Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Rob Haskins <>]

The arguments in the Defense of Satie are less arguments against Beethoven so much as they are Cage's own carving out a place for himself by appealing to other composer-forbears whose approach was more amenable to his own. (And not a little of the anti-Beethoven posturing had to do with the circumstances surrounding its presentation at Black Mountain, then dominated by lots of people with pro-German musical sentiments including Albers and Erwin Bodky.)

My general feeling is that Satie's harmony is interesting and often plays at least a quasi structural role in his music (albeit that structure is much different from Beethoven's). Likewise, I'm not sure that Cage's description of Webern is very satisfying other than as a(n admittedly interesting) report of a surface impression. 

Cage's dislike of jazz is very well known and, in its way, about as off the mark as Adorno's view is. A good starting point for a nuanced critique would be George Lewis's article,  “Improvised Music After 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives.” Black Music Research Journal 16 (1996): 91–122.

All best,

Rob

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 4:20 PM, <> wrote:

Cage often spoke of his lack of likes and dislikes when given the chance, but as we all know there certainly existed a gulf between his point of view and things such as jazz musics and Beethoven. I'd like to hear any of the Silence members' takes on these musical stances. For instance, he'd speak of jazz musicians as disparate members of a panel concurrently discussing topics oblivious to what each other might be saying, or referred to it as a political noise, and he held Beethoven and Beethoven's music with equal criticism. I've never read his Defense of Satie, but could any of you that have read the essay outline any of the more convincing points Cage made that stood pejoratively against Beethoven's music and positively for Satie's (other than Satie's music superficially organized with time unit as opposed to Beethoven's frequency)? And how do Cage enthusiasts interpret his views on jazz music? 

--
Rob Haskins, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and
     Coordinator, Graduate Studies
Department of Music, College of Liberal Arts
University of New Hampshire
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