Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

["Sebastian Berweck" <>]

Hi Sara,

I just read your PhD and would be interested to hear more about the "quite
uncomfortable racial dimension" in Cage's politics. I can see that Cage
didn't take part in any direct political action and I can see that this
could be criticized. What I can't see so far is where this personal decision
and what you call his "overly abstract and naive" "utopian politics" of his
amounts to a racial dimension, especially since he sort of states and
explains his discomfort in the interview with Nyffeler, which I understand
as a discomfort with the fact that the struggle for equality in a given
society does not change this society but rather strengthen a form of rule
which he rather would have liked to abolish. 

All the best
Sebastian

PS: The quotation marks have no other quality than to indicate a more or
less direct quotation.



-----Original Message-----
From: Heimbecker, Sara 
[mailto:]
 
Sent: Montag, 20. Juni 2011 07:13
To: 

Subject: [silence] Re: Re: Re: Cage's prejudices

For those who are interested, I address a number of these issues in my
recent dissertation, John Cage’s HPSCHD, (University of Illinois, 2011).  I
touch on the issues of Beethoven vs. Mozart, Cage’s dislike of jazz, his
understanding of anarchy, etc., but perhaps most interestingly in this
context, I do make a case that there is a racial dimension to Cage’s
politics that is quite uncomfortable.  Cage was staging an event that he
intended to represent an anarchic utopia in one of the most elitist arenas
of American life in 1968-69—the University.  (Please see chapter 4:  “The
Participatory Politics of HPSCHD.”)

Please note that David Patterson’s letters were reprinted in the diss
without the proper permissions.  He does not wish to be associated with a
discussion of Cage and race.

The document is available here and it is searchable:
https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/24332

Best wishes,

Sara Heimbecker



On 6/19/11 5:28 PM, "Rob Haskins" 
<>
 wrote:

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: Rob Haskins 
<mailto:>
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?