Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Rod Stasick <>]

I have, I think, 4 or 5 recordings of this work.
What makes it a wonderful work, for me, is its 
openness with semi-relations to other works like, 
for example, Cartridge Music or the Variations series. 
The dedication to Tudor seems apt considering that
the notes touch on various suggestions that Cage surely 
felt that Tudor could realize the work in his own special way.

The electronic leaning of a work of the 60s like this was toward
feedback, but I think today’s performers have an enormous wealth
of possibilities with the relative ease of access as well to do justice to
a work like this. Fragments of the score do refer to 4-84 with specific
mentions of sound produced on keyboard (K), muted (M), and “P”
being pizzicato played with noises outside or inside the piano (O & I).
I seem to remember a reference to Atlas Eclipticalis too with the 
possibilities of star chart transcriptions placed over the controls of 
the sound rather than ways of directly notating sounds.

I think it’s not played often because most performers want to be told what to 
do.

Rod

http://stasick.org

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