0:07
John Cage once said, "I have nothing to say, and I'm saying it". I burst out laughing
when I first read this. Just imagine Ludwig van Beethoven saying,
"I have nothing to say," in which case he might have put down
his pen and paper and taken a walk in the woods
until he did have something to say. And what about Cage's most
well-known work, Four Minutes, 33 Seconds, in which
a pianist walks onto the stage, sits down
at the piano, and closes the keyboard lid.
And then after opening and closing the lid at various intervals,
the pianist then stands up and takes a bow.
Cage was pulling our collective leg, right? Wrong. He was utterly serious.
0:55
John Cage simply thought about things differently than most people. In the case
of Four Minutes, 33 Seconds, it was not silence,
or the absence of sound that Cage was concerned with,
but the ambient sounds heard by the audience-
for example the rustling of leaves, a rainstorm,
and the laughter of perplexed people heard during the work's first
performance. Cage began writing his Quartet
in Four Parts in Paris. Beforehand, he told his parents
that he wanted to compose a work which would
praise silence without actually using it. Perhaps this was a foreshadowing
of 4 Minutes, 33 Seconds. Once underway with the Quartet,
his fascination with this new way of composing
prompted a letter in which he wrote: "This piece is like the opening
of another door; the possibilities implied are unlimited. "
The String Quartet in Four Parts is based partially
on the Indian view of the Seasons, in which each of the four seasons-
spring, summer, autumn, and winter- are each associated with a particular
force- creation, preservation, destruction,
and quiescense . Cage used a new technique of dealing
with fixed sonorities or chords in this quartet
that he called "gamuts" which released harmony from any purpose or progression
in supporting the melody. He said that the inclusion
of traditional harmonies was a matter of taste,
from which a conscious control was absent. We can only wonder what the old masters
would have thought of this concept. Cage's stated aim was to sober and
quiet the mind, thus rendering it susceptible to divine influences, rather
than music to express feelings and ideas. I find that the Quartet in Four Parts
creates a remarkable atmosphere that does indeed sober and quiet the mind.
It seems to drift through time peacefully if randomly, the notes and harmonies
endlessly connecting with one another- sometimes pleasantly, sometimes clashing-
in the same way that the sounds of civilization and nature also do at random.
3:25
After Cage had studied with Arnold Schoenberg for two years, Schoenberg said to him:
"In order to write music, you have to have a feel for harmony."
Cage explained to him that he had no feeling for harmony.
Schoenberg then told him he would always encounter an obstacle,
that it would be as though he came to a wall
through which he could not pass. "In that case," Cage told Schoenberg,
"I will devote my life to beating my head against the wall."
Years later, Schoenberg referred to his one-time student Cage
disparagingly as an inventor rather than a composer.
Cage simply loved this and often called himself just that- an inventor.
As time went on, Cage's works often became theatre as much as music,
he composed for dance, wrote poetry, and the manuscripts of his music
were sometimes exhibited as works of art. So what was John Cage, actually?
5:28
I pick mathematician! I know that wasn't on your list, Arnold,
but it so happens that an interesting mathematical concept called square root
form is at work in this unusual composition.
As Arnold mentioned, Cage uses the "gamut" technique, with its
pre-determined assortment of melodic notes and chords
that are sounded one at a time without a sense
of progression, in the context of a four movement work,
where there are 22 episodes that are each 22 measures in length.
As you can already surmise, there is nothing traditional about this quartet.
According to Cage, the four movements, "Quietly Flowing," "Slowly Rocking,"
"Nearly Stationary" and "Quodlibet" exhibit a rhythmic structure in which
the following numbers play a role: 2 1/2, 1 1/2, 2, 3,
6, 5, .5, and 1.5. The sum total of these numbers is 22.
For the first movement's structure, Cage added 2 1/2 plus 1 1/2
for a total of 4. He then multiplied this number by 22
for a product of 88. So, the first movement has four episodes that are each
22 measures in length for a total of 88 measures. He follows this
procedure for the 2nd movement by adding the next two numbers
in this sequence - 2 + 3 for a sum of 5.
Five times 22 yields 110 measures of length for this movement,
that is 5 episodes that are 22 measures each. He continues this process
for movements three and four by adding the next two numbers in the sequence,
and multiplying the sum by 22. The end result of the work is 22
episodes that are each 22 measures in length,
hence the term "square-root form." Now, you might be considering
how these numbers affect the expression of this work
which captures the essence of changing seasons,
summer in Paris, fall in America, winter and finally spring. Well, there
is the distinct feeling that the music is slowing down as the movements
proceed from "Quietly Flowing,"
to "Slowly Rocking" and to "Nearly Stationary."
Even though the tempo remains consistently slow
at half-note equals 54 on the metronome,
Cage moves to longer and longer rhythmic values
from one movement to the next and the dynamics remain relatively
quiet. In addition, the square root form
which displays an increasing number of episodes in movements 1 to 3,
that is, four, five and eleven episodes respectively,
causes the increasingly static music to last progressively longer and longer.
All of this changes in the final movement, the "Quodlibet," which is the shortest
of the four. Here, the tempo more than quadruples,
the rhythmic values become shorter, more dance-like, and the dynamics
suddenly turn "forte." The resulting expression has often
been described as "emotionless". Cage asks the
performers to underscore this quality in the music
by playing with no vibrato and no weight on the bow. Let's listen to
the canonic imitation in the 3rd movement,
"Nearly Stationary," where the music achieves its greatest stillness.
[MUSIC]
Arnold SteinhardtPerformance Faculty
Dr. Mia ChungInstructor of Interpretive Analysis
