John Cage – Master of a non-hierarchical and modern music

The 100th birthday of a legendary musician is being celebrated: On September 5, 2012, the exceptional musician John Cage have turned 100! Sit back and take a minute to remember his music (see the following short video with the song “Ocean of Sounds”).

You don't know a single work by John Cage off the top of your head? Surely you do, at least if you have a truly quiet room in your home where you can retreat. If you do that for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, then you have just heard John Cage's piece "4,33", a piece that, according to John Cage, "contains no intended sounds" (that is, not a single note; if the environment is silent, you only hear your blood rushing).

This piece is considered a key work of “New Music” today; however, by the time “4.33” was created, John Cage had already composed over 100 other amazing works, and around 150 more compositions that turned the world of traditional composition upside down were to follow.

Although “New Music” had already existed for quite some time at the beginning of his career: This term has been used since the beginning of the 20th century to summarize efforts to take music beyond the classical-romantic compositional style of the 19th century.

The term originates from a lecture given in 1919 by the music journalist Paul Bekker on trends in emerging music; it was later adopted for the most diverse modernization trends in the “serious” music of the 20th and then also the 21st century.

The turn of the 20th century ushered in a renewal of music with composers such as Gustav Mahler, Ferruccio Busoni, Franz Schreker, and Arnold Schoenberg. Musicians sought new ideas for all musical styles. Soon, entirely new musical experiments emerged; for example, the possibility of rhythmic autonomy was discovered, and noise was incorporated into music.

In this context, "New Music" does not develop a single, unified style, but rather manifests itself in many different styles, by individual composers, sometimes even within individual works. Thus, the 20th century is arguably the first century to polystylism .

Fundamentally, "New Music" was also influenced by the technological innovations of radio broadcasting and sound recording, which for the first time made music infinitely reproducible and thus popularized the previously elite audience. The musical potential of the new technology itself also needed to be explored, giving composers of the time cause for many compositional experiments.

World War II was a devastating disruption to this pluralistic development of New Music, which was to be mitigated after 1945 by providing new institutions for musicians and their training.

Music academies were reopened or completely re-established with the clear demand for a new beginning, public broadcasting corporations gave composers a new forum, and the awarding of composition commissions further stimulates production in order to resume the interrupted development.

While in the pre-war period the most important impulses for the creation of "New Music" came from Europe, often from German-speaking countries, the development after the war became increasingly international. Alongside the observation of works in the traditionally leading European musical countries such as France, Italy, Poland, and Switzerland, the USA, with the circle around John Cage and Morton Feldman, now also received attention in the international music scene for the first time.

It took John Cage some time to achieve this recognition: He was born in 1912 into a cosmopolitan family, with an engineer and inventor as his father and a journalist as his mother. He enjoyed a stimulating childhood in California and received piano lessons from a young age.

Cage graduated from high school in 1928 with the highest score ever awarded, followed by two years of studying literature. At 18, Cage spent a year and a half in Europe, where he studied classical architecture and the music of Bach, wrote poetry, and had his first homosexual experiences.

Cage became acquainted with the European artistic avant-garde, the work of Hugo Ball and Hans Arp, James Joyce and Marcel Duchamp , Kurt Schwitters and László Moholy-Nagy; he was in Germany, Algeria and Spain; he painted and wrote poems and composed his first music .

In 1931, Cage returned to the USA, where he suffered at times severe financial hardship and took on all sorts of jobs. Nevertheless, in 1932 he began studying composition, initially with Richard Buhlig. In 1933 he met Xenia Kashevaroff, and they married in 1935. During his studies, Cage had already taken harmony lessons from Arnold Schoenberg's first American student; now he received private lessons in counterpoint composition from Schoenberg until 1937, even though Schoenberg assured him that he would never be able to compose properly.

His restless life continued: in 1938, Cage received an engagement at Mills College in San Francisco as a musical accompanist for dance classes. From there, he was placed at the Cornish College of the Arts, where he worked for the choreographer Bonnie Bird (Martha Graham Group). Following this, he lectured in Seattle and founded a percussion ensemble there, in which Merce Cunningham, who would later become the most important person in his life, occasionally played.

Initially, however, Cage returned to San Francisco in 1940, resumed his work as a musical accompanist for the dance class at Mills College, and was then asked by Syvilla Fort to compose a piece for her ballet. Since ballet music could not be created using percussion, Cage used an existing piano, modifying its mechanism with small everyday objects to elicit the desired African sounds.

From 1941, Cage was able to teach a class in experimental music at the Chicago School of Design, where he met Peggy Guggenheim and Max Ernst, who invited him to join them in New York . Cage and his wife moved to New York, where they lived with the Ernst-Guggenheims and were introduced to their circle of artist acquaintances, including Piet Mondrian, Marcel Duchamp, and André Breton.

These connections secured Cage a concert at the Museum of Modern Art ; he became known in New York avant-garde circles and was able to make contacts. He met musicians, dancers, and visual artists and was able to create works for luminaries such as Marcel Duchamp. Now Cage could finally earn a living through his compositions.

In the following decade, he collaborated with numerous artists of the time and met just as many others. He and Xenia separated, and Cage found his life and work partner in Cunningham, with whom he conceived and executed numerous dance productions. Another stay in Europe with Cunningham followed, which led to further artistic friendships (Pierre Boulez, Alberto Giacometti, Ellsworth Kelly). The experiments in his compositions became increasingly daring. In 1952, John Cage staged the world's first Happening , but also enrolled for two years at Columbia University to study Zen.

The search for a simpler life also led Cage to become deeply involved with mushrooms, from gathering to preparation. In the 1950s, Cage also undertook an extensive concert tour of Europe, taught, and through this teaching activity exerted a significant influence on the Fluxus movement , whose artists were among his students.

Cage's life remained similarly eventful for the next 30 years, until he succumbed to a stroke in 1992, shortly before his 80th birthday: He taught and composed and met the leading figures of the time , Karlheinz Stockhausen and Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik and Erik Satie, Joseph Beuys and Claes Oldenburg, and probably every other artist who was open to new experiences and wanted to explore the boundaries of traditional forms of expression.

When Cage set about developing a “domination-free music” in which every sound, noise, and tone is of equal value, he not only irrevocably influenced the development of modern music. John Cage was always concerned that people without money or prior education should also be able to participate in music and have the opportunity to learn to listen and compose.

When he composed “chance music”, whose notes were determined by the I Ching oracle or by star charts, he was less concerned with the sound of the music and more with breaking down listening habits.

Why? For Cage, openness to new, experimental forms of expression is an attitude that urgently needs to be instilled in everyone through schooling and education. Because those who only hear and read the same old thing can only think in ingrained patterns. Those who think in ingrained patterns question little and accept much uncritically…

If you're curious: You can listen to a piece by John Cage at the Burchardi Church in Halberstadt . And there's no need to rush to Halberstadt; the piece will be performed until the year 2640, so you have over 600 years to go (No, this isn't a joke, it's a truly breathtaking project!).

We won't reveal any more here; you can find all further information at www.aslsp.org .