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John Cage: the story on HearLore | HearLore
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was born on the 5th of September 1912 at Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown Los Angeles, but his life nearly ended before it truly began. At the tender age of 18 months, the infant ingested two or three strychnine tablets, a fatal poison that left doctors despairing for his life. A stomach pump was administered with success, saving the child who would one day redefine the boundaries of music. His father, John Milton Cage Sr., was an inventor whose ideas ranged from the idealistic to the revolutionary, including a diesel-fueled submarine that gave off exhaust bubbles and an electrostatic field theory of the universe. His mother, Lucretia Harvey, worked intermittently as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times and possessed a sense of society that left her perpetually unhappy. The family's roots were deeply American, with an ancestor named John Cage assisting George Washington in surveying the Colony of Virginia. This early exposure to danger and the unconventional thinking of his parents set the stage for a life that would constantly challenge the status quo.
The Vow And The Violin
Cage returned to the United States in 1931, making a living by giving small lectures on contemporary art in Santa Monica, California. By 1933, he had decided to concentrate on music rather than painting, noting that people who heard his music had better things to say about it than those who looked at his paintings. He sent some of his compositions to Henry Cowell, who suggested he study with Arnold Schoenberg. Cage traveled to New York City in 1933, supporting himself by washing walls at a YWCA in Brooklyn while composing four hours every day starting at 4 am. He could not afford Schoenberg's price, but 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. This conversation became a defining moment, a vow that Cage honored for the rest of his life, even when he had no need to write music. He studied with Schoenberg in California, first at the University of Southern California and then at the University of California, Los Angeles. Although Schoenberg was not impressed with Cage's compositional abilities during these two years, he later stated that Cage was an inventor of genius. Cage would later adopt the inventor moniker and deny that he was in fact a composer.
The Prepared Piano And The Dance
In 1940, Cage invented the prepared piano, a concept originally intended for a performance staged in a room too small to include a full percussion ensemble. This piano had its sound altered by objects placed on, beneath, or between the strings or hammers. The invention was born out of necessity when Cage was working at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, where he organized a percussion ensemble that toured the West Coast and brought him his first fame. It was at the Cornish School that Cage met dancer Merce Cunningham, who would become his lifelong romantic partner and artistic collaborator. The couple eventually became romantically involved, and Cage's marriage to Xenia Kashevaroff ended in divorce in 1945. Cage wrote numerous dance-related works for the prepared piano, including Sonatas and Interludes, which critics agree is the finest composition of his early period. His association with modern dance grew further as he produced music for choreographies and taught courses on musical accompaniments for rhythmic expression. The partnership with Cunningham was instrumental in the development of modern dance, with Cage's music and Cunningham's choreography often developed independently yet coming together in performance.
When was John Milton Cage Jr. born and where did he die?
John Milton Cage Jr. was born on the 5th of September 1912 at Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown Los Angeles and died on the 12th of August 1992 at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan. He was 79 years old when he passed away while preparing evening tea for himself and his partner Merce Cunningham.
What happened to John Cage when he was 18 months old?
At the age of 18 months, John Cage ingested two or three strychnine tablets, a fatal poison that left doctors despairing for his life. A stomach pump was administered with success, saving the child who would one day redefine the boundaries of music.
How did John Cage meet Arnold Schoenberg and what was the result?
John Cage traveled to New York City in 1933 to study with Arnold Schoenberg after Henry Cowell suggested the arrangement. Cage could not afford Schoenberg's price, but when he stated he would devote his life to music, Schoenberg offered to tutor him free of charge.
What is the significance of the premiere of 4′33″ on the 29th of August 1952?
On the 29th of August 1952, pianist David Tudor premiered 4′33″ at a concert in Woodstock, New York, instructing the performer not to play the instrument during the entire duration of four minutes and thirty-three seconds. The content of the composition was intended to be the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance.
How did John Cage use the I Ching in his compositions after 1951?
In early 1951, Christian Wolff presented John Cage with a copy of the I Ching, which became a tool to compose using chance in practically every work composed after 1951. Cage would come up with questions to ask the I Ching, and the book was used in much the same way as it is used for divination to imitate nature in its manner of operation.
Where were the ashes of John Cage scattered after his death?
According to his wishes, John Cage's body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Ramapo Mountains near Stony Point, New York. This location was the same place where he had scattered the ashes of his parents.
On the 29th of August 1952, at a concert in Woodstock, New York, pianist David Tudor premiered 4′33″, a piece that instructed the performer not to play the instrument during the entire duration of four minutes and thirty-three seconds. The content of the composition was intended to be the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. Cage had conceived of a silent piece years earlier but was reluctant to write it down. The premiere caused an uproar in the audience, and the reaction to 4′33″ was just part of a larger picture where the adoption of chance procedures had disastrous consequences for Cage's reputation. The press, which used to react favorably to earlier percussion and prepared piano music, ignored his new works, and many valuable friendships and connections were lost. Pierre Boulez, who used to promote Cage's work in Europe, was opposed to Cage's particular approach to the use of chance. Despite the controversy, 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 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.
