John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was als…

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Jump to content Main menu Main menu move to sidebar hide Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Special pages Search Search Appearance Donate Create account Log in Personal tools Donate Create account Log in Contents move to sidebar hide (Top) 1 Life Toggle Life subsection 1.1 1912–1931: early years 1.2 1931–1936: apprenticeship 1.3 1937–1949: modern dance and Eastern influences 1.4 1950s: discovering chance 1.5 1960s: fame 1.6 1969–1987: new departures 1.7 1987–1992: final years and death 2 Music Toggle Music subsection 2.1 Early works, rhythmic structure, and new approaches to harmony 2.2 Chance 2.3 Improvisation 3 Visual art, writings, and other activities 4 Reception and influence Toggle Reception and influence subsection 4.1 Centenary commemoration 5 Archives 6 See also 7 Notes, references, sources Toggle Notes, references, sources subsection 7.1 Notes 7.2 Citations 7.3 Sources 8 Further reading 9 External links Toggle the table of contents John Cage 66 languages العربية مصرى Azərbaycanca Беларуская Български বাংলা Català Cebuano Čeština Cymraeg Dansk Deutsch Ελληνικά Esperanto Español Eesti Euskara فارسی Suomi Français Furlan Frysk Gaeilge Gàidhlig Galego עברית Hrvatski Magyar Հայերեն Interlingua Bahasa Indonesia Ido Italiano 日本語 ქართული 한국어 Latina Limburgs Lietuvių Latviešu Македонски Bahasa Melayu Nederlands Norsk nynorsk Norsk bokmål Occitan Kapampangan Polski پښتو Português Română Русский Sicilianu Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Simple English Slovenčina Slovenščina Српски / srpski Svenska ไทย Tagalog Türkçe Українська Tiếng Việt 吴语中文 Edit links Article Talk English Read Edit View history Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions Read Edit View history General What links here Related changes Upload file Permanent link Page information Cite this page Get shortened URL Switch to legacy parser Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikidata item Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This is an old revision of this page, as edited by JJMC89 bot III ( talk | contribs ) at 21:10, 24 September 2024 (Moving Category:American LGBT poets to Category:American LGBTQ poets per Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 September 11#LGBT nominations which were opposed at CFDS ) . The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision . Revision as of 21:10, 24 September 2024 by JJMC89 bot III ( talk | contribs ) (Moving Category:American LGBT poets to Category:American LGBTQ poets per Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 September 11#LGBT nominations which were opposed at CFDS ) ( diff ) ← Previous revision | Latest revision ( diff ) | Newer revision → ( diff ) American avant-garde composer (1912–1992) This article is about the composer. For other people with the same name, see John Cage (disambiguation) . John Cage Cage in 1988 Born John Milton Cage Jr. ( 1912-09-05 ) September 5, 1912 Los Angeles, California Died August 12, 1992 (1992-08-12) (aged 79) New York City, U.S. Alma mater Pomona College Occupations Composer music theorist artist philosopher Spouse Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff ( m. 1935 ; div. 1945 ) Partner Merce Cunningham Signature John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist . A pioneer of indeterminacy in music , electroacoustic music , and non-standard use of musical instruments , Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde . Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. 1 2 3 4 He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance , mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham , who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives. 5 6 Cage's teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage's major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures . Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance -controlled music, which he started composing in 1951. 7 The I Ching , an ancient Chinese classic text and decision-making tool, became Cage's standard composition tool for the rest of his life. 8 In a 1957 lecture, "Experimental Music", he described music as "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living". 9 Cage's best known work is the 1952 composition 4′33″ , a piece performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing but be present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is intended to be the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. 10 11 The work's challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage was also a pioneer of the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by objects placed between or on its strings or hammers), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces. These include Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48). 12 Life 1912–1931: early years Cage was born September 5, 1912, at Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown Los Angeles. 13 His father, John Milton Cage Sr. (1886–1964), was an inventor, and his mother, Lucretia ("Crete") Harvey (1881–1968), worked intermittently as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times . 14 The family's roots were deeply American: in a 1976 interview, Cage mentioned that George Washington was assisted by an ancestor named John Cage in the task of surveying the Colony of Virginia . 15 Cage described his mother as a woman with "a sense of society" who was "never happy", 16 while his father is perhaps best characterized by his inventions: sometimes idealistic, such as a diesel-fueled submarine that gave off exhaust bubbles, the senior Cage being uninterested in an undetectable submarine; 14 others revolutionary and against the scientific norms, such as the "electrostatic field theory" of the universe. a John Cage Sr. taught his son that "if someone says 'can't' that shows you what to do." In 1944–45 Cage wrote two small character pieces dedicated to his parents: Crete and Dad . The latter is a short lively piece that ends abruptly, while "Crete" is a slightly longer, mostly melodic contrapuntal work. 17 Cage's first experiences with music were from private piano teachers in the Greater Los Angeles area and several relatives, particularly his aunt Phoebe Harvey James who introduced him to the piano music of the 19th century. He received first piano lessons when he was in the fourth grade at school, but although he liked music, he expressed more interest in sight reading than in developing virtuoso piano technique, and apparently was not thinking of composition. 