John Cage
Influential yesterday, today and tomorrow. (The Bus 4.47)
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The Stop
John Cage (1912 - 1992) was an American American avant-garde composer whose ‘inventive compositions and unorthodox ideas’ profoundly influenced mid-20th century music. Active during the period of Abstract Expressionism,1 Cage is best known for revolutionising modern music by using unconventional instrumentation. Deeply influenced by Asian philosophies such as Zen Buddhism, his ‘approach to composition’ focussed on the ‘harmony that exists in nature, as well as elements of chance.’2
John Cage was born in Los Angeles to John and Lucretia. His father - an inventor - and his mother - an amateur artist and occasional writer for the The Los Angeles Times - were both ‘revolutionary and eccentric,’ who made a lasting impression on him as a child. He started piano lessons when he was ten, and although he ‘enjoyed music and showed great academic standing,’ he had a passionate desire to write. After graduating as class valedictorian from Los Angeles High School, he began his studies at Pomona College, but dropped out less than two years later as he felt he was wasn’t being ‘challenged enough as an aspiring writer’.
In 1930, he traveled to Europe where he experimented with different artistic mediums, including painting, architecture, and poetry, but found that ‘nothing moved him to create innovative works’ until he encountered the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. For Cage, Bach suddenly made sense of contemporary composers such as Stravinsky, and he was inspired to create his own compositions. Returning to the US, Cage experimented with composition, but realised he needed a ‘more refined understanding of music.’ Relocating to New York, he began taking classes at The New School, where he was recommended by his ‘instructor and friend’ Henry Cowell3 to seek out the avant-garde composer Arnold Schoenberg,4 the person Cowell believed could offer Cage the kind of instruction he needed. After months obsessively honing his composition skills, Cage felt confident enough to approach Schoenberg. The composer accepted him as a pupil - for free - on the condition he would ‘dedicate his life to music.’
After two years with Schoenberg, Cage felt he needed to separate himself from his mentor if he was to develop a new, innovative style of music. Moving to Seattle, Cage taught music while composing and began experimenting with works for dance, many of which were the result of collaborations with the dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, with whom he would have a long creative and romantic partnership.
In the early 1950s, Cage spent two summers as an instructor at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, a ‘radical institution [which] provided the environment’ for some of his most experimental works. In North Carolina, Cage began to ‘unleash some of the most startling events and non-events in musical history: tape and radio collages, works composed by chance process, [and] multimedia happenings.’ Such works include 4' 33 (Four Minutes and Thirty-three Seconds) (1952), a piece in which the performer remains utterly silent onstage for that amount of time, and Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (1951) - a composition requiring twelve radios, each of which is controlled by two players, one who changes stations and the other who adjusts the volume according to the score.5
From early imitations of Schoenberg’s 12-tone method,6 Cage’s experiments with ‘increasingly unorthodox instruments such as the ‘prepared piano’ (a piano modified by objects placed between its strings in order to produce percussive and otherworldly sound effects),’ tape recorders, record players, and radios had now become essential components of his intention to ‘step outside the bounds of conventional Western music and its concepts of meaningful sound.’ His innovations with sound, instrumentation, performance, and composition would contribute to a redefinition of music in the 20th century and beyond.
Despite dying of a stroke in the summer of 1992, Cage’s influence can be found in the music of Stereolab, Radiohead, Sonic Youth and Aphex Twin - who used a ‘prepared piano’ on Drukqs (2001) - and he still remains a popular composer. In fact, one of his compositions is currently being performed in the church of St Bulchardi in Halberstadt, Germany. Chosen by a group of ‘group of philosophers and musicians at an organ conference’ six years after Cage’s death, Halberstadt - which, in 1361, housed the first organ with a modern keyboard - was felt to be the perfect location for the performance of Cage’s composition ‘Organ²/ASLSP As Slow as Possible’. Played on a wooden-framed organ combining bellows and sandbags, the organ itself is a work in progress that is being built - with pipes added or removed - with each chord change. The piece began on 5 September 2001 - what would have been Cage’s 89th birthday - and will continue to be played for 639 years - a number chosen to mark the time between the first organ and the new millennium. Just last month - on 5 February - the first chord change in two years (and only the 16th since it began) occurred. Suffice it to say, Cage - and his influence - won’t be going away anytime soon.
The Detour
Today’s Detour is to Thick Skin, a short (2:51) video which uses dance to explore the idea that one must have a ‘thick skin’ to survive in Bogotá, Colombia. It’s beautifully avant-garde … which is, of course, one purpose of art. Definitely give this one a watch.
The Recommendation
Today’s Recommendation is Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (2007). One of the most interesting books I’ve read in the last two decades, this is an indispensable text for anyone curious about the continued development and important, influential role of classical music. Yes, it’s a complex topic - but this book is accessible and fascinating, even if you’re not a classical music fan. Highly recommended.
From the back: Alex Ross, music critic for the New Yorker, takes us on a whirlwind tour of the wild landscape of twentieth-century classical music. In a century when music fragmented into apparently divergent strands Ross follows the individuals, pieces and crucial moments that shaped musical development - from Adams to Zweig, and Brahms to Björk, travelling from pre-First World War Vienna, to Benjamin Britten’s Aldeburgh, to downtown New York in the sixties.
Depicting an era when music became a social and cultural indicator as never before, The Rest is Noise becomes an intricate commentary on politics and its troublesome dance with art. Broad, vivid and powerful, it is a unique portrait of the sound-scape of the last century.
The Sounds
Today’s playlist is a selection of five early John Cage compositions I’ve chosen in an attempt to give a slight flavour of this most remarkable composer: ‘In a Landscape’ (1948), ‘Sonata and Interludes for Prepared Piano: Sonata V’ (1948), ‘A room (Two Pieces for Harp)’ (1942), ‘Experiences No. 1’ (1945), and ‘The Seasons: Spring’ (1947). Enjoy!
The Thought
Today’s Thought is a great one from John Cage:
‘There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.’
If you have a thought on this Thought - or any part of today’s issue - please leave a comment below:
And that’s the end of this Stop - I hope you enjoyed the diversion!
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Until the next Stop …
Abstract Expressionism is used to describe the abstract art of American painters from the 1940s and 50s such as Jackson Pollack, Mark Rothko and Walter de Kooning, characterised by ‘gestural brush-strokes or mark-making, and the impression of spontaneity’. For more information, see: Abstract Expressionism (Tate).
My first encounter with Cage was at a ‘Completely Cage’ concert staged at North Carolina’s Governor’s School West in the summer of 1987. At the time, as a tired and cynical 17-year-old who was forced to attend the show, I wasn’t overly impressed. But like all great art the evening stuck with me and, not long after, I realised I really liked that type of music. Years later, artists such as Brian Eno, Moby, and especially Aphex Twin, guided me back to classical music and a rediscovered appreciation for the art that continues despite what might be deemed as ‘popular.’ Sources for today’s Stop include: John Cage (theartstory.org), John Cage (Britannica), Cage Organ Music (The Guardian), Cage Slow Organ (NPR) and Ross, Alex. The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. London: Fourth Estate, 2012.
Cowell was one of the most innovative American composers of the 20th Century. For more about him, see: Henry Cowell (Britannica).
For more about Schoenberg, see: Arnold Schoenberg (Britannica).
Though I was only vaguely aware of their impact at the time, seeing 4’ 33” and Imaginary Landscape No. 4 performed at the ‘Completely Cage’ concert was the pivotal moment for my appreciation of music as it was the first time I started questioning what music really is.
For more about 12-tone, see: 12 tone music (Britannica).
That dance film was wild … I don’t think I understand dance!