Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Thomas Moore <>]

Thanks for posting about this — the performance of Variations I is beautiful. I’m not at all bothered by the laughter, and can remember sitting with Cage at performances when he was laughing heartily — for example, during Aria.

Best,

Tom Moore

https://thomasmoore.info/

On May 11, 2025, at 1:11 PM, Josh Ronsen <> wrote:

I found some recordings listed as "Darmstadt Aural Documents, Box 2" including performances by Cage and Tudor, I assume from their appearances at Darmstadt 1958. These include Variations II and Composition as Process, the latter is Cage delivering a variable-speed lecture (some lines read fast, some read slow) with piano accompaniment by Tudor. Maybe this is another form of "Indeterminacy?"

The version of Variations II was particularly disturbing for me. Tudor plays piano and Cage plays a turntable, whistles and other noise-making devices. Every time a "non-musical" sound is made, the audience erupts in riotous laughter and I hear a mocking tone in the laughter. The recording is 8'50" and the laughter does not abate throughout the entire performance, as if it were a comedy piece by Tom Lehrer or Spike Jones.

During Composition as Process, the audience is quiet, but maybe they do not know English well enough to respond to Cage's sometimes humorous, sometime provocative statements. There is some faint chuckling when Cage says "Do you agree with Boulez when he says what he says. Are you getting hungry? Why should you? You know more or less what you're going to get."

This recording is NEOS 11213 released in 2012. Its release went unnoticed to me at the time.
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.discogs.com/release/3970774-John-Cage-Darmstadt-Aural-Documents-Box-2-Communication&source=gmail-imap&ust=1747588341000000&usg=AOvVaw0wfNkv5fJlCRDFF4rafISC

-Josh Ronsen
https://www.google.com/url?q=http://ronsen.org&source=gmail-imap&ust=1747588341000000&usg=AOvVaw1mzqLaQO4YPU7BCoFqIOsE