Cage, John (1912 - 92)

[NatBalance]

Only, I would say, if one holds a vary narrow view as to what constitutes "understanding". One can understand the moment one sees the punchline of a joke, for instance, but can one put that understanding into words? The funniness in a joke cannot be explained in words without killing it: as with my Aunt Marj, who had no sense of humour, and would respond to a joke explanation by saying solemnly "Oh I see". Her reaction was in itself very funny to bystanders, though asked to explain why they themselves would have had to resort to lengthy explanations with nothing whatever to do with the joke. There are different types of what we think of as "understanding".

Yes very true. Such different understanding is possibly hidden within our biology, and we all have different biology which may explain different understandings, but there are reasons for everything. Every effect has a cause, everything we do, every quality we have, laughing, even love, even when we change our minds, there are always reasons, and in time we will discover those reasons, and I cannot see how such discoveries will be conveyed if not by correct use of language. Of course, knowing such reasons may spoil things and some people may not want to know, which is fair enough. Do we need to know the reasons for ALL things?

Well, I'm afraid for 4'33" I do :)

[RichardB]

This morning I was listening to Grete Sultan's original recording of the Etudes Australes, since these have been mentioned a few times and I've had this recording since buying the LPs when they first came out, without having listened to it for years. The clincher for me is that, to a far greater extent than any of the other available recordings, it makes clearly audible one of the most distinctive feature of these pieces: the way each one is characterised by a certain number of keys being held down with wedges so that they form a kind of ghostly background to the keys played by the pianist. I have some time for Sabine Liebner's idea that, because each piece takes up the same horizontal space on paper, they should all have more or less the same duration, but the result seems a bit too calculated to me. Sultan on the other hand seems to be relishing the sense of rediscovering the instrument through the music's "imitating Nature in the manner of her operation" (Ananda Coomaraswamy, approvingly quoted by Cage).

[Mandryka]

Oh yes, love it. I first clicked on it to just get a taster thinking I'd listen to it all later but ended up listening to it all right away. It was like dripping rain water after a shower, or melting snow. The silences beautifully done. Also liked the second one, it had touches of Scriabin.

I’m glad you enjoyed it. I think both of those pianists I linked are pretty creative with the music.

Lots of Cage’s music which is based on random processes can be a great pleasure to hear, given an imaginative performance. I posted a link to Variations II which is like that. And this performance of Ryoanji with Alvin Lucier too

https://vimeo.com/353639460

I warn you, once you get sucked in, Cage is a terrible rabbit hole. I remember spending weeks and weeks listening to just number pieces - I don’t want to get sucked in again!

[Bryn]

This morning I was listening to Grete Sultan's original recording of the Etudes Australes, since these have been mentioned a few times and I've had this recording since buying the LPs when they first came out, without having listened to it for years. The clincher for me is that, to a far greater extent than any of the other available recordings, it makes clearly audible one of the most distinctive feature of these pieces: the way each one is characterised by a certain number of keys being held down with wedges so that they form a kind of ghostly background to the keys played by the pianist. I have some time for Sabine Liebner's idea that, because each piece takes up the same horizontal space on paper, they should all have more or less the same duration, but the result seems a bit too calculated to me. Sultan on the other hand seems to be relishing the sense of rediscovering the instrument through the music's "imitating Nature in the manner of her operation" (Ananda Coomaraswamy, approvingly quoted by Cage).

Like you, I got the Sultan LPs at the time of their release, and more recently got the Wergo CDs. I note that there has been no mention here of the Schleiermacher recording on MDG. I am currently listening to Zappa's Wazoo but after that intend to give some time to both the Sultan and Schleiermacher. In advance, has anyone got something to offer regarding the latter?

[smittims]

NatBalance asks , 'Do we need to know the reasons for all things?

Hmm, well , at the risk of digressing, it depends what you mean by 'need'. Some people will feel more of a need than others. For me, as with many things in life, there's a happy medium. Up to a point its; better to understand than not, but beyond that, life can be more interesting, more fun, when some things are left unexplained.

Listening to music can bring wonderful moments of understanding when one hears a work for the unmpteenth time and something about the interpretation reveals for the first time something rewarding to you. What I've read abot Cage suggests to me that he would welcome such moments.

[Serial_Apologist]

Do we need to know the reasons for ALL things?

