Working on the finishing touches for my thesis show. March 12th. This should be a good month for Virgos.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Cage at Black Mountain
Cage at Black Mountain
(Lucas)
John Cage experienced many shifts in direction as a composer. The Cage that served on the faculty of Black Mountain College from 1948 to 1952 was not necessarily the Cage who composed the Songbooks; when he first arrived he was not even the Cage that would have composed 4‘33‘’. Black Mountain, however, was formative for Cage.
Cage studied under Schoenberg early in his creative life, however, when he began at Black Mountain he had turned his attention away from the Germanic musical tradition and toward the French composers of the early 20th century, especially Erik Satie. It was at Black Mountain that Cage delivered his lecture “Defense of Satie.” In his article “Cage and Europe” which appears in The Cambridge Companion to John Cage, Christopher Shultis writes: "Regarding Cage's ‘Defense of Satie,' the infamous lecture that attacked Beethoven, Mary Emma Harris writes, ‘it was a declaration of war on the assumed supremacy of the Germanic tradition that dominated American musical life, including the music program at Black Mountain,'" (Nicholls, Shultis, p. 26).
How does this connect to poetry? Olson's 1950 essay “Proojective Verse" can be seen as connected to Schoenberg's Modernist philosophy. Just as Olson believed in objectivism, the equal objects, Schoenberg believed in the equal tone within the Western tradition of musical composition. Furthermore, Schoenberg strove for compression within his 12-tone compositions. That is, he abhorred repetition in any way, feeling it was an insult to his audience. This dislike of repetition and drive for compression created music that was quite dense; like Olson’s poetry it used a minimum amount of time and space in it’s reception, but conveyed a large amount of information.
Black Mountain was also the site of once particularly rich collaboration between several notable artists of the 20th century. Orchestrated by Cage, it was termed his first “happening.” In her article “Cage’s Collaborations” which also appears in The Cambridge Companion to John Cage, Leta E. Miller summarizes:
“In the summer of 1952, a remarkable theatrical presentation took place in the dining hall of Black Mountain College...The audience-student's and faculty at the school's summer session- were seated in a square broken by aisles into four triangles whose apexes merged toward the center. On each chair sat an empty cup, purpose unspecified; many people used them as ashtrays. John Cage...stood on a ladder at one edge of the square dressed in a black suit reading from his ‘Juilliard Lecture.' Another ladder served as a podium for M.C. Richards and Charles Olson, who ascended it to read poetry. Suspended from the ceiling were four all-white paintings by Robert Rauschenberg, providing the backdrop for slides and film by Nicholas Cernovitch. Rauschenberg stood below them operating and Edison horn record player, switching scratchy recordings on and off. Merce Cunningham danced down the aisles followed by a dog, and David Tudor played the pieano. According to Cage, the performance lasted 45 minutes (the time it took to read his lecture), at the end of which the cups - even those used as ashtrays- were filled with coffee," (Nicholls, Miller, p.151).
While the performance was certainly a collaborative effort, the actual planning of the act was very individual. Cage assigned each performer a predetermined time-slot to fill with whatever material they chose; which they selected independently. The final artistic product was left to chance, Cage termed this: freedom within limitations.
Cage's time at Black Mountain was formative in that it gave him the tools that he would later use to compose his silent piece, 4‘33“. It was at Black Mountain that Cage began reading Zen texts, the philosophy of which would greatly influence his later work. Two particular Black Mountain associates played a significant hand in giving Cage the courage to go forward with 4‘33“: Rauschenberg with his all-white canvases and pianist David Tudor's enthusiasm for performing the piece (Nicholls, Holzaepfel, p. 174). Rauschenberg’s work with all-black and all-white canvases demonstrated a realization in art of the Zen principles he was studying, and convinced Cage of the inherent possibilities of silence.
As a side note: Cage created the first tape collage in the United States. It was called “William’s Mix.” He completed it in 1952 and dedicated it to Black Mountain student Paul Williams. The possibilities of tape create in Cage’s piece, a view of time similar to Olson’s. Tape is a tangible representation of real time-- but chopped and spliced is has the ability to present several times at once and jump between times smoothly so that chronology becomes erroneous and PLACE is central to understanding.
Nicholls, David. The Cambridge Companion to John Cage (Cambridge Companions to Music. New York: Cambridge UP, 2002. Print.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
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