“Schoenberg was wrong about Cage when he famously described him as “an inventor of genius.” The last part is correct, but Cage was no inventor, unless we call Plato, Hume, Kant and Russell inventors. They all invented ways of thinking and seeing, and we call them philosophers. Cage was a composer for a time, of course, and created the important prepared piano works. They are important but they are not great. The music is clear, easy to grasp and has real rhythmic interest and drive (his greatest talent in music), but it’s not profound, or profoundly well-written, or even especially memorable. What is memorable, and important, is that to him the iconic instrument of Western Classical Music was just another object to be tinkered with, his lack of reverence for it exemplifies what every creative artist should feel about the tools of their trade. A piano is just a piano.”
- from my latest column at ClassicalTV.com, “The Secret Knowledge”
Like many, many people who get involved in the contemporary and experimental side of music, I was enthralled by John Cage. He was cool. He still is cool, but the thrall is gone.
Cage is easy to take and be into, be hip to, when you don’t know much about him except his gentle demeanor and his seemingly gentle, anarchic pieces. Loving Cage is harder, though. To love something we must accept what that thing means and stands for, and knowing more about Cage now, I reject most of the things he means and stands for. His philosophy is deeply important and should be a persistent challenge to the thought of every person who seeks to make and present creative music. But his own realizations of that philosophy, the mature works that seek to remove intention and expression, are ethically and aesthetically problematic; artist must say something to us (even if they say nothing, but that only works once), they must reveal and admit some idea that we can consider. An artist conveys an experience, she does not facilitate our own experience, that’s the work of therapy, and the therapeutic view of the arts is one of the most poisonous things about American culture. Cage obviously suffered from it as well, without awareness of it.
This weeks entry of “The Drift” at ClassicalTV.com is about Cage, and also Yoko Ono: I participated in this year’s Make Music New York opener, Ono’s Secret Piece in Central Park. From that, I produced the column, and have also put together 4’33″ of audio and video that I recorded in the midst of if all. Enjoy gently, and responsibly.
Incredibly thoughtful commentary on Cage. I haven’t anything like the depth of your knowledge, but what you articulate resonates with my own experience of his thought and work. With regard to you comment that his philosophy “should be a persistent challenge to the thought of every person who seeks to make and present creative music,” I would add, as one of Babbitt’s “lay listeners,” that this is true of the listener as well. Cage taught me something wholly new about how to listen–as your video exemplifies so beautifully. Thanks for this!
I disagree with you on the toxicity of the therapeutic model of art; see http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/people/Oe/oe-con4.html
Fair enough, but let me restate it, because I think I did convey my meaning well; I have nothing against art therapy. American culture as a whole views art as something that is therapeutic, outside of any clinical practice, and that has a toxic effect on art.
As a practitioner of an applied art, though, I still really disagree with you. Beauty *is* restorative (cf. Dostoevsky’s perhaps-overstated quote, “the world shall be saved by beauty”). I don’t agree with Dostoevsky that art is salvific. But my practice of performed music has both the intent and often the outcome of facilitating a cathartic, even healing, experience for the listener, and that’s what I strive for. It’s not art therapy, however, in which the audience would be doing the performing.