John Cage: Aftershocks, Part 2

John Cage's Collaborators


John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham are so inextricably linked that a simple YouTube search for videos of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company also yields numerous hits of John Cage interviews, particularly those in which he discusses his philosophy about music.  Since Cage and Cunningham's decades-long relationship remains one of the most artistic partnerships of the twentieth century, I felt that the juxtaposition of these two videos provides a salient argument for Cage's lasting influence.

Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Beach Birds

John Cage interview in which he shares his views about silence and "the activity of sound."

John Cage's Successors

I was curious to discover how composers belonging to the generation directly following Cage continue to perceive his legacy.  Here is John Adam's review, The Zen of Silence, from the November 19, 2010, edition of the New York Times.  This article is a book review about Kenneth Silverman's biography, Being Again: A Biography of John Cage.  In the article, John Adams compares the influence of Cage's writing, especially in his Silence essays, to "the musical equivalent of the young Martin Luther’s nailing his theses to the door of the Wittenberg church."  

However, Adams also continues to assert that the scholarship focusing on Cage has evolved into a "small industry."  Adams readily admits that while he has been deeply influenced by Cage, he no longer continues to listen to his music.  In the review, Adams insinuates his disagreement with some musicologists' opinion that Cage follows Stravinsky as the twentieth century's most influential composer.  On the contrary, Adams writes that "[h]e has gone from being unfairly considered a fool and a charlatan to an equally unreasonable status as sacred cow."  In this vein of thought, Adams argues that Cage is well on his way to replacing/joining past artists like James Joyce as a favored topic of discourse for college humanities departments.

Do we see John Cage's legacy already moving into this sphere of academia, or are his influences much broader in scope and reach?  

John Cage: Aftershocks

John Cage's Collaborators

Collage Technique/Neo-Dadaism

Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008): Painter; Cage's colleague at Black Mountain College

“I don’t want a picture to look like something it isn’t.  I want it to look like something it is.  And I think a picture is more like the real world when it’s made out of the real world.”

Untitled, 1955

Raushenberg used everyday objects to create conceptual art, drawing on John Cage's use of "silence" in music as a device for highlighting the ambient sounds at any given moment in time.

Collage from a stuffed goat, tire, tennis ball, and paint

Nabisco Shredded Wheat (Cardboard), 1971, Gagosian Gallery

This piece, which Rauschenberg created as a wall hanging from cardboard Nabisco boxes, amuses me because it reminds me of my college roommate.  Having little or no knowledge of John Cage or Rauschenberg's work, she formed a habit of saving all kinds of trash and taping it to her dorm wall for decoration.  Hundreds of bottle caps, brown paper bags, wads of foil, coffee warmers, and used food wrappers adorned her wall in a carefully arranged, though haphazardly conceived, display.  We moved to two different apartments the following years; both times, this collection of recycled art followed.  I remember coming home one day to discover an enormous cardboard banana hanging from our ceiling.  "I looked up, and it bothered me that nothing was there, so I decided that we must have a banana here," she explained.  

This reuse of recycled, everyday objects as art even extended to organic material: she had an attachment to gourds and developed a habit of keeping rotten pumpkins in our apartment for months.  All of these pumpkins were named "Fred" and displayed beneath a mantle covered with dead rose petals, offset by the large kite fashioned from used Chipotle bags.  When Fred(s) began to get stinky, she would say, "Oh no, I am never going to throw Fred away.  He has a soul."

Interestingly, Rauschenberg also used recycled materials as art.  When I saw this piece, Dylaby Combine Painting (1962), the concept seemed identical to that of my roommate.  This work features a Coca Cola advertisement and a wooden skateboard.

Atonality and the European Influence

(Béla Bartók, in route to America, 1940)

The tragedy of World War II effectively bottlenecked Europe’s composers into the trajectory of American immigration.  Within the insulated environment of American universities and the rising tide of college students resulting from the passage of the GI Bill, serialists found it convenient to proselytize the twelve-tone method to a younger generation of composers.  Milton Babbit, who literally met Schoenberg in New York City as soon as he stepped off the boat, rose to prominence as the chief American adherent (apostle?) to Schoenberg’s method.

