Klarinet Archive - Posting 000662.txt from 2001/09

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: [kl] Jeering about Cage
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 17:38:36 -0400

I'm sure that whatever anyone said, or says, about Cage's pieces would
have been included by him in the 'silence' in which they are received.
He probably didn't envisage email -- but we can suppose that, for
example, what Tony Wakefield wrote, he'd be willing to read out.

It's interesting. I don't know how many people here have actually been
at a performance of the famous '4'33"'. Not many, I suspect.

I've actually performed it -- and if you want to know what I mean by
that, what I mean is that I was on the stage during an advertised
performance, and remained immobile and silent, in a performance stance.
(Not an easy thing to do, by the way -- we had to rehearse it.)

The performance was nothing like what we'd imagined.

A similar thing occurred for me when I was present at a 'performance' of
Ligeti's famous piece for 100 metronomes. Again, I had no idea that
this would be an emotional experience. Yet it was. I might write more
about that sometime.

All of this speaks of the relationship between content and context.
Tony Wakefield, in common with many people here, probably hasn't thought
how much his music owes to the context that his audience brings to
listening to it. It's a context that includes the past history of tonal
music plus a great deal of exposure to popular music.

Cage, as a well-known composer (one of the reasons why Tony's own piece,
with cries of "rubbish" included, would fail to make an impact) wanted
to call attention to that. We have another piece by him, 'Sonata' for
solo clarinet, which is by contrast, all *content*. ('4'33"' is all
*context*.) There are no expression marks, no phrasing, just the notes.

I've played 'Sonata' in the context of the movements of a Machaut Mass.
I've had students play its movements interpolating other music,
spatially surrounded by those playing the other music. It created a
whole other world of interaction between content and context.

The thing is, Cage just wasn't trying to do what some of you want him to
have been trying to do.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
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.... Some men are wise - some are otherwise.

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