The Selected Letters of John Cage

by John Cage, Laura Diane Kuhn (Editor)

Letters of an avant-garde icon

This selection of over five hundred letters gives us the life of John Cage with all the intelligence, wit, and inventiveness that made him such an important and groundbreaking composer and performer. The missives range from lengthy reports of his early trips to Europe in the 1930s through his years with the dancer Merce Cunningham, and shed new light on his growing eminence as an iconic performance artist of the American avant-garde. Cage's joie de vivre resounds in these letters―fully annotated throughout―in every phase of his career, and includes correspondence with Peter Yates, David Tudor, and Pierre Boulez, among others. Above all, they reveal his passionate interest in people, ideas, and the arts. The voice is one we recognize from his singular, profound, irreverent, and funny. Not only will readers take pleasure in Cage's correspondence with and commentary about the people and events of a momentous and transformative time in the arts, they will also share in his meditations on the very nature of art. A deep pleasure to read, this volume presents an extraordinary portrait of a complex, brilliant man who challenged and changed the artistic currents of the twentieth century.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

674 pages, Hardcover

First published January 5, 2016

About the author

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, philosopher, poet, music theorist, artist, printmaker, and amateur mycologist and mushroom collector. A pioneer of chance music, electronic 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 American composers of the 20th century. 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.

Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4′33″, the three movements of which are performed without a single note being played. The content of the composition is meant to be perceived as the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed, rather than merely as four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence, and the piece became one of the most controversial compositions of the 20th century. Another famous creation of Cage's is the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by placing various objects in the strings), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces, the best known of which is Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48).

His teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music and coincidentally their shared love of mushrooms, but Cage's major influences lay in various Eastern cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951. The I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text on changing events, became Cage's standard composition tool for the rest of his life. 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".

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading a composer’s letters can provide a window into the workings of the creative mind. Mozart’s letters are revelatory – of his process, his sense of humor, his familial relations. Beethoven’s letters evidence his business skills, as he negotiates fees with aristocrats. Some composers, on the other hand, left few examples of correspondence. Schubert seems to have left relatively few letters (or perhaps well-meaning friends burned ones that might be incriminating). Brahms asked correspondents to return his letters, and burned them himself. Debussy’s letters provide a sense of what a moody, complex, difficult and brilliant artist he was. Alas, given how rare letter writing has become, I wonder if one day someone will be publishing the emails of John Adams, or the collected tweets of David Lang?

So the arrival of a 600-page collection of letters by John Cage was evidence of one of the last composers to devote serious time and energy to written correspondence. Few artists in the 20th century have such a rich array of friends, lovers, acquaintances, and collaborators, not just in the realm of music, but in the visual arts, literature, dance, theater, etc. Cage played chess with Marcel Duchamp, and remained close to his widow after Marcel’s death. Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns were friends. He was offered a job by Moholy-Nagy, slept with Philip Johnson, and shared an apartment with Peggy Gugenheim. Cage’s relationship with Merce Cunningham, which lasted from their first meeting in the late 1930s until Cage’s death in 1992, helped to shape and support what may be the most influential American dance company in the 2nd half of the 20th century.

I have to say that this collection, though fascinating in its way, does not convey the full measure of Cage’s life. While I am grateful to Laura Kuhn for her efforts in assembling this book, I kept wishing there were other things included here than what it. There are allusions to the steady correspondence between Cage and Cunningham, but only 15 are included here. Considering how sweet and charming some of the Cunningham letters are, (as when Cage notes the nicknames he uses for their respective penises), I only wish we had more included here. There are also only 15 letters to David Tudor (though, admittedly, there is a separate volume of Cage/Tudor correspondence available). Though Tudor was straight, Cage was clearly enamored of his young associate. The letters included seem only to delicately allude to this. I’d also love to know more about how the Cage/Tudor relationship affected his relationship to Merce.

Perhaps I’m being unreasonable, wanting the book to be something other than what it is. Letters get lost, or tossed, and maybe Kuhn did the best she could with what was available. As someone who studied with Lou Harrison, I was always struck by the semi-ironic tone that Lou adopted when speaking of Cage. I knew they had been very close at certain points in time, and I wondered if they had some falling out. Cage’s letters suggest that any “issues” in the relationship were Lou’s, because these letters reveal how devoted Cage was to Lou and his music. He actually uses the word love in these letters, a word he does not toss around idly.

Kuhn has done a fine job of including letters that discuss professional matters: letters to his publishers; a harsh, angry letter to his editor at Wesleyan – who published all his books for many years; discussions of the development of Europera late in his life; letters explaining how to, and how not to, interpret his music. He certainly had a busy career, and these letters demonstrate just how busy it was. But since Cage’s ideas are so well-documented in his own books, I looked to these letters for a better understanding of the man, who was accused by some of “hiding” behind his work. (His interest in Silence, for example, has been interpreted as how he chose to manage his homosexuality.) His work comes through clearly in these letters. The man behind the work remains, I fear, a bit mysterious.

[Mills College Library]

780.92 C131cs 2016