I am struck, firstly, by the pronounced self-awareness, intentionalism, and egoism of Schoenberg’s attitude in 1921 upon his creation of the twelve-tone method.  He wrote, “Today I have discovered something which will ensure the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years.”  In Cowell, we observed a true “discovery” based on acoustical properties, physics, and the harmonic series; he did not, however, frame his experimentalism in an urgent evangelical fervor.  Similarly, Harry Partch and Ben Johnston arrived at scientifically-supported conclusions that favored a broader system of tuning than equal temperament, but they did not emerge as endless self-promoters.  That Schoenberg held this attitude as early as 1921 indicates that his musical philosophy was reactionary, was in fact directly opposed to post-Romantic chromaticism and diatonic tonalities.

Some of us have dabbled in experimentalism for the sake of exploring the unknown with our focus trained on the quest or process of discovery over indoctrination.  In contrast, Schoenberg was completely intentional in his blitzkrieg, proudly waving the emblematic definition of avant-garde as his banner: a soldier on the front lines who goes ahead of the pack blazing new paths, clearing the way for the followers. 

Milton Babbit, a significant “follower” in the story of serialism, emerges as a brilliant mind, able to teach both mathematics and composition at Princeton (this is kind of a big deal).  Similar to Messiaen and Elliot Carter, Babbit broadened his application of serialist techniques to embrace rhythm and time.  (The Europeans seemed to limit themselves mostly to a pitch-based approach to the twelve-tone method.)  In Babbit, we also see another self-promoter, in a way.  His ultra-rationalist philosophy argues that an intellectual composer should have the advanced terminology in his or her music that a top scientist or mathematician might also be expected to demonstrate in his or her field of expertise.  The general public doesn’t need to understand rocket science; why shouldn’t this apply to music as well?  

However, in Babbit’s music there lies a coldness, a sterility.  This unfeeling, calculating approach is also emphatically intentional. Babbit actually believed that music plays no role in moving the emotions, a notion in opposition to the Ancient Greek philosophy that music must move the Ethos.  Babbit emerged as the composer who openly preferred electronic music for its perfect accuracy and abilities of computation; human machines are much flawed, predisposed to alleged emotional weaknesses.  Human performances, always, are characterized by mistakes.

The Abuse of Beauty

In the article “The Abuse of Beauty,” art critic Arthur C. Danto observes that in the present period, no constraints govern or define the way that a piece of art looks [or, in our case, sounds].  He chooses to open his article with a shocking statement from composer Karlheinz Stockhausen that refers to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center as “the greatest work of art ever.”  Although Danto does follow this quotation with the acknowledgement that Stockhausen’s flagrant remark was condemned by most and brought nearly universal disgrace to the composer, Dante’s article seemingly proceeds to gloss over any implications of Stockhausen’s proclamation and instead launches a lengthy comparison of former art critics’ aesthetic theories about the role of beauty in art.

I read for many pages with the assumption that Danto would return to Stockhausen and offer some sort of explanation, but he never really addresses the content or implications of Stockhausen’s remarks.  Rather, it seems that Danto choose to include such a bold, offensive allegation to reinforce the aesthetic theory introduced by Theodor Adorno in the 1960s that argues “[i]t is self-evient that nothing concerning art is self-evident any more, not its inner life, not its relation to the world, not even its right to exist” (Aesthetic Theory, 1969).  Is Danto implying that Stockhausen can label the catastrophe of 9/11 as art simply because it occurred?  It seems Stockhausen most likely sought to capitalize on the immense reaction and emotional outpouring that followed in the days and years in the wake of the terrorist attack.  From Stockhausen’s perspective, the World Trade Center attack could be called “great” because its effects are colossal.  We frequently assign the word “great” to words with very negative connotations: the Great Depression, the Great War to End All Wars.  The public might have reacted to Stockhausen’s words differently if he had instead said, “the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center is, for the American people, an event of maximum impact.  The shock of the event cannot be expunged by any person who witnessed that day.  In this regard, the terrorist attack has affected us at the deepest of all levels, something that art strives to reveal to us in its most basic, primal function.” 

In the course of the article, Danto highlights how traumatic world events have affected aesthetic theorists/philosophers’ perspectives about beauty in art.  He acknowledges how the Holocaust colored Adorno’s perceptions similarly to the reaction of Dadaism following WWI.  For me, the reaction to Stockhausen’s phrase “the greatest work of art ever” implies that the American public, long exposed to abstract, Expressionist, Dadaism, conceptual art, etc., still continues to equate “great” art with a positive connotation.  I think that our acceptance of ugliness has dramatically expanded since the Victorian and Edwardian Ages, even for the general public.  We accept Picasso’s “The Agony of War” as a great work because he painted it as a reaction to World War I’s horrors; we can discern a moral purpose or politically-motivated agenda behind Picasso’s work.  Even an untrained observer of this art (like myself) can appreciate it because the meaning behind it is powerful.  

