Cage John - John Cages theatre pieces: notations and performances

Contemporary Music Studies

A series of books edited by Peter Nelson and Nigel Osborne, University of Edinburgh, UK

Volume 1

Charles Koechlin (1867-1950)

His Life and Works

Robert Orledge

Volume 2

Pierre Boulez A World of Harmony

Lev Koblyakov

Volume 3

Bruno Maderna

Raymond Fearn

Volume 4

Whats the Matter with Todays

Experimental Music?

Organized Sound Too Rarely Heard

Leigh Landy

Volume 5

Linguistics and Semiotics in Music

Raymond Monelle

Volume 6

Music, Myth and Nature

Franois-Bernard Mche

Volume 7

The Tone Clock

Peter Schat

Volume 8

Edison Denisov

Yuri Khololpov and Valeria Tsenova

Volume 9

Hanns Eisler A Miscellany David Blake

Volume 10

Brian Ferneyhough Collected Writings Edited by James Boros and Richard Toop

Volume 11

John Cages Theatre Pieces:

Notations and Performances

William Fetterman

Volume 12

On Sonic Art

Trevor Wishart

Additional volumes in preparation:

Italian Opera Music and Theatre

Since 1945

Raymond Fearn

The Other Webern

Christopher Hailey

Soviet Film Music

A Historical Survey

Tatyana Yegorova

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John Cages
Theatre Pieces

Notations and Performances

by William Fetterman

Published by Routledge

Transferred to Digital Printing 2010 by Routledge

270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Copyright 1996 by OPA (Overseas Publishers Association) Amsterdam B.V.

Published in The Netherlands by Harwood Academic Publishers GmbH.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Fetterman, William

John Cages Theatre Pieces: Notations and

Performances. (Contemporary Music

Studies, ISSN 0891-5415; Vol. 11)

I. Title II. Series

781.552092

ISBN 3-7186-5642-6 (hardback)

ISBN 3-7186-5643-4 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-136-64564-8 (ePub)

Cover illustration: An excerpt from Water Walk (1959), showing the first thirty seconds in the events score-part. 1961 Henmar Press Inc.

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES

The rapid expansion and diversification of contemporary music is explored in this international series of books for contemporary musicians. Leading experts and practitioners present composition today in all aspects - its techniques, aesthetics and technology, and its relationships with other disciplines and currents of thought - as well as using the series to communicate actual musical materials.

The series also features monographs on significant twentieth-century composers not extensively documented in the existing literature.

NIGEL OSBORNE
PETER NELSON

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank the following institutions and individuals for permission to include as textual illustrations:

1. The published scores by John Cage are reproduced through the courtesy of C. F. Peters Corporation on behalf of Henmar Press Inc.;

2. Unpublished materials by John Cage relating to the untitled event at Black Mountain College, Music Walk, Water Walk, Cartridge Music, 000, Variations III, Dialogue, and ONE12 appear courtesy of the Estate of John Cage, Bennet H. Grutman, Executor;

3. The editorial cartoon on the Cage Percussion Ensemble from the March 6, 1942 edition of the New York World Telegraph appears courtesy of the John Cage Archive at the Northwestern University Music Library;

4. The audience floorplan for John Cages untitled event at Black Mountain College is reprinted from TDR Vol. 10, no. 2, An Interview with John Cage by Michael Kirby and Richard Schechner, by permission of The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, copyright 1965, Tulane Drama Review;

5. John Cage page 66 from Empty Words copyright 1979 by John Cage and page 160 from Silence copyright 1961 by John Cage are published by Wesleyan University Press, and appear by permission of the University Press of New England;

6. The Horseshoe Spread illustration from Tarot Classic is reproduced by permission of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford CT 06902 USA, copyright 1972 by Stuart R. Kaplan;

7. The HPSCHD floorplan is reproduced courtesy of Frances Ott Allen;

8. The floorplan from the first performance of Theatre Piece is reproduced courtesy of Carolyn Brown;

9. The performer/audience floorplan for John Cages untitled event at Black Mountain College is reproduced courtesy of M. C. Richards;

10. The examples of David Tudors performance realizations of Music Walk, Cartridge Music, Theatre Piece, and an example of the notation-form from which he first performed 433 appear courtesy of David Tudor.

In all the above cases, further reproduction is prohibited without the prior consent of the respective institutions or individuals.

Please note that the examples from scores (both unpublished manuscripts and published versions) are reproduced in this book in a different scale than the original sources. Thus, when I discuss a space-equal-to-time notation, my text refers to the original dimensions, and not to the reformated scale of the accompanying figure.

With research, my thanks to Frank Billack, Don Gillespie, and Lynn Ozer of C. F. Peters for allowing access to scores, files, films, and sound recordings; Don Roberts and Deborah Campana for access to the John Cage Archive at Northwestern University; David Vaughan for access to the Merce Cunningham Archive; and Laura Kuhn for arranging access to the unpublished scores in the John Cage Estate. With writing, I thank Michael Kirby and Richard Schechner for their critical input, and my editor Robert Robertson for allowing me a free hand. Thanks also to Sarah Bayliss and Marybeth Bingham for their kind patience with attention to details in publication preparation.

I have talked with several people over the years concerning John Cages work. All individuals who have been quoted from personal interviews are noted in the list of references at the conclusion, and this blanket acknowledgement must suffice. In particular, however, I thank Merce Cunningham for granting me a rare interview; Carolyn Brown for her information and wise counsel; M. C. Richards and Ellsworth Snyder for our informative discussions and gentle debates; and David Tudor for his patience in discussing various performances and score realizations with me. Without the help of these individuals this study would have been especially improverished.