Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Clemens Gresser <>]

Okay, folks... that was unexpected! You have been part of my resource
discovery programme!
From this morning getting this publication alert, to the beginning of
my lunch break proper (finding the abstract online) to now (having
found that we have this magazine, Commentary,
at my work place) - I have now read this article.

What I had posted as an "abstract" turned out to be the first two
paragraph of this article.
The author mentions recent books on Cage (Gann's book on 4'33",
Silverman's biography on Cage), but overall it seems to say - to me:

----beginning of my paraphrasing of Teachout's argument----
okay, we realise that Cage was significant in some mysterious ways,
but all his post-4'33" works are bad, and not worth listening to or
performing. That's also why he never gets performed by
proper/established musicians or ensembles! However, he does seem to
have killed of modernism, as people stopped composing in a modernistic
way (think Boulez and Stockhausen) and basically went "minimal" (think
Glass, Reich, etc.).
----end of my paraphrasing----

The author also rehashes the myth of Cage having no ear for harmony
(queue Schoenberg, who "at least kind of knew how to compose properly"
and using the famous "brick wall quotation").

Okay, I'm obviously biased - having spent the last 15ish years to
understand (or at least live with the "contradictions" of) Cage's
thinking, oeuvre, etc., but I truley think that works like, say,
Apartment House 1776, are compositions which show his avoidance of
"nice, traditional" harmonies (think smaller chamber groups within the
ensembles) by writing, yes, beautiful, syntax-reduced harmonies = i.e.
nice music. :-)

Personally, I also enjoy the sounds and the concepts of the "number
pieces", but I admit that due to the (mostly) computer-generated
pitches/timings (see Pritchard for why AH 1776 is different!), most
conservative folks wouldn't call these 'proper' "compositions".

Anyway, don't go to great length of getting access to this piece by
Teachout - unless you are _very_ new to "Cage's world" and have just
started researching him (or indeed: if you are studying "reception of
JC", after 1992....), or the magazine is in easy reach (as in my case,
just a reading room away from my office).

Back to work,
Clemens

On 4 November 2010 13:32, Clemens Gresser 
<>
 wrote:
> P.S.
> It's lame to reply to your own postings, but... I just found the
> magazine's web page, and an abstract (see
> http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/plenty-of-nothing-15539?search=1);
> I like the quotation by Stravinsky though. ;-)
>
> Plenty of Nothing
> Terry Teachout
> October 2010
>
> Abstract –
> Who deserves to be considered America’s most significant classical
> composer? Concertgoers of a certain age will doubtless choose Aaron
> Copland or George Gershwin, the creators of the first distinctively
> American-sounding styles of classical composition, while more
> contemporary listeners are more likely to cite Philip Glass or John
> Adams, who made minimalism the dominant classical-music idiom of the
> postwar era. But if “significant” is taken to mean “influential,” then
> a strong, if seemingly paradoxical, case can be made for a composer
> who, for all the undeniable influence he has exerted on American
> music, failed to write even one work that has made its way into the
> repertoires of any well-known orchestra, opera company, chamber group,
> singer, or instrumentalist.
>
> If John Cage is known to the average concert goer today, it is for a
> piece of “music” that by conventional standards is nothing of the
> kind. 4'33", “composed” in 1952, consists of three movements during
> which the piece’s performer or performers (it can be performed by any
> combination of instrumentalists and/or singers) come on stage and sit
> in silence for a total of four minutes and 33 seconds. Not
> surprisingly, it was widely assumed at the time that 4'33" was a joke,
> a piece about nothing. Igor Stravinsky acidly remarked that he looked
> forward to hearing “works of major length” by similarly inclined
> composers.
>
> About the Author
> Terry Teachout, our chief culture critic and the drama critic of the
> Wall Street Journal, wrote about Moss Hart in the last issue. He is at
> work on a biography of Duke Ellington.
>
> ---
>
>
> On 4 November 2010 09:30, Clemens Gresser 
> <>
>  wrote:
>> Dear All,
>>
>> Out from the dungeons of busyness...
>> I just found an alert email in my inbox, for the following Cage-related 
>> text:
>>
>> COMMENTARY -NEW YORK- AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE- OCT. (2010) pp. 55-58
>> Plenty of Nothing: How the composer John Cage killed musical modernism
>> Teachout, T.
>>
>> If I manage to trace this text and read it, I will send a follow-up to 
>> this.
>> If anyone beats me to it, please let me/the list now whether it's
>> a) pro/anti/"neutral" Cage
>> and
>> b) has an interesting argument
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Clemens
>> --
>> *****
>> MusiCB3 Blog: http://musicb3.wordpress.com/
>> My home page: http://home.arcor.de/cgw/
>>
>
>
>
> --
> *****
> MusiCB3 Blog: http://musicb3.wordpress.com/
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>



-- 
*****
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