Conceptual art and minimalism may register as odd to many people, but the feeling that contemporary art can be strange is very different than entirely condemning the works.  When I have visited contemporary art museums, particularly La Reina Sofía in Madrid, I often feel bewildered and secretly guilty that whatever emotional reaction that I might have to a piece of art might be deemed inappropriate.  Similarly, I remember staring at a Minimalist piece at the Dallas  Art Museum of a giant, yellow, egg-shaped canvas that had hundreds of holes bored into it symbolizing “humankind’s attempts to find God.”  I stood there for eight minutes before reading the plaque thinking about a giant piece of Swiss cheese; I felt so ashamed when I read the artist’s true intentions for the piece.  I think that today people are very likely to keep their reactions to avant-garde art quietly to themselves; this is the “Emperor’s new clothes” phenomenon.  “If this artist is willing to collect his own poop and display it in this exhibit, than I am unworthy to assign any judgment to this piece because his/her motive for doing so is far outside the realm of my understanding.”  I think a significant reaction to avant-garde works of our contemporary age is shame, probably even more than disgust.  Danto acknowledges that the general public is very astute; thus, the universal appreciation for the Vietnam War Memorial should serve as a commonplace, not exceptional, example of the human reaction to art.

I think that currently we long for the inclusion of beauty in art as one of many tools for expressing the human condition.  We do not desire a sterile, kitschy or standardized style that idolizes beauty above reality, but it is unnatural to deny all positive connotations an equal footing at the table simply because of a nihilistic trend.  Danto refers to beauty as a means, but not the end, in art.  He provides an example of Gothic cathedrals, writing, “Beauty was not the rainbow that awaited us as the reward of sustained looking […] The point was not to stand in front of the church and gape at its ornamentation, but to enter the church, the beauty being the bait, as it so often is in entering into sexual relationships” (45).  In a pluralist, complicated, fast-paced world, I think that we long for an equally complex and nuanced art that testifies to the havoc and multi-faceted nature of modernity.

Danto, Arthur C. “The Abuse of Beauty” Daedalus 131.4 (Fall 2002): 35-56. JSTOR. 

The Airwaves of the New Deal

I recently posted about the Ultramodern composers of the 1920s who fell roughly into two camps: the Pan American Composers and the better funded, European-influenced League of Composers.  When we change our focus to the rise of populism during the Great Depression, I think it is essential to consider the American classical music scene at-large during this time.  With the rampant spread of radio broadcasts, Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini led performances by the NBC Symphony that brought unprecedented exposure of symphonic works into American homes.  Many critics, including Alex Ross in The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (2007), have pointed out Toscanini’s lack of attention to American and, in particular, American contemporary music.  Toscanini’s significant broadcasts invariably included canonic standards of Italian opera, standard Romantic symphonic works, all-Wagner broadcasts, and an occasional venture into contemporary music of the era, such as the American premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 in 1942.  Some of the American new works from the New Deal period premiered by Toscanini on public radio include Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings in 1938; Ferde Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite (1945); George Gershwin’s An American in Paris and Rhapsody in Blue with Benny Goodman as soloist; Copland’s El Salón México; and the marches of John Philip Sousa.  

It is no small wonder, then, why Americans have developed such a firmly entrenched and crystallized symphonic canon.  Even our most beloved American works from iconic composers like Copland and Gershwin can be directly traced to Toscanini’s programming during the New Deal.  Ironically, the same works that Americans discovered via radio broadcast two generations ago now successfully continue to sell tickets for pops concerts (the same concerts that many of the musicians who perform them privately consider to be second-tier or “light” in scope and artistic merit).  If the music that Americans know and endear falls into such a narrow category -- with a decided bent against contemporary and especially avant-garde works -- what would have happened to the reception, funding, and appreciation for American instrumental music if it had been Sergei Koussevitsky of the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducting the NBC orchestra rather than Toscanini?

Would the “average” American recognize Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, Roy Harris’ Symphony No. 3 or Messiaen’s Turangalila as readily as Rhapsody in Blue?  