The Book Of Changes
In early 1951, Christian Wolff presented Cage with a copy of the I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text which describes a symbol system used to identify order in chance events. This version of the I Ching was the first complete English translation and had been published by Wolff's father, Kurt Wolff of Pantheon Books in 1950. For Cage, the I Ching became a tool to compose using chance, a method he used in practically every work composed after 1951. To compose a piece of music, Cage would come up with questions to ask the I Ching, and the book would then be used in much the same way as it is used for divination. For Cage, this meant imitating nature in its manner of operation. His lifelong interest in sound itself culminated in an approach that yielded works in which sounds were free from the composer's will. The first results of the new approach were Imaginary Landscape No. 4 for 12 radio receivers and Music of Changes for piano. The latter work was written for David Tudor, whom Cage met through Feldman, another friendship that lasted until Cage's death. Tudor premiered most of Cage's works until the early 1960s, when he stopped performing on the piano and concentrated on composing music. The I Ching became Cage's standard composition tool for the rest of his life, and he eventually settled on a computer algorithm that calculated numbers in a manner similar to throwing coins for the I Ching.
The Happening And The House
In 1952, while teaching at the avant-garde Black Mountain College just outside Asheville, North Carolina, Cage organized what has been called the first happening in the United States, later titled Theatre Piece No. 1. This multi-layered, multi-media performance event was staged the same day that Cage conceived it and would greatly influence 1950s and 60s artistic practices. Participants included Merce Cunningham and David Tudor, and the event abandoned the traditional concept of stage-audience and occurred without a sense of definite duration. From 1953 onward, Cage was busy composing music for modern dance, particularly Cunningham's dances, and developing new methods of using chance in a series of works he referred to as The Ten Thousand Things. In the summer of 1954, he moved out of New York and settled in Gate Hill Cooperative, a community in Stony Point, New York, where his neighbors included David Tudor, M. C. Richards, Karen Karnes, Stan VanDerBeek, and Sari Dienes. The composer's financial situation gradually improved, and in late 1954 he and Tudor were able to embark on a European tour. Cage taught classes in experimental composition at The New School from 1956 to 1961 and worked as an art director and designer of typography from 1956 to 1958. The term happening was coined by Allan Kaprow, one of his students, who defined it as a genre in the late fifties. Cage met Kaprow while on a mushroom hunt with George Segal and invited him to join his class.
The Final Years And The Fire
In 1987, Cage completed a piece called Two, for flute and piano, dedicated to performers Roberto Fabbriciani and Carlo Neri. The title referred to the number of performers needed, and the music consisted of short notated fragments to be played at any tempo within the indicated time constraints. Cage went on to write some forty such Number Pieces, as they came to be known, usually employing a variant of the same technique. One11, completed in early 1992, was Cage's first and only foray into film. Another new direction, also taken in 1987, was opera: Cage produced five operas, all sharing the same title Europera, between 1987 and 1991. These pieces caused quite a stir in the world of opera at the time with their unconventional methods for staging and sequencing. Many standard pieces of operatic repertoire were used, but not in any preset order; rather, they were selected by chance, meaning no two performances were exactly alike. Days before Europeras I and II were to be premiered, Frankfurt's opera house was damaged by fire, setting into motion a series of setbacks leading to a theatrical run met with mixed reactions. On the 11th of August 1992, while preparing evening tea for himself and Cunningham, Cage had another stroke. He was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan, where he died on the morning of the 12th of August 1992. He was 79. According to his wishes, Cage's body was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Ramapo Mountains, near Stony Point, New York, at the same place where he had scattered the ashes of his parents.
The Legacy Of Noise
Cage's influence on countless composers, artists, and writers is notable, with his work as musicologist helping to popularize Erik Satie's music. His friendship with Abstract expressionist artists such as Robert Rauschenberg helped introduce his ideas into visual art. Cage's ideas also found their way into sound design, with Academy Award-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom citing Cage's work as a major influence. Radiohead undertook a composing and performing collaboration with Cunningham's dance troupe in 2003 because the music-group's leader Thom Yorke considered Cage one of his all-time art heroes. The development of electronic music was also influenced by Cage, with Brian Eno's label Obscure Records releasing works by Cage in the mid-1970s. Prepared piano, which Cage popularized, is featured heavily on Aphex Twin's 2001 album Drukqs. Cage's work as musicologist helped popularize Erik Satie's music, and his friendship with Abstract expressionist artists such as Robert Rauschenberg helped introduce his ideas into visual art. In 1986, he received an honorary doctorate from the California Institute of the Arts, and in 1989, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize. The John Cage Award was endowed and established in 1992 by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in honor of the late composer. A 2012 project was curated by Juraj Kojs to celebrate the centenary of Cage's birth, titled On Silence: Homage to Cage, consisting of 13 commissioned works created by composers from around the globe, each being 4 minutes and 33 seconds long in honor of Cage's famous 1952 opus.