John Cage

John Milton Cage Était Un Compositeur Poète Et Plasticien Américain Né Le 5 Septembre 1912 À Los Angeles Et Décédé Le 12 Août 1992 À New York. He Left Pomona College Early To Travel In Europe 1930-31 Then Studied With Cowell In New York 1933-4 And Schönberg In Los Angeles 1934 His First Published Compositions In A Rigorous Atonal System Of His Own Date From This Period. In 1937 He Moved To Seattle To Work As A Dance Accompanist And There In 1938 He Founded A Percussion Orchestra His Music Now Concerned With Filling Units Of Time With Ostinatos First Construction In Metal 1939 . He Also Began To Use Electronic Devices Variable-Speed Turntables In Lmaginary Landscape No.1 1939 And Invented The 'prepared Piano' Placing Diverse Objects Between The Strings Of A Grand Piano In Order To Create An Effective Percussion Orchestra Under The Control Of Two Hands. He Moved To San Francisco In 1939 To Chicago In 1941 And Back To New York In 1942 All The Time Writing Music For Dance Companies Notably For Merce Cunningham Nearly Always For Prepared Piano Or Percussion Ensemble. There Were Also Major Concert Works For The New Instrument A Book Of Music 1944 And Three Dances 1945 For Two Prepared Pianos And The Sonatas And Interludes 1948 For One. During This Period Cage Became Interested In Eastern Philosophies Especially In Zen From Which He Gained A Treasuring Of Non-Intention. Working To Remove Creative Choice From Composition He Used Coin Tosses To Determine Events Music Of Changes For Piano 1951 Wrote For 12 Radios Imaginary Landscape No.4 Also 1951 And Introduced Other Indeterminate Techniques. His 4'33" 1952 Has No Sound Added To That Of The Environment In Which It Is Performed The Concert For Piano And Orchestra 1958 Is An Encyclopedia Of Indeterminate Notations. Yet Other Works Show His Growing Interest In The Theatre Of Musical Performance Water Music 1952 For Pianist With A Variety Of Non-Standard Equipment And In Electronics Imaginary Landscape No.5 For Randomly Mixed Recordings 1952 Cartridge Music For Small Sounds Amplified In Live Performance 1960 Culminating In Various Large-Scale Events Staged As Jamborees Of Haphazardness HPSCHD For Harpsichords Tapes Etc 1969 . The Later Output Is Various Including Indeterminate Works Others Fully Notated Within A Very Limited Range Of Material And Pieces For Natural Resources Plants Shells . Cage Also Appeared Widely In Europe And The USA As A Lecturer And Performer Having An Enormous Influence On Younger Musicians And Artists He Wrote Several Books. From
The Grove Concise Dictionary Of Music
edited By Stanley Sadie
Macmillan Press Ltd. London. read less