstadt organ work, since it was not begun until nearly ten years after his death.  However, I suppose I was remembering what I read about Cage's opposition to this kind of thing based on this excerpt from John Cage (Critical Lives) by Rob Haskins.

Deutsche Welle erroneously reported that Cage himself planned the extraordinary duration of the work; in an interview with the news agency, one of the organizers proudly said, 'It doesn't mean anything; it's just there.' (While Cage did not indicate what the outside limit for length would be, he did indicate that the work should be performed by an individual in one sitting.  Which is certainly not possible with the Halberstadt project.)

Sadly, however, the Halberstadt project means quite a bit, and the cultural work it performs has the most alarming consequences with respect to Cage's own practice.  For one thing, he almost always viewed his music as intended for performance in real time by human beings.  When in 1981 Paul Zukofsky told him that the latest of his Freeman Etudes was unplayable, Cage abandoned work on them until the English violinist Irvine Arditti played the existing etudes with such virtuosity that he was inspired to finish the series. 

And while it is possible to imagine that a group of performers could be assembled to perform Organ for 639 years, it is more difficult to imagine Cage sanctioning anyone to spend that much time on a work from his past: he was always thinking of the present and the future, and it seemed clear that he thought excessive attention devoted to the past solved no real social problems. Furthermore he aspired for his music to have a genuine use in society, and while the attention of the Halberstadt project has reinvigorated the town, long ravaged by economic woes and and extremist factionalism, he distanced himself from endorsing any particular, overly specific project, even if it served a noble or morally upright cause. He wanted the social problems of our time to be solved globally and through invention of new things; on balance the Halberstadt project perverts Cage's notion of process into the worst kind of object: an effete monument that no human beings could fully experience within their own lifetimes.

[San Antone]

In the wake of the discussion about 4'33" that occurred on a different thread, I recommend this book:  No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage's 4'33" by Kyle Gann.

I am just beginning it, but Gann is somewhat of a Cage scholar and has performed the work and is a good writer about music.

[asin]B0038LB462[/asin]

[chadfeldheimer]

It was incorrect for me to write that Cage spoke out publicly about the Halberstadt organ work, since it was not begun until nearly ten years after his death.  However, I suppose I was remembering what I read about Cage's opposition to this kind of thing based on this excerpt from John Cage (Critical Lives) by Rob Haskins.

Deutsche Welle erroneously reported that Cage himself planned the extraordinary duration of the work; in an interview with the news agency, one of the organizers proudly said, 'It doesn't mean anything; it's just there.' (While Cage did not indicate what the outside limit for length would be, he did indicate that the work should be performed by an individual in one sitting.  Which is certainly not possible with the Halberstadt project.)

Sadly, however, the Halberstadt project means quite a bit, and the cultural work it performs has the most alarming consequences with respect to Cage's own practice.  For one thing, he almost always viewed his music as intended for performance in real time by human beings.  When in 1981 Paul Zukofsky told him that the latest of his Freeman Etudes was unplayable, Cage abandoned work on them until the English violinist Irvine Arditti played the existing etudes with such virtuosity that he was inspired to finish the series. 

And while it is possible to imagine that a group of performers could be assembled to perform Organ for 639 years, it is more difficult to imagine Cage sanctioning anyone to spend that much time on a work from his past: he was always thinking of the present and the future, and it seemed clear that he thought excessive attention devoted to the past solved no real social problems. Furthermore he aspired for his music to have a genuine use in society, and while the attention of the Halberstadt project has reinvigorated the town, long ravaged by economic woes and and extremist factionalism, he distanced himself from endorsing any particular, overly specific project, even if it served a noble or morally upright cause. He wanted the social problems of our time to be solved globally and through invention of new things; on balance the Halberstadt project perverts Cage's notion of process into the worst kind of object: an effete monument that no human beings could fully experience within their own lifetimes.

I doubt Cage would have opposed so strong against the Halberstadt project, as Rob Haskins supposes. From what I know, Cage's openess was one of his most outstanding attributes. Maybe he wouldn't have come up with an idea like this 639 years performance by himself, but he would think: Why not?

[San Antone]

I doubt Cage would have opposed so strong against the Halberstadt project, as Rob Haskins supposes. From what I know, Cage's openess was one of his most outstanding attributes. Maybe he wouldn't have come up with an idea like this 639 years performance by himself, but he would think: Why not?

Cage did object when performers took liberties with his work which he thought "not in the spirit" of the composition.  For example he did complain about the New York Philharmonic's treatment of the Concerto for Prepared Piano, in which members of the orchestra made silly sounds and quoted from symphonic literature in cartoonish fashion.  He also objected at other times when a performer took liberties.