Well, I'm afraid for 4'33" I do :)

No - maybe it all goes back to never recovering from over-fastidious childhood disciplining: "You have to have a reason for what you do", or you must be mad, wicked, and so on. But the rest of nature doesn't - it just goes ahead, and the planet managed pretty well until we with all our "reasoning" got us to where we sadly now are in relation to natural processes which have no need to question their own motives but just always be on the alert. Were our hearts and brains to have to stop before justifying the next heartbeat, or spontaneously arising thought, the whole mechanism would judder to a standstill. There's an argument that in the non-existent final analysis there are always more "reasons" for any occurrence than reasoning can finally draw definitive explanations for, and that one can get endlessly tied up in causations.

We need to re-define "faith" in terms of entrusting to best intentions, while at the same time remaining on guard against institutions holding too much power, from police to publicity. And get into distinguishing the genuine from the false at the level of the non-verbal: body-language inter-communication. As one on an autistic spectrum this is very important for someone like myself, given to taking the literal as truth, but it can go for anybody easily taken in by blandishments for example. As you are doubtless aware as a Cage devotee, Zen likens the instantaneous action with no premeditation to self-preservation when under attack, at which point the "fight or flight" instincts take over, except that in Zen disciplines are designed to put the individual consciousness on continual alert in relaxed mode. Cage was said to have used these ways of settling the mind and they would have been factored into the compositional procedures that came up with some remarkably beautiful outcomes.

[Serial_Apologist]

NatBalance asks , 'Do we need to know the reasons for all things?

Hmm, well , at the risk of digressing, it depends what you mean by 'need'. Some people will feel more of a need than others. For me, as with many things in life, there's a happy medium. Up to a point its; better to understand than not, but beyond that, life can be more interesting, more fun, when some things are left unexplained.

Listening to music can bring wonderful moments of understanding when one hears a work for the unmpteenth time and something about the interpretation reveals for the first time something rewarding to you. What I've read about Cage suggests to me that he would welcome such moments.

Would you not say that understanding in this sense is more akin to seeing the point of a joke? At that point comes the understanding, not subsequently in trying to figure out what it was that was amusing and why, which would destroy the "point" of the joke.

[Mandryka]

NatBalance asks , 'Do we need to know the reasons for all things?

Hmm, well , at the risk of digressing, it depends what you mean by 'need'. Some people will feel more of a need than others. For me, as with many things in life, there's a happy medium. Up to a point its; better to understand than not, but beyond that, life can be more interesting, more fun, when some things are left unexplained.

Listening to music can bring wonderful moments of understanding when one hears a work for the unmpteenth time and something about the interpretation reveals for the first time something rewarding to you. What I've read abot Cage suggests to me that he would welcome such moments.

I once heard an interview with Colin Davis where he said that when he was young and unmarried a girlfriend brought some Berlioz LPs to his flat and he listened to the music for the first time. He was completely perplexed, he couldn't understand the point.

I was a bit like that the other day, not with Berlioz but with a Schnittke quartet, the third, which is stuffed with very obvious musical quotations. I just felt slightly irritated because I couldn't see the point.

On the other hand, I have no problem with Cage, 4:33 or almost everything I've heard by him.

[smittims]

Yes indeed, serialapologist, I agree.

And thanks Mandryka, I too have problems with Schnittke, going back 40 years. I have one or two of his works in a box set of other stuff, and must give them a listen again. He's one of a number of composers I try to listen to, such as Gubaidulina and Golijev, but soon my ears glaze over (sort of...) . I think it's just personal taste , like Marmite or Branston Pickle (if you have that where you live).

[NatBalance]

Lots of Cage’s music which is based on random processes can be a great pleasure to hear, given an imaginative performance. I posted a link to Variations II which is like that. And this performance of Ryoanji with Alvin Lucier too

https://vimeo.com/353639460

I warn you, once you get sucked in, Cage is a terrible rabbit hole. I remember spending weeks and weeks listening to just number pieces - I don’t want to get sucked in again!

Your link stated "Video is not rated. Log in to watch" so I searched and found this instead:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9N2Wx3odgE&t=1222s Will this do? I've listened to a lot but you need to be in a special mood to listen to it all. I think it's brilliant. Very primal. I know what you mean about getting sucked in.

[RichardB]

I too have problems with Schnittke

I find some pieces powerfully moving (as I've no doubt mentioned before, his 8th Symphony and Viola Concerto particularly) but all the pieces that are full of pastiche (or "polystylism" as I believe the experts call it ) do nothing at all for me. As Cage says, "I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones!"

I think Ryoanji is a very beautiful thing, (especially the orchestral version), full of mystery and fascination like the place it's named after.