18 During high school, one of his music teachers was Fannie Charles Dillon . 19 By 1928, though, Cage was convinced that he wanted to be a writer. He graduated that year from Los Angeles High School as a valedictorian , 20 having also in the spring given a prize-winning speech at the Hollywood Bowl proposing a day of quiet for all Americans. By being "hushed and silent," he said, "we should have the opportunity to hear what other people think," anticipating 4′33″ by more than thirty years. 21 Cage enrolled at Pomona College in Claremont as a theology major in 1928. Often crossing disciplines again, though, he encountered at Pomona the work of artist Marcel Duchamp via Professor José Pijoan, of writer James Joyce via Don Sample, of philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy and of Henry Cowell . 19 In 1930 he dropped out, having come to believe that "college was of no use to a writer" 22 after an incident described in his 1991 autobiographical statement: I was shocked at college to see one hundred of my classmates in the library all reading copies of the same book. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks and read the first book written by an author whose name began with Z. I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly. I left. 16 Cage persuaded his parents that a trip to Europe would be more beneficial to a future writer than college studies. 23 He subsequently hitchhiked to Galveston and sailed to Le Havre , where he took a train to Paris. 24 Cage stayed in Europe for some 18 months, trying his hand at various forms of art. First, he studied Gothic and Greek architecture , but decided he was not interested enough in architecture to dedicate his life to it. 22 He then took up painting, poetry and music. It was in Europe that, encouraged by his teacher Lazare Lévy , 25 he first heard the music of contemporary composers (such as Igor Stravinsky and Paul Hindemith ) and finally got to know the music of Johann Sebastian Bach , which he had not experienced before. After several months in Paris, Cage's enthusiasm for America was revived after he read Walt Whitman 's Leaves of Grass – he wanted to return immediately, but his parents, with whom he regularly exchanged letters during the entire trip, persuaded him to stay in Europe for a little longer and explore the continent. 26 Cage started traveling, visiting various places in France, Germany, and Spain, as well as Capri and, most importantly, Majorca , where he started composing. 27 His first compositions were created using dense mathematical formulas, but Cage was displeased with the results and left the finished pieces behind when he left. 28 Cage's association with theater also started in Europe: during a walk in Seville he witnessed, in his own words, "the multiplicity of simultaneous visual and audible events all going together in one's experience and producing enjoyment." 29 1931–1936: apprenticeship Cage returned to the United States in 1931. 28 He went to Santa Monica, California , where he made a living partly by giving small, private lectures on contemporary art. He got to know various important figures of the Southern California art world, such as Richard Buhlig (who became his first composition teacher) 30 and arts patron Galka Scheyer . 22 By 1933, Cage decided to concentrate on music rather than painting. "The people who heard my music had better things to say about it than the people who looked at my paintings had to say about my paintings", Cage later explained. 22 In 1933 he sent some of his compositions to Henry Cowell; the reply was a "rather vague letter", 31 in which Cowell suggested that Cage study with Arnold Schoenberg —Cage's musical ideas at the time included composition based on a 25- tone row , somewhat similar to Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique . 32 Cowell also advised that, before approaching Schoenberg, Cage should take some preliminary lessons, and recommended Adolph Weiss , a former Schoenberg pupil. 33 Following Cowell's advice, Cage travelled to New York City in 1933 and started studying with Weiss as well as taking lessons from Cowell himself at The New School . 30 He supported himself financially by taking up a job washing walls at a YWCA (World Young Women's Christian Association) in Brooklyn . 34 Cage's routine during that period was apparently very tiring, with just four hours of sleep on most nights, and four hours of composition every day starting at 4 am. 34 35 Several months later, still in 1933, Cage became sufficiently good at composition to approach Schoenberg. b He could not afford Schoenberg's price, and when he mentioned it, the older composer asked whether Cage would devote his life to music. After Cage replied that he would, Schoenberg offered to tutor him free of charge. 36 Cage studied with Schoenberg in California: first at University of Southern California and then at University of California, Los Angeles , as well as privately. 30 The older composer became one of the biggest influences on Cage, who "literally worshipped him", 37 particularly as an example of how to live one's life being a composer. 35 The vow Cage gave, to dedicate his life to music, was apparently still important some 40 years later, when Cage "had no need for it i.e. writing music", he continued composing partly because of the promise he gave. 38 Schoenberg's methods and their influence on Cage are well documented by Cage himself in various lectures and writings. Particularly well-known is the conversation mentioned in the 1958 lecture Indeterminacy : After I had been studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, "In order to write music, you must have a feeling for harmony." I explained to him that I had no feeling for harmony. He then said that I would always encounter an obstacle, that it would be as though I came to a wall through which I could not pass. I said, "In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall." 39 Cage studied with Schoenberg for two years, but although he admired his teacher, he decided to leave after Schoenberg told the assembled students that he was trying to make it impossible for them to write music. Much later, Cage recounted the incident: "... When he said that, I revolted, not against him, but against what he had said. I determined then and there, more than ever before, to write music." 