Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[David Miller <>]

Hi to John and everyone!

 

There are a lot of supplementary sources of information – I just checked and fortunately the materials on the Fondation Daniel Langlois site are still available: https://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=294. This is invaluable material. There’s also an exhibition catalog of interest, published by the MIT List Visual Arts Center in 2006: “9 Evenings Reconsidered: Art, Theatre, and Engineering 1966”.

 

Still, it’s a shame that (what I consider to be) the publishable score from 1972 – complete with Henmar Press copyright statement! – is not widely available, even for purchase. Cage may have forgotten, or denied, that he prepared this document, but he did. The “12 statements” should be available too. One would still need additional research materials to take this project on. But we wouldn’t be entirely relying on additional materials to fill the hole left by the absence of a published score.

 

Yes, it turns out that Cage originally wrote the Variations VIII score using three colored pens. That version may now be available from Peters, instead of the black and white photocopy (originally published, after all, in 1978). Aside from being more visually interesting, you can trace what were plausibly different layers of Cage’s thought as he wrote this out. Most of it is in one color, with the writings in other colors adding thoughts and revisions, and graphically distinguishing different aspects of the text. When the Mobius group prepared our 2011 performance, the color version didn’t radically transform our approach, but it did help to clarify. It’s certainly easier to read.

And yes, David, that street performance version of Variations VII (which I’d forgotten about) is definitely a precursor to what Cage did at the Skowhegan School in 1969, when he and Cunningham suddenly realized that they were expected to give a performance, and Cage apparently had brought no materials whatsoever! (Merce, of course, could draw on his repertoire.)

 

Best wishes,

 

David

 

 

From: John Hails <>
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2020 7:19 AM
To: David Miller <>
Cc: Lê Quan Ninh <>; silence <>
Subject: Re: [silence] Variations VII score ?

 

Hi

Well David, your article is still the 'go to' source for all things Variations!

 

Sharing some thoughts from Fetterman's John Cage's Theatre Pieces: Notations and Performances (Routledge  1996).

 

Fetterman says it was first performed by Cage, Tudor, and two assistants.

It used 95 sound sources:

'30 stage lights with 30 photocells

a television screen

6 contact mics

20 radio receivers

10 telephone lines

10 electronic sounds

12 machinery sounds (including juicers, blender, washing machine, contact mic on soda bottle)

2 Geiger counters

4 body sounds (heart, brain, lungs, stomach)' (136)

 

These 95 sources were channeled through 17 sound outputs. The phone lines were apparently routed through from 'Lüchows Restaurant, the Aviary at the Zoo, the 14th Street Con Ed power station, the ASPCA, the New York Times press room, a bus depot, etc... The photocells were mounted in the performance area so that the performers moving on the platform triggered the sound sources.' (137)

 

He documents a second performance as a solo on February 22nd 1967 which was made by Cage 'combing the air around New York City for radio transmissions and recording the hums and squawks that "hams" know so well. (Flanagan quoted 138).

 

It seems clear that Variations VII was already becoming Variations VIII...

 

But back to David's article...

He quotes from Cage's notes to Tudor:

'So far only ideas I have, things happening at the performance time (not prepared tapes) via TV, radio, telephone, telegraph?, mike, police...; from us...; from audience; from city; from zoo or fabricated one...; from outer space if possible...; from a hanging mobile materialistic garden with fans making objects collide... & mikes; water (fountains, dripping, etc.) etc. & electronic sds (non manipulated but tuned in so to speak i.e. feedback, single static frequencies, no quasi melodic deals)'. (EAT archive quoted 74)

 

We can construct some of the sketches for the score of Variations VII from David's article and I'll have a go at that later on today (I'm hoping he doesn't mind doing this!).

 

As a postscript before I take the dogs on their daily walk is something I picked up from the letters that surprised me: Variations VIII's score was originally in colour! (letter to Heinz-Karl Metzger, February 2, 1978 in Kuhn ed. 470) This explains some of its apparently chaotic layout (beyond Cage's normal handwritten approach for scores of this type!).

