John Cage

This article is about the composer. For other people with the same name, see John Cage (disambiguation).

John Cage
Cage in 1988
Born
John Milton Cage Jr.

(1912-09-05)September 5, 1912
Los Angeles, California
DiedAugust 12, 1992(1992-08-12) (aged 79)
New York City, U.S.
Alma materPomona College
Occupations
Spouse
​
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(m. 1935; div. 1945)​
PartnerMerce Cunningham
Signature

John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.[1][2][3][4] He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.[5][6]

Cage's teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage's major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951.[7] The I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text and decision-making tool, became Cage's standard composition tool for the rest of his life.[8] In a 1957 lecture, "Experimental Music", he described music as "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living".[9]

Cage's best known work is the 1952 composition 4′33″, a piece performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who perform the work do nothing but be present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is intended to be the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance.[10][11] The work's challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage was also a pioneer of the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by objects placed between or on its strings or hammers), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces. These include Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48).[12]

  1. ^ Pritchett, Kuhn & Garrett 2012 "He has had a greater impact on music in the 20th century than any other American composer."
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference obit was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Leonard, George J. (1995). Into the Light of Things: The Art of the Commonplace from Wordsworth to John Cage. University of Chicago Press. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-226-47253-9. ... when Harvard University Press called him, in a 1990 book advertisement, 'without a doubt the most influential composer of the last half-century', amazingly, that was too modest.
  4. ^ Greene, David Mason (2007). Greene's Biographical Encyclopedia of Composers. Reproducing Piano Roll Fnd. p. 1407. ISBN 978-0-385-14278-6. ... John Cage is probably the most influential ... of all American composers to date.
  5. ^ Perloff & Junkerman 1994, 93.
  6. ^ Bernstein & Hatch 2001, 43–45.
  7. ^ Lejeunne 2012, 185–189.
  8. ^ John Cage – Music of Changes. By David Ryan, taniachen.com
  9. ^ Cage 1973, 12.
  10. ^ Kostelanetz 2003, 69–70.
  11. ^ Reviews cited in Fetterman 1996, 69
  12. ^ Nicholls 2002, 80: "Most critics agree that Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48) is the finest composition of Cage's early period."