So I think it is safe to say the 600+ year performance of the organ work would fall into Cage's idea of a flawed performance.

[chadfeldheimer]

Cage did object when performers took liberties with his work which he thought "not in the spirit" of the composition.  For example he did complain about the New York Philharmonic's treatment of the Concerto for Prepared Piano, in which members of the orchestra made silly sounds and quoted from symphonic literature in cartoonish fashion.  He also objected at other times when a performer took liberties.

So I think it is safe to say the 600+ year performance of the organ work would fall into Cage's idea of a flawed performance.

Ok - but in your mentioned performance the musicians clearly exceeded the frame given by Cage's instructions, and they did it in a jokey way. The performance in Halberstadt at least is true to the score, isn't it.
It would be interesting to know if Cage disciples/intimates were involved in the planning of Halberstadt performance, or how they think about it.

[San Antone]

Ok - but in your mentioned performance the musicians clearly exceeded the frame given by Cage's instructions, and they did it in a jokey way. The performance in Halberstadt at least is true to the score, isn't it.

I think the answer to that question would be "no" seeing that Cage envisioned the work to be performed by a human being and not a bag of sand.

It would be interesting to know if Cage disciples/intimates were involved in the planning of Halberstadt performance, or how they think about it.

As far as I know the people responsible had their own motives for generating buzz about themselves, the city, the organ, and raising money.  They had nothing to do with John Cage.

[Mandryka]

Regarding Feldman's ideas about long pieces, I know I've read comments from him about them, but I can't find the interview on the web or where I read them.  It could be in Give My Regards to Eighth Street.  However, this section from Alex Ross's long article on Feldman echos what I was getting at.

Extreme length allowed Feldman to approach his ultimate goal of making music into an experience of life-changing force, a transcendent art form that wipes everything else away. To sit through performances of the two biggest works—I heard Petr Kotik's S.E.M. Ensemble play the five-hour-long "For Philip Guston" in 1995, with phenomenal purity of tone, and the Flux Quartet play the six-hour-long "String Quartet (II)" in 1999, with tireless focus—is to enter into a new way of listening, even a new consciousness. There are passages in each where Feldman seems to be testing the listener's patience, seeing how long we can endure a repeated note or a dissonant minor second. Then, out of nowhere, some very pure, almost childlike idea materializes. Most of the closing section of "For Philip Guston" is in modal A minor, and it is music of surpassing gentleness and tenderness. But it inhabits a far-off, secret place that few travellers will stumble upon.

It was incorrect for me to write that Cage spoke out publicly about the Halberstadt organ work, since it was not begun until nearly ten years after his death.  However, I suppose I was remembering what I read about Cage's opposition to this kind of thing based on this excerpt from John Cage (Critical Lives) by Rob Haskins.

Deutsche Welle erroneously reported that Cage himself planned the extraordinary duration of the work; in an interview with the news agency, one of the organizers proudly said, 'It doesn't mean anything; it's just there.' (While Cage did not indicate what the outside limit for length would be, he did indicate that the work should be performed by an individual in one sitting.  Which is certainly not possible with the Halberstadt project.)

Sadly, however, the Halberstadt project means quite a bit, and the cultural work it performs has the most alarming consequences with respect to Cage's own practice.  For one thing, he almost always viewed his music as intended for performance in real time by human beings.  When in 1981 Paul Zukofsky told him that the latest of his Freeman Etudes was unplayable, Cage abandoned work on them until the English violinist Irvine Arditti played the existing etudes with such virtuosity that he was inspired to finish the series. 

And while it is possible to imagine that a group of performers could be assembled to perform Organ for 639 years, it is more difficult to imagine Cage sanctioning anyone to spend that much time on a work from his past: he was always thinking of the present and the future, and it seemed clear that he thought excessive attention devoted to the past solved no real social problems. Furthermore he aspired for his music to have a genuine use in society, and while the attention of the Halberstadt project has reinvigorated the town, long ravaged by economic woes and and extremist factionalism, he distanced himself from endorsing any particular, overly specific project, even if it served a noble or morally upright cause. He wanted the social problems of our time to be solved globally and through invention of new things; on balance the Halberstadt project perverts Cage's notion of process into the worst kind of object: an effete monument that no human beings could fully experience within their own lifetimes.

It's the bit I put in bold that I want to see the justification for, it reminds me of stuff I've recently dug up about Xenakis's intentions with the polytopes. The whole area of modernism and these quasi-spiritual ideas about transforming the audience, pushing them towards enlightenment, is interesting. Until recently I'd always connected modernism with the materialist left, but I now think I was completely wrong about that, even for Xenakis and Nono. Unfortunately.

