The Fredösphere

Musical Perceptions reviews a review of The Cambridge Companion to John Cage -- now I'll review the review reviewer:

Every new thing I learn about Cage reminds me that he wasn't a hack going for the cheap shock or drug-induced silliness.

Granted.  I don't doubt he was sincere, so the music wasn't hackwork.  Sophomoric is the adjective I would choose.

He had a genuine love for music, and wanted to create music that meant something to him and others.

Undoubtedly.  He certainly had the commitment.

We can't ask any more of a composer.

Oh, yes we can.  Here's a quote from the book:

Shultis's citation of a 1927 quotation from Mies van der Rohe is more provocative: "Is form really an aim? Is it not instead a product of the design process? Is it not the process which is essential?" Anyone who has even a slight familiarity with Cage's conception of structure, process, and form in his early music, or who knows the duality between object and process that informs all of his chance music, will immediately recognize how deeply such sentiments as Rohe's could have affected the young composer.

If process is the essence, then why attend the performance?  Cage's music reminds me of certain sketches from Saturday Night Live in its declining years, which I found were a lot funnier when I described them to a friend afterwords than when I watched them.  The concept is clever and amusing, but doesn't survive its realization.

In my graduate school years I was one of several singers asked to join one of the wind ensembles in a performance of John Cage's Renga.  The score consists of drawings of Thoreau placed on a grid, with the X axis as time and the Y axis as pitch.  Each drawing is chopped up into short line segments and the segments are distributed in a scattered manner among the various performers.  Additionally, a simple color code indicates which passages are loud or soft.  Unfortunately, as happens in such situations, the piece frequently devolved into a loudness contest.

The idea then was to create a sound representation of each drawing.  One drawing contains a rainbow in a broad arc, and it was the most satisfying to realize as it was the only one with a clear shape you could associate with what you were hearing.  Never was it more true that a composition was more interesting in the form of a score to be read than a piece of music to be heard.

Cage was on campus and gave us his input during the last rehearsal.  Because of his philosophy, we knew he couldn't tell us we were doing something "wrong" or "correct our mistakes."  His approach interested and amused me:  he would tell us "I enjoyed that very much" and then point out that audiences usually found it more interesting if, for example, there was lots of contrast between the louds and softs.  His manner was gentle, not to say milquetoasty. 

Nothing about the experience altered my fundamental attitude toward Cage:  the music is thin.  It's a stunt that gets old very fast.  Once you get the idea, there's no reason to listen to it.  Why does he get so much attention?