Skip wrote: Cage's comments were often designed to either cause some sort of debate or establish his place in a polemic. The remarks he made in the aforementioned article seem largely ill-founded, overly general, and smack of a feeling of superiority. All true. Equally true is the fact that in different interviews and discussions from various periods Cage said wildly contradictory things. In some later interviews Cage spoke highly of at least some kinds of improvisations &, for what it's worth, much of his argument against the work of Glenn Branca (well-known in some circles, not least, because Branca likes to position himself as the new music guy that Cage didn't like) seems to be rooted at least in part on Cage not liking fairly standard rock band gestures. So I'd take this quote with a lot of grains of salt. In general, for all the reasons that Skip states, I'm not sure it's worth a lot of time to defend or counter statements of Cage's opinions such as these. I am a bit more concerned with Patrice's closing paragraph: Anyway, what makes people feel that Cage has something relevant to say about music at large (as opposed to lab homeworks) since practically nobody seems to care listening to his music after more than fifty years. In many domains, this would be acknowledged as a total failure since the wrapping (the glose) ended up more important than the content (the music). Will Cage end up as another symptom of intellectual infatuation in the 20th century? I can understand Patrice not liking Cage's music. Based on your comments from the past eight years or so, I'd be surprised if there were many pieces by Cage that ever interested you. But, for better or for worse, since Cage's death, there's actually been a tremendous growth in the number of performances and recordings of Cage's music. I get press releases and flyers from new music presenters and ensembles from all over the States and a smattering of such from other countries & his music is being performed a LOT right now. It's even true here in Fort Worth, which is entirely NOT a hotbed of new music activity. If there were more than 2 concerts of music entirely composed after 1945 in any given year, it'd be a miracle. (& there's virtually no improvised music here at all.) But among the scattered 20th century works that have been performed by the Symphony and various resident and touring ensembles in the 3-4 years I've lived here, Cage is the second most performed composer (after Copland) with 7 performances that I know of. There are very few prolific composers who were primarily active after WWII who have as high a percentage of works for which there are more than one recording in print. Even labels dedicated to producing new music have to be concerned about sales, so someone's buying these things. -- Herb Levy P O Box 9369 Fort Worth, TX 76147 herb@eskimo.com
Herb, On Tue, 22 Apr 2003 23:49:26 -0500 Herb Levy wrote:
I can understand Patrice not liking Cage's music. Based on your comments from the past eight years or so, I'd be surprised if there were many pieces by Cage that ever interested you. But, for better or for worse, since Cage's death, there's actually been a tremendous growth in the number of performances and recordings of Cage's music. I get press releases and flyers from new music presenters and ensembles from all over the States and a smattering of such from other countries & his music is being performed a LOT right now.
It's even true here in Fort Worth, which is entirely NOT a hotbed of new music activity. If there were more than 2 concerts of music entirely composed after 1945 in any given year, it'd be a miracle. (& there's virtually no improvised music here at all.) But among the scattered 20th century works that have been performed by the Symphony and various resident and touring ensembles in the 3-4 years I've lived here, Cage is the second most performed composer (after Copland) with 7 performances that I know of.
There are very few prolific composers who were primarily active after WWII who have as high a percentage of works for which there are more than one recording in print. Even labels dedicated to producing new music have to be concerned about sales, so someone's buying these things.
I guess I am more impressed by the general indifference (and when I say general, I do not mean the people in the street, but the ones who really love music and are curious about it) than by the few signs about a possible raising interest in Cage. I can't remember any of my friends deeply in love with experimental music ever saying anything positive about Cage's music (with exceptions for his early pieces). It's all about anecdotes (the silent piece), the scandals (WILLIAM MIX), the weird ideas (CARTRIDGE MUSIC, use of chance methods), etc. This is in fact a constant with Cage: people who are in his music rarely say a word about the music itself and mainly talk about his motives, or ideas/philosophy. With Cage, the wrapping is the message. The music is almost an obscene appendix that always fails to meet the level of expectations raised by the argumentation. I wonder sometimes why Cage ended up musician; he could have applied his technique to practically any form of art since it conveys nothing truly musical. And this is for me the problem: there is little (or no) music in Cage's collection of sounds. His motives go against 99.999% of the music ever produced on Earth. I made many Cage tapes over the years. They were asked by friends who were concerned that they might have missed something (and these are people not affraid of getting their music on the spicy side). The result was polite indifference and puzzlement at all the fuss that was made about that music. But his books keep on being entertaining. It is ironic that two of the icons of XXth century music (Cage and Boulez) might be mainly remembered for anything but their music :-). Patrice.
