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- John Cage--Music
- born Los Angeles, 5 September 1912; died New York, 12 August 1992).
He left Pomona College early to travel in Europe (1930-31), then studied with
Cowell in New York (1933-4) and Schönberg in Los Angeles (1934): his first
published compositions, in a rigorous atonal system of his own, date from
this period. In 1937 he moved to Seattle to work as a dance accompanist, and
there in 1938 he founded a percussion orchestra; his music now concerned with
filling units of time with ostinatos (First Construction (in Metal), 1939).
He also began to use electronic devices (variable-speed turntables in
lmaginary Landscape no.1, 1939) and invented the 'prepared piano', placing
diverse objects between the strings of a grand piano in order to create an
effective percussion orchestra under the control of two hands. He moved to
San Francisco in 1939, to Chicago in 1941 and back to New York in 1942, all
the time writing music for dance companies (notably for Merce Cunningham),
nearly always for prepared piano or percussion ensemble. There were also
major concert works for the new instrument: A Book of Music (1944) and Three
Dances (1945) for two prepared pianos, and the Sonatas and Interludes (1948)
for one.
During this period Cage became interested in Eastern philosophies, especially
in Zen, from which he gained a treasuring of non-intention. Working to remove
creative choice from composition, he used coin tosses to determine events
(Music of Changes for piano, 1951), wrote for 12 radios (Imaginary Landscape
no.4, also 1951) and introduced other indeterminate techniques. His 4'33"
(1952) has no sound added to that of the environment in which it is
performed; the Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1958) is an encyclopedia of
indeterminate notations. Yet other works show his growing interest in the
theatre of musical performance (Water Music, 1952, for pianist with a variety
of non-standard equipment) and in electronics (Imaginary Landscape no.5 for
randomly mixed recordings, 1952; Cartridge Music for small sounds amplified
in live performance, 1960), culminating in various large-scale events staged
as jamborees of haphazardness (HPSCHD for harpsichords, tapes etc, 1969). The
later output is various, including indeterminate works, others fully notated
within a very limited range of material, and pieces for natural resources
(plants, shells). Cage also appeared widely in Europe and the USA as a
lecturer and performer, having an enormous influence on younger musicians and
artists; he wrote several books.
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