Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Rob Haskins <>]

Hi Ian,

His remarks about Mozart are almost as odd as the ones about Beethoven. He likes Mozart for his "quantity"--all the scales and passagework, the chromaticism. It's bizarre.

I believe that I remember your anarchism paper. I think the best source for understanding Cage's concept of anarchism--and I agree with you, pace Petr Kotik, it was very serious and lasted to the end of his life--starts properly with Men Against the State, by James Martin. Martin wrote about the American anarchist tradition, which was quite pacifistic in nature. (And Martin was one of Cage's neighbors at Stony Point.) As for whether Cage's anarchism falls within a theorized political tradition, I'm not so sure. (I remember Esther Ferrer's remark in a letter to Cage about anarchism: "Anarchism does not fear contradictions, she is submerged in them.")

Another little nugget that I haven't followed up on sufficiently: Andrew Culver once wrote me, in response to my question to name the best source I could consult on Cage's understanding of anarchism, "Bakunin." (Some one-word responses are the best ones.) While I haven't read deeply Bakunin's work, I am not completely sure what he meant by that. I know Andrew reads the Silence list; perhaps he might speak to this question.

Lewis's article, as I recall, indeed brings a racial dimension to the argument, and I tend to think that it's justified. Cage's remarks about blacks, while few, are very odd. (For instance, his recollection that the young black children "had no need of [him]" when he was teaching them rhythm. I haven't read it in a long time, and initially I thought some of it was problematic. I have a feeling I'd find less of it problematic now.

All best,

Rob

On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 7:10 PM, Ian Pace <> wrote:

I’d be quite interested to know how anyone feels about how Cage’s (sort-of) defence of Mozart fits into this picture as well – haven’t got my texts to hand at the moment, but I remember at least one occasion on which he made a case for Mozart as against Beethoven, mostly on account of the Musikalisches Würfelspiel but also concerning wider aspects of Mozart’s approach.

 

When writing my own piece critiquing Cage’s anarchism around 5 years ago I put together some material (not all used) on his relationship to various key anarchist thinkers, which I’ll dig out and have a look at. I recall that whilst he cites Mikhail Bakunin and Emma Goldman in the context of the mesostic Anarchy and in the preference to that work, nonetheless he doesn’t appear to have engaged with either figure in any serious depth (unlike his relationship with Thoreau), and Goldman’s actions in terms of inciting unemployed workers or distributing birth control literature would be pretty hard to reconcile with Cage’s rather blanket disdain for serious political activism. The term ‘anarchism’ is often used rather loosely in the context of discussing Cage’s work, whereas I do believe he, at least some of the time, was quite serious about situating himself within one particular strand (not, to my mind, one of the more progressive varieties) of a theorised political tradition.

 

Should Cage’s dislike for jazz be treated separately from his wider dislike of improvisation (of any type)? I haven’t yet read Lewis’s article (but thanks for the pointer) – does he bring a racial dimension to the argument, and is this justified?

 

best,

Ian Pace

 

From:

Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2011 10:57 PM

To:

Cc:

Subject: [silence] Re: Cage's prejudices

 

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
M-105, Paul Creative Arts Center
30 Academic Way
Durham, NH 03824
603-862-3987 (office)
603-862-3155 (fax)
<http://unh.edu/music/>
<http://robhaskins.net>
<http://musicandmiscellaneous.blogspot.com/>

--
Rob Haskins, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and
     Coordinator, Graduate Studies
Department of Music, College of Liberal Arts
University of New Hampshire
M-105, Paul Creative Arts Center
30 Academic Way
Durham, NH 03824
603-862-3987 (office)
603-862-3155 (fax)
<http://unh.edu/music/>
<http://robhaskins.net>
<http://musicandmiscellaneous.blogspot.com/>