[San Antone]

Here's a nice quote from the 4'33" book which captures my own understanding of the work (esp. the bolded bit) and what I have been trying to express to the critics of the piece:

John Cage's 4'33" is one of the most misunderstood pieces of music ever written and yet, at times, one of the avant-garde's best understood as well. Many presume that the piece's purpose was deliberate provocation, an attempt to insult, or get a reaction from, the audience. For others, though, it was a logical turning point to which other musical developments had inevitably led, and from which new ones would spring. For many, it was a kind of artistic prayer, a bit of Zen performance theater that opened the ears and allowed one to hear the world anew. To Cage it seemed, at least from what he wrote about it, to have been an act of framing, of enclosing environmental and unintended sounds in a moment of attention in order to open the mind to the fact that all sounds are music. It begged for a new approach to listening, perhaps even a new understanding of music itself, a blurring of the conventional boundaries between art and life. But to beg is not always to receive.

It's the bit I put in bold that I want to see the justification for, it reminds me of stuff I've recently dug up about Xenakis's intentions with the polytopes. The whole area of modernism and these quasi-spiritual ideas about transforming the audience, pushing them towards enlightenment, is interesting. Until recently I'd always connected modernism with the materialist left, but I now think I was completely wrong about that, even for Xenakis and Nono. Unfortunately.

I'll keep looking, but I feel confident I have read Feldman talk about breaking through boundaries, duration being one, in order to cause changes in how the audience experiences both the music and passage of time.

[chadfeldheimer]

I think the answer to that question would be "no" seeing that Cage envisioned the work to be performed by a human being and not a bag of sand.

Ok - under the assumption that Cage under all circumstances wanted people to attend the performance from start to finish, this would be true. I'm not sure about this however. Three weeks ago Feldman's 2nd string quartet was performed in Hamburg, clocking above 5 hours. I was not there, but I would be surprised if all people in the audience sat there without break for the complete duration. Personaly I would have attended for maybe 3 hours or so. Would Feldman have seen it as an insult if I left earlier?

As far as I know the people responsible had their own motives for generating buzz about themselves, the city, the organ, and raising money.  They had nothing to do with John Cage.

People always have their own motives. In the best case there is a win - win situation and the interests of all people involved get balanced

[San Antone]

Ok - under the assumption that Cage under all circumstances wanted people to attend the performance from start to finish, this would be true. I'm not sure about this however. Three weeks ago Feldman's 2nd string quartet was performed in Hamburg, clocking above 5 hours. I was not there, but I would be surprised if all people in the audience sat there without break for the complete duration. Personaly I would have attended for maybe 3 hours or so. Would Feldman have seen it as an insult if I left earlier?

First, one should not conflate Cage with Feldman and their respective motivations concerning the composition of their music.  Second, I doubt Feldman would care if you stayed or left.  But the people who stayed would have had the experience Feldman intended.  Feldman definitely had a purpose with writing long works.

People always have their own motives. In the best case there is a win - win situation and the interests of all people involved get balanced

In this instance I don't consider this an example of "the best case"; I think Cage and his work are being exploited.

[San Antone]

Here's Cage talking about 4'33" and its significance for him: "I think perhaps my own best piece, at least the one I like the most, is the silent piece. It has three movements, and in all of the movements there are no sounds. I wanted my work to be free of my own likes and dislikes, because I think music should be free of the feelings and ideas of the composer. I have felt and hoped to have led other people to feel that the sounds of their environment constitute a music which is more interesting than the music which they would hear if they went into a concert hall."

[chadfeldheimer]

It's the bit I put in bold that I want to see the justification for, it reminds me of stuff I've recently dug up about Xenakis's intentions with the polytopes. The whole area of modernism and these quasi-spiritual ideas about transforming the audience, pushing them towards enlightenment, is interesting. Until recently I'd always connected modernism with the materialist left, but I now think I was completely wrong about that, even for Xenakis and Nono. Unfortunately.

Regarding pushing the audience to enlightment: Buddhism was a major influence on musical modernism after WW2.

[Mandryka]

Regarding pushing the audience to enlightment: Buddhism was a major influence on musical modernism after WW2.

Really, that's interesting. I suppose in some general sense Asian ideas were part of the hippy thing - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's TM, but apart from Cage and Harvey, I didn't know that any composers took Buddhism seriously. Who were you thinking of.

Re your comments about Feldman's 2nd quartet, I remember talking to someone who was part of the scene in New York which included  La Monte Young, he said that leaving early from performances of the well tuned piano was so frowned on that no one did it, anyone who went was so hard core they stayed for the duration.