 

More later, hopefully!

J

 

On Mon, Apr 20, 2020 at 2:43 PM David Miller <> wrote:

Hello, everyone –

I’m grateful to John Hails for recalling my article from 2009. Here’s what I wrote about the score then (long quotation to follow):

“As of early 2009 there is no published score for Variations VII, a fact that complicates the relationship between the concepts of “score” and “archive.” In addition to the recently released documentary,  there is plentiful archival/documentary material held at E.A.T., the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and La Fondation Daniel Langlois. 32 These archives include at least two documents that arguably serve as good drafts of what could have been a published score. Both versions consist entirely of brief written statements, as do the scores of Variations V and VIII. One of these documents can be considered as ready for publication. It was prepared by Cage in 1972, is subtitled “7 statements re a performance six years before,” and is a formally presented typescript, complete with a copyright statement.33 A less formally presented statement, titled “Variations VII: 12 remarks re musical performance,” is undated but seems to have been written earlier.34 Cage’s subtitle is reminiscent of the Variations V score: “thirty-seven remarks re an audio-visual performance.” In contrast, the subtitle from 1972 is terse. Despite the camera-ready presentation of the later text, Cage did not pursue its publication in either score or essay form. I have not located any direct evidence to explain Cage’s apparent reluctance to publish this score. It appears, however, that the many problems the project faced left Cage with negative memories. As late as 1990, in an interview with William Fetterman, Cage said, “It makes me angry to just think about it.”35 Lowell Cross also recalls that preparations for the initial performance on October 15 left Cage “a bit frantic” and said, “Two years later, in Oakland, California, he told me that he was dissatisfied with the performances of Variations VII.”36 Whatever the reason may be for the score’s unpublished state, the two drafts, complemented by the range of archival material available and by the more serious contemporary published accounts, provide sufficient material for contemporary realizations. The all-but-published presentation of the 1972 draft makes it a likely candidate for consideration as the Variations VII score. The earlier draft, with its linkage in style to the Variations V score and its careful wording, is a strong supplementary document.”

When the Mobius Artists Group prepared performances of Variations VII in 2007 and 2008, we found the formally prepared, one-page typescript from 1972 to be a solid foundation. Of course, the documentary material was invaluable, as was the “12 remarks” statement. Personally, I regard the 1972 typescript as a publishable score – it’s similar to the “remarks” score for Variations V, and certainly simpler to work with than the published Variations VIII (which the Mobius group also performed, in 2011)! It’s available at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in manuscript – I haven’t looked recently to see if there’s a digital version.

Best wishes to all,

David

P.S. the article, also including a discussion of Variations V, is “Indeterminacy and Performance Practice in Cage’s Variations” – American Music, Spring 2009.

From: <> On Behalf Of John Hails
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2020 7:09 AM
To: Lê Quan Ninh <>
Cc: silence <>
Subject: Re: [silence] Variations VII score ?

And something further...

In 1978, Cage writes to Heinz-Karl Metzger to say "Variations VII by the way has not been written down." so we should take the archival material as abandoned drafts(?), which leaves the status of the work curiously floating...

J

On Mon, 20 Apr 2020, 11:54 John Hails, <> wrote:

Hi

David Miller addresses this in his article about the performance practice of the Variations series (American Music vol 27 no 1). There are two working drafts for a score, both in the EAT archives (the first one is also present in the NY public library for performing arts). I can copy across the relevant bit of text from Miller's article if that would be helpful! 

The Variations have occupied me a bit over the years so it is always nice to hear someone else looking at them!

John

On Mon, 20 Apr 2020, 11:14 Lê Quan Ninh, <> wrote:

Hello everyone,

Thinking about art at distance to respond to the current situation, I was thinking about Variations VII where different sound sources come from different points. It seems that the score is not available at Editions Peters (https://www.editionpeters.com/writer/john-cage/w00713#facets=&sort=1|1).

Is this score never published ? Is there a way to get it ?

Ninh


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