Cage, John (1912 - 92)

[verismissimo]

Diving into John Cage's piano music for the first time, I'm astonished at how conventional the writing is.

Is this true of the rest of his output?

[LeMartinPecheur]

Diving into John Cage's piano music for the first time, I'm astonished at how conventional the writing is.

Is this true of the rest of his output?

v: what have you been listening to?

[verismissimo]

v: what have you been listening to?

Giancarlo Simonacci on Brilliant, recorded in 2009.

[Sir Velo]

v: what have you been listening to?

Sounds like it could be the Three Easy Pieces.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Giancarlo Simonacci on Brilliant, recorded in 2009.

Looks like he recorded the lot. So if you've thoroughly sampled it, 'conventional' must stand as your considered view of C's piano/ prepared piano oeuvre.

My knowledge of Cage is restricted but my impression is that his compositional complexities lie more outside the music, in his philosophies and selection/combination processes. His 'bigger' works are made complicated to the ear essentially by processes of addition, even sometimes playing two or three independent works at once. They may be difficult to get the head round, but AFAIK they largely eschew complex internal musical structuring that is accessible to the instinctive ear of uninstructed but musically intelligent listeners (cf strict serialism, which I believe can be so accessible, even if subconsciously: somehow we know it hangs together).

C's use of randomised processes such as the I-Ching surely indicates a wish to break away from Western intellectual structurings of music whereby the 'excellence' of the work is judged (at least partly) by its internal adherence to 'rules'. I think this reaction was understandable and commendable in a period when the inner workings of some serial music were increasingly demonstrable more by quasi-mathematical analysis of the score than by any conceivable process of listening!

Didn't Schoenberg tell C that he (C) wasn't much as a composer but was a great inventor?

[verismissimo]

Looks like he recorded the lot. So if you've thoroughly sampled it, 'conventional' must stand as your considered view of C's piano/ prepared piano oeuvre.

My knowledge of Cage is restricted but my impression is that his compositional complexities lie more outside the music, in his philosophies and selection/combination processes. His 'bigger' works are made complicated to the ear by processes of addition, eg playing two or three independent works at once. They may be difficult to get the head round, but AFAIK they largely complex internal musical structuring that is accessible to the instinctive ear of uninstructed but musically intelligent listeners (cf strict serialism).

Didn't Schoenberg tell C that he (C) wasn't much as a composer but was a great inventor?
)

Very interesting, LMP. In fact, I've thus far listened (several times over) only to the fifteen works (34 tracks) on CD1, but starting out on CD2 with Cage's transcription for two pianos of Satie's Socrate (of 1918), I'm struck by the similarity of Cage's idiom to Satie's. Something I'd not at all expected starting out on this journey.

[Serial_Apologist]

Very interesting, LMP. In fact, I've thus far listened (several times over) only to the fifteen works (34 tracks) on CD1, but starting out on CD2 with Cage's transcription for two pianos of Satie's Socrate (of 1918), I'm struck by the similarity of Cage's idiom to Satie's. Something I'd not at all expected starting out on this journey.

Cage was a great champion of Satie's music, v.

[Richard Barrett]

Cage's music for prepared piano is all "early", although the later and more characteristic Cage begins to appear in the Concerto (1951) for prepared piano and chamber orchestra - somewhere between the first and second movements in fact! - and can be clearly seen in the Two Pastorales of the following year. The turning points come with the piano piece Music of Changes in 1951 and 4'33" of 1952, at which point he left "conventional" musical concepts behind once and for all.

Which reminds me of an interesting story about the organ piece Souvenir, composed in 1984. This was commissioned by the American Guild of Organists, and Cage learned that they wanted him to write a piece in his early, more "conventional" style. He returned the first half of the commission fee, saying he wasn't interested in doing that, upon which it was sent back to him with an assurance that he could write whatever kind of piece he wanted; and, having been granted this freedom, he went ahead and wrote a piece in that early style anyway, the only time after the early 1950s that he ever did such a thing.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Didn't Schoenberg tell C that he (C) wasn't much as a composer but was a great inventor?

"He is not a composer, but an inventor - of genius." AS, quoted in Yates, Twentieth Century Music [1968]

[gurnemanz]

We went to a John Cage talk/concert at York University in 1972 (we were PGCE students not music specialists). An entertaining evening in which he chatted, told jokes and read from his diary. He announced a performance of "Cheap Imitation", telling us that not only was it an imitation of Satie but that its title was an imitation of Satie's titles. The piece itself turned out to be quite simple and conventional. It lasted over half an hour and rambled a bit such that some people rather rudely walked out - not my friends and I, I should add. I hadn't heard it since but found it on Youtube

[verismissimo]

We went to a John Cage talk/concert at York University in 1972 (we were PGCE students not music specialists). An entertaining evening in which he chatted, told jokes and read from his diary. He announced a performance of "Cheap Imitation", telling us that not only was it an imitation of Satie but that its title was an imitation of Satie's titles. The piece itself turned out to be quite simple and conventional. It lasted over half an hour and rambled a bit such that some people rather rudely walked out - not my friends and I, I should add. I hadn't heard it since but found it on Youtube

Wonderful report, thanks, gurnemanz.

[arthroceph]

Wonderful report, thanks, gurnemanz.

Seconded.

[Beef Oven!]

This thread is so interesting. Thanks all

[Edgy 2]

[pastoralguy]