Music for Piano (Cage)
Encyclopedia
Music for Piano is a series of 85 indeterminate
musical compositions for piano
by American
avant-garde
composer
John Cage
. All of these works were composed by making paper imperfections into sounds using various kinds of chance operations.
. Cage recounts that using the I Ching was always a very slow process. In 1952 a dancer (probably Jo Anne Melcher, the dedicatee of Music for Piano 1) made a request for a piece of music which was needed urgently, and Cage had to find a way to speed up the process:
The Music for Piano series comprises the following works:
Indeterminacy in music
Indeterminacy in music, which began early in the twentieth century in the music of Charles Ives, and was continued in the 1930s by Henry Cowell and carried on by his student, the experimental music composer John Cage beginning in 1951 , came to refer to the movement which grew up around Cage...
musical compositions for piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
. All of these works were composed by making paper imperfections into sounds using various kinds of chance operations.
General information
The use of paper imperfections was suggested by fast techniques in paintingPainting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
. Cage recounts that using the I Ching was always a very slow process. In 1952 a dancer (probably Jo Anne Melcher, the dedicatee of Music for Piano 1) made a request for a piece of music which was needed urgently, and Cage had to find a way to speed up the process:
Certainly I intended to continue working [...] by consulting the I Ching as usual. But I also wanted to have a very rapid manner of writing a piece of music. Painters, for example, work slowly with oil and rapidly with water colors [...] I looked at my paper, and I found my "water colors": suddenly I saw that the music, all the music, was already there.
The Music for Piano series comprises the following works:
- Music for Piano 1 (1952)
- Dedicated to dancer Jo Anne Melcher, who commissioned the work for her choreography "Paths and Events". The score (six pages) only specifies pitches (using whole noteWhole notethumb|right|250px|Figure 1. A whole note and a whole rest.In music, a whole note or semibreve is a note represented by a hollow oval note head, like a half note , and no note stem . Its length is equal to four beats in 4/4 time...
s), leaving the durations to the performer. Cage composed the piece one staffStaff (music)In standard Western musical notation, the staff, or stave, is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces that each represent a different musical pitch—or, in the case of a percussion staff, different percussion instruments. Appropriate music symbols, depending upon the intended effect,...
at a time. First, he set up a time interval within which to work. Then he would mark as many paper imperfections as he could find during that time.
- Music for Piano 2 (1953)
- Composed for dancer Louise Lippold, as were In a Landscape (1948) and A FlowerA FlowerA Flower is a song for voice and closed piano by John Cage. It was composed in 1950 for a choreography by Louise Lippold, wife of sculptor Richard Lippold. There is no text; the singer vocalises a small number of phonemes such as "uh", "wah", etc., without vibrato. Instructions given in the score...
(1950). The pitches are again derived from paper imperfections, but this time a predefined rhythmic controls the density of notes. Chance operations (with the I ChingI ChingThe I Ching or "Yì Jīng" , also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts...
) are used to determine methods of sound production. Tempo and dynamics are left to the performer. The score is four pages long.
- Music for Piano 3 (1953)
- Dedicated to Morton FeldmanMorton FeldmanMorton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...
. Starting with this piece, all subsequent entries in the series are exactly one page long, and the number of notes and/or sounds is determined by the I Ching chance operations.
- Music for Piano 4–19 (for any number of pianos) (1953)
- Composed for Merce CunninghamMerce CunninghamMercier "Merce" Philip Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant-garde for more than 50 years. Throughout much of his life, Cunningham was considered one of the greatest creative forces in American dance...
's choreography titled Solo Suite in Space and Time. Starting with these sixteen pieces, all subsequent entries in the series may be performed together, either in sequence or simultaneously, by any number of pianists. Overlapping of and silences between pieces are allowed.
- Music for Piano 20, for piano (1953)
- Composed for the same Cunningham choreography as in Music for Piano 4-19.
- Music for Piano 21–36, Music for Piano 37-52 (for piano solo or in an ensemble) (1955)
- Composed for the same Cunningham choreography as in Music for Piano 4-19 and Music for Piano 20. This time methods of sound production include noises produced by hitting the piano in various places. The two groups of sixteen pieces are different in that the limits for chance operations using the I Ching are 1–127 for the first group and 1-32 for the second group, numbers corresponding to relative difficulty of performance. Cage described the compositional process in full in a 1957 article, which was later reprinted in his first book, SilenceSilence: Lectures and WritingsSilence: Lectures and Writings is a book by American experimental composer John Cage , first published in 1961 by Wesleyan University Press. Silence is a collection of essays and lectures Cage wrote during the period from 1939 to 1961...
.
- Music for Piano 53–68 (for piano solo or in an ensemble) (1956)
- Music for Piano 69–84 (for piano solo or in an ensemble) (1956)
- Both collections were composed for the same Cunningham choreography, Solo Suite in Space and Time. Music for Piano 53–68 is dedicated to, and was first performed by, Grete SultanGrete SultanGrete Sultan was a German-American pianist.Born in Berlin into a musical family, she studied piano from an early age with American pianist Richard Buhlig, and later with Leonid Kreutzer and Edwin Fischer...
.
- Music for Piano 85 (for piano and electronics) (1962)
- Dedicated to Moriyasu Harumi and composed in OsakaOsakais a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
. This last piece in the series is different from the others: it is to be performed on its own, and live electronics are to be used. GlissandiGlissandoIn music, a glissando is a glide from one pitch to another. It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French glisser, to glide. In some contexts it is distinguished from the continuous portamento...
are used and feedback instructions are given in the score.
Editions
- Edition Peters 6729-36. (c) 1960 by Henmar Press. (not including Music for Piano 85)