Cage, John (1912-1992)

US composer. His interest in Indian classical music led him to the view that the purpose of new music was to change the way people listen. From 1948 he experimented with instruments, graphics, and methods of random selection in an effort to generate a music of pure incident. For example, he used a number of radios, tuned to random stations, in Imaginary Landscape IV (1951). His ideas greatly influenced late 20th-century aesthetics.

Cage studied briefly with Arnold Schoenberg, also with Henry Cowell, and joined others in reacting against the European music tradition in favour of a freer style open to non-Western attitudes. Working in films during the 1930s, Cage assembled and toured a percussion orchestra using ethnic instruments and noisemakers, for which Double Music (1941) was composed (with Lou Harrison). He invented the prepared piano, in which different objects are inserted between the strings, altering the tone and the sound produced, to tour as accompanist with the dancer Merce Cunningham, a lifelong collaborator.

Cage was the most prominent pioneer and promoter of such ‘experimental’ ideas as indeterminacy, chance (aleatory music), and silence. These ideas had a very considerable influence in both the USA and Europe. He worked to reduce the control of the composer over the music, introducing randomness and chance and allowing sounds to ‘be themselves’. He was greatly influenced by oriental ideas. In a later work, 4'33" (Four Minutes and Thirty-three Seconds) (1952), the pianist sits at the piano reading a score for that length of time but does not play, with whatever background sounds are occurring constituting the piece. He also explored electronic music.

Cage's essays and writings were collected in, for example, Silence (1961) and For the Birds (1981).

Works Stage Europeras I-IV (1987-91), ballet The Seasons (1947).

Orchestral Concerto for prepared piano and chamber orchestra (1951); Etcetera (1973).

Percussion and electronics Construction I in Metal for percussion sextet (1939); Imaginary Landscape I for turntables, frequency recordings, muted piano, and cymbal (1939); Living Room Music for percussion quartet (1940); Construction II and III and Imaginary Landscape II and III, all for percussion ensemble (1940-42); Imaginary Landscape IV (March no. 2) for 12 radios, 24 players, and conductor (1951); Imaginary Landscape V for tape (1952); Fontana Mix for tape or other instruments (1958).

Chamber string quartet (1950); 4'33" (Four Minutes and Thirty-three Seconds) (no sound intentionally produced, 1952); HARPSCHD for seven harpsichords, or tape machines (1967-69); Cheap Imitation for violin (1977); 30 pieces for string quartet (1984).

Piano and prepared piano Sonatas and Interludes (1946-48); Music of Changes (1951); Water Music (1952); One (1988); Swinging (1989).

Vocal many works, including Song Books, Solos for Voice 3-92 (1970); Hymns and Variations for 12 amplified voices (1978); Litany for the Whale for two voices (1980).