Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Joseph Zitt <>]

The Waddington text (to which Rob supplied the link) is quoted in Kostelanetz's "Conversing with Cage": 

"If the music can accept ambient sounds and not be interrupted thereby, it's a modern piece of music. If, with a composition by Beethoven, a baby crying, or someone in the audience coughing, interrupts the music, then we know that it isn't modern."

Google Books says that it's on page 58 of the Waddington and page 214 of the Kostelanetz.

On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 5:33 PM, hans w. koch <> wrote:

dear silencers,

in a german text about the german soundart event brueckenmusik (www.brueckenmusik.de), the author quotes cage from a conversation with c.h. waddington in 1972.
the german version runs like: „Wenn Musik Umweltgeräusche zulassen kann, ohne davon beeinträchtigt zu werden, so handelt es sich um moderne Musik.
Wenn, wie bei einer Kom- position von Beethoven, ein schreiendes Baby oder ein hustender Gast die Zuhörer störend beeinflusst, dann wissen wir, dass es keine moderne Musik ist.“

which in english is something like: “If music can allow environmental noises without being disturbed by them, then it is modern music.
If, with a composition by Beethoven, a crying baby or a coughing member of the audience influence the listeners in a disturbing way, then we know that it is not modern music.”

now, since the publication is meant to be german/english, it doesn´t make much sense to retranslate that quote into english.
i ´d be extremely grateful, if someone could give me the correct english wording.

thank you in advance

hans w. koch

--

Joseph Zitt :: http://www.josephzitt.com

"Write what you dream. Shoot what you can. Edit what you have." -- Unknown