I think that cage was a musician in his time because there wasnt really such thing as a conceptual artist. His work is not for everybody, but he set some important things in motion, following duchamp's lead. I wonder sometimes why Cage ended up
musician; he could have applied his technique to practically any form of art since it conveys nothing truly musical.
__________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo http://search.yahoo.com
I guess I am more impressed by the general indifference (and when I say general, I do not mean the people in the street, but the ones who really love music and are curious about it) than by the few signs about a possible raising interest in Cage. I can't remember any of my friends deeply in love with experimental music ever saying anything positive about Cage's music (with exceptions for his early pieces). It's all about anecdotes (the silent piece), the scandals (WILLIAM MIX), the weird ideas (CARTRIDGE MUSIC, use of chance methods), etc. This is in fact a constant with Cage: people who are in his music rarely say a word about the music itself and mainly talk about his motives, or ideas/philosophy. With Cage, the wrapping is the message. The music is almost an obscene appendix that always fails to meet the level of expectations raised by the argumentation. I wonder sometimes why Cage ended up musician; he could have applied his technique to practically any form of art since it conveys nothing truly musical. And this is for me the problem: there is little (or no) music in Cage's collection of sounds. His motives go against 99.999% of the music ever produced on Earth.
I made many Cage tapes over the years. They were asked by friends who were concerned that they might have missed something (and these are people not affraid of getting their music on the spicy side). The result was polite indifference and puzzlement at all the fuss that was made about that music. But his books keep on being entertaining.
It is ironic that two of the icons of XXth century music (Cage and Boulez) might be mainly remembered for anything but their music :-).
I look at it in almost exactly the opposite way. If there are classical musicians and listeners to classical music who dig some works of Cage now, then it doesn't matter what people who are "deeply in love with experimental music" think. There are pieces by Cage that are entering the classical repertoire, being performed by classically trained musicians because they like the music, musicians who never met Cage and aren't carrying on some kind of crusade to continue or resuscitate the career of a dead friend. None of the Cage pieces I've heard performed around here were played by new music specialists or music school rebels. These are concerts by string quartets who mainly play the standard repertoire, piano students of Cliburn gold medalists in training for classical concert careers. They liked the works they played and plan on continuing to play them (the string quartet was on tour of mid-sized cities of the US & they did the same program everywhere). It's certainly possible that Cage won't be thought as a central figure in classical composition of the late 20th century, there's no way to really predict that one way or the other, but it sure seems as if there will be works that survive. & for most classical composers having a few works that still get played is all there is. Boulez I'm less sure about, at this point at least, it seems like his music rarely gets played when he's not involved. -- Herb Levy P O Box 9369 Fort Worth, TX 76147 herb@eskimo.com
On Wed, 23 Apr 2003 13:32:46 -0500 Herb Levy wrote:
I look at it in almost exactly the opposite way. If there are classical musicians and listeners to classical music who dig some works of Cage now, then it doesn't matter what people who are "deeply in love with experimental music" think. There are pieces by Cage that
It does because most people, as you know, simply look for instant gratifica- tion. If the people who are willing to do their home-work and try, some very hard, without any success, so what? We were all told that Cage was a genius and I grew up with that belief. After so many years, like any human being whose BS detector is not completely turned off, I started to question how dressed the king was. The more I listen, the less I see how Cage can be considered as a major composer (assuming that music is still what matters to be a composer). I am not dismissing the man who I respect as a higly creative person, simply his music that is, IMHO, of anecdotal value (interesting, at best).
are entering the classical repertoire, being performed by classically trained musicians because they like the music, musicians who never met Cage and aren't carrying on some kind of crusade to continue or resuscitate the career of a dead friend.
The intellectual pedestal on which Cage has been put can be intimidating for a young artist. I am not surprised that young musicians play Cage once in a while based on his status. Even after 50 years, you might still be considered as taking risk by playing Cage (that should alarm the creative audiences, but does not seem to), and where would be "high-brow" music without a little bit of sponsored risk taking :-). Patrice.
participants (3)
-
Herb Levy -
jason tors -
Patrice L. Roussel