John Cage

John Milton Cage (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American experimental music composer and writer. He is well known for his 1952 composition

The Cornish School years

In the late 1930s, he went to the Cornish School of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. There he found work as an accompanist for dancers. He was asked to write some music to accompany a dance by Syvilla Fort called Bacchanale. He wanted to write a percussion piece, but there was no pit at the performance venue for a percussion ensemble and he had to write for a piano. While working on the piece, Cage experimented by placing a metal plate on top of the strings of the instrument. He liked the sound this produced, and this eventually led to his inventing the prepared piano, in which screws, bolts, strips of rubber and other objects are placed between the strings of the piano to change the character of the instrument. It seems clear that he was influenced by his old teacher Henry Cowell, who also treated the piano in a non-standard way, asking performers to pluck the strings with their fingers, use metal slides, and employ other techniques Cowell referred to collectively as "string piano". The Sonatas and Interludes of 1946–48 are widely seen as Cage's greatest work for prepared piano. Pierre Boulez was amongst its admirers, and organised the European premiere of the work. The two composers struck up a correspondence, but this stopped when they came to a disagreement over Cage's use of chance in his music.

Related Topics:
Cornish School of the Arts - Seattle, Washington - Syvilla Fort - Piano - Prepared piano - Henry Cowell - "string piano" - Pierre Boulez

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It was also at Cornish that Cage founded a percussion orchestra for which he wrote his First Construction (In Metal) in 1939, a piece which uses metal percussion instruments to make a loud and rhythmic music. He also wrote the Imaginary Landscape No. 1 in that year, which uses record players as instruments, one of the first, if not the first, examples of this. Cage wrote a number of other Imaginary Landscape pieces in later years.

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While at the Cornish School, Cage became interested in many things which informed much of his later work. He learnt of the seventeenth century music commentator Thomas Mace who said that "The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus making it susceptible to divine influences." This got him writing music again after a period of uncertainty about the value of trying to "express" anything through music. He became interested in Hinduism and Zen Buddhism, and met the dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, who became his life partner and creative collaborator.

Related Topics:
Hinduism - Zen - Dance - Choreographer - Merce Cunningham

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