Cage's Four Seasons

Loading...

Del curso dictado por Curtis Institute of Music

The World of the String Quartet

294 calificaciones

Curtis Institute of Music

The World of the String Quartet

294 calificaciones

Arnold Steinhardt, first violin of the internationally acclaimed Guarneri String Quartet, invites music listeners to the world of the string quartet repertoire and ensemble. Journey with him and interpretive analysis instructor Mia Chung through the history and features of quartet music, colored by stories of legendary quartets and insights from the stage. This season's Curtis courses are sponsored by Linda Richardson in loving memory of her husband, Dr. Paul Richardson.

De la lección

The Explorers: Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Ives, Cage, and Reich

This program's quartets were written during the 20th century, a time of technological exploration and avant-garde expression. Visionary composers such as Schoenberg (Op. 10), Webern (Op. 5), Berg (Lyric Suite), Ives (No. 1), Cage (String Quartet in Four Parts), and Reich (Different Trains) used four string instruments in ways far different than Haydn. What did these composers dare to do, and how does one play works that present an entirely new and unexplored language?

Cage's Four Seasons11:09

Rail Travel with Reich8:17

Conoce a los instructores

Arnold Steinhardt
Performance Faculty
Dr. Mia Chung
Instructor of Interpretive Analysis
Musical Studies

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.

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.

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?

Was he a composer, an artist, an actor, a poet, an inventor, or merely someone

playfully pulling our leg? Take your pick.

[MUSIC]

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]

Explora nuestro catálogo

Inscríbete de manera gratuita y obtén recomendaciones personalizadas, actualizaciones y ofertas.

Coursera brinda acceso universal a la mejor educación del mundo, al asociarse con las mejores universidades y organizaciones, para ofrecer cursos en línea.

© 2019 Coursera Inc. Todos los derechos reservados.

Descargar en la App Store

Consíguelo en Google Play