37 Although Schoenberg was not impressed with Cage's compositional abilities during these two years, in a later interview, where he initially said that none of his American pupils were interesting, he further stated in reference to Cage: "There was one ... of course he's not a composer, but he's an inventor—of genius." 37 Cage would later adopt the "inventor" moniker and deny that he was in fact a composer. 40 At some point in 1934–35, during his studies with Schoenberg, Cage was working at his mother's arts and crafts shop, where he met artist Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff . She was an Alaskan -born daughter of a Russian priest; her work encompassed fine bookbinding , sculpture and collage . Although Cage was involved in relationships with Don Sample and with architect Rudolph Schindler 's wife Pauline 19 when he met Xenia, he fell in love immediately. Cage and Kashevaroff were married in the desert at Yuma, Arizona , on June 7, 1935. 41 1937–1949: modern dance and Eastern influences See also: Works for prepared piano by John Cage The newly married couple first lived with Cage's parents in Pacific Palisades , then moved to Hollywood. 42 During 1936–38 Cage changed numerous jobs, including one that started his lifelong association with modern dance: dance accompanist at the University of California, Los Angeles. He produced music for choreographies and at one point taught a course on "Musical Accompaniments for Rhythmic Expression" at UCLA, with his aunt Phoebe. 43 It was during that time that Cage first started experimenting with unorthodox instruments, such as household items, metal sheets, and so on. This was inspired by Oskar Fischinger , who told Cage that "everything in the world has a spirit that can be released through its sound." Although Cage did not share the idea of spirits, these words inspired him to begin exploring the sounds produced by hitting various non-musical objects. 43 44 In 1938, on Cowell's recommendation, Cage drove to San Francisco to find employment and to seek out fellow Cowell student and composer Lou Harrison . According to Cowell, the two composers had a shared interest in percussion and dance and would likely hit it off if introduced to one another. Indeed, the two immediately established a strong bond upon meeting and began a working relationship that continued for several years. Harrison soon helped Cage to secure a faculty member position at Mills College , teaching the same program as at UCLA, and collaborating with choreographer Marian van Tuyl . Several famous dance groups were present, and Cage's interest in modern dance grew further. 43 After several months he left and moved to Seattle , Washington, where he found work as composer and accompanist for choreographer Bonnie Bird at the Cornish College of the Arts . The Cornish School years proved to be a particularly important period in Cage's life. Aside from teaching and working as accompanist, Cage organized a percussion ensemble that toured the West Coast and brought the composer his first fame. His reputation was enhanced further with the invention of the prepared piano—a piano which has had its sound altered by objects placed on, beneath or between the strings—in 1940. This concept was originally intended for a performance staged in a room too small to include a full percussion ensemble. It was also at the Cornish School that Cage met several people who became lifelong friends, such as painter Mark Tobey and dancer Merce Cunningham . The latter was to become Cage's lifelong romantic partner and artistic collaborator. Cage left Seattle in the summer of 1941 after the painter László Moholy-Nagy invited him to teach at the Chicago School of Design (what later became the IIT Institute of Design ). The composer accepted partly because he hoped to find opportunities in Chicago, that were not available in Seattle, to organize a center for experimental music. These opportunities did not materialize. Cage taught at the Chicago School of Design and worked as accompanist and composer at the University of Chicago . At one point, his reputation as percussion composer landed him a commission from the Columbia Broadcasting System to compose a soundtrack for a radio play by Kenneth Patchen . The result, The City Wears a Slouch Hat , was received well, and Cage deduced that more important commissions would follow. Hoping to find these, he left Chicago for New York City in the spring of 1942. In New York, the Cages first stayed with painter Max Ernst and Peggy Guggenheim . Through them, Cage met important artists such as Piet Mondrian , André Breton , Jackson Pollock , and Marcel Duchamp , and many others. Guggenheim was very supportive: the Cages could stay with her and Ernst for any length of time, and she offered to organize a concert of Cage's music at the opening of her gallery, which included paying for transportation of Cage's percussion instruments from Chicago. After she learned that Cage secured another concert, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) , Guggenheim withdrew all support, and, even after the ultimately successful MoMA concert, Cage was left homeless, unemployed and penniless. The commissions he hoped for did not happen. He and Xenia spent the summer of 1942 with dancer Jean Erdman and her husband Joseph Campbell . Without the percussion instruments, Cage again turned to prepared piano, producing a substantial body of works for performances by various choreographers, including Merce Cunningham, who had moved to New York City several years earlier. Cage and Cunningham eventually became romantically involved, and Cage's marriage, already breaking up during the early 1940s, ended in divorce in 1945. Cunningham remained Cage's partner for the rest of his life. Cage also countered the lack of percussion instruments by writing, on one occasion, for voice and closed piano: the resulting piece, The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs (1942), quickly became popular and was performed by the celebrated duo of Cathy Berberian and Luciano Berio . 45 In 1944, he appeared in Maya Deren 's At Land , a 15-minute sile