Musicage : Cage muses on words, art, music / Joan Retallack, editor.

Author/creator Cage, John
Other author Retallack, Joan, editor.
Format Book
Publication InfoHanover, NH : Wesleyan University Press, University Press of New England, ©1996.
Descriptionxlvii, 360 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Subjects
Cage, John--Interviews.
Composers--United States. --Interviews.

Contents Introduction. Conversations in retrospect / Joan Retallack -- Words. Art is either a complaint or do something else / John Cage -- Cage's loft, New York City: September 6-7, 1991 / John Cage and Joan Retallack -- Visual art. Cages loft, New York City: October 21-23, 1991 / John Cage and Joan Retallack -- Music. Cage's loft, New York City: July 15-17, 1992 ; July 18, 1992 ; July 30, 1992 -- Appendixes. Selected Cage computer programs ; Mesostic introduction to The First Meeting of the Satie Society ; Writing through Ulysses (Muoyce II). Typescript page form part 17 based on the "Nighttown" section of Ulysses ; Excerpts from manuscript and score of Two6 (1992) ; Notated time bracket sheets for Thirteen (1992), pages 14, 15, 16 ; Writing through Ulysses (Muoyce II), part 5 ; IC supply sheet marked by Cage with red, blue, and black pencils ; Excerpts from score for Europera 5 ; Europera 5 at MOMA ; Letetr outlining plans for Noh-opera ; Notated time bracked sheets for 58 (1992), pages 2 and 4 ; Project for Hanau squatters ; First page of One8 (1991) ; First page of Ten (1991), violin I.
Abstract The editor's conversations with Cage represent the first consideration of his artistic production in its entirety, across genres. Informed by the perspective of age, Cage's comments range freely from his theories of chance and indeterminate composition to his long-time collaboration with Merce Cunningham to the aesthetics of his multi-media works. A composer for whom the whole world - with its brimming silences and anarchic harmonies - was a source of music, Cage once claimed, "There is no noise, only sounds." As these interviews attest, that penchant for testing traditions reached far beyond his music. His lifelong project, Retallack writes in her comprehensive introduction, was "dislodging cultural authoritarianism and gridlock by inviting surprising conjunctions within carefully delimited frameworks and processes." Consummate performer to the end, Cage delivers here just such a conjunction - a tour de force that provides new insights into the man and a clearer view of the status of art in the twentieth century.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages xliv-xlvii) and index.
LCCN 95009497
ISBN0819552852 (alk. paper)

Availability

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Music Music Stacks ML410.C24 A5 1996 ✔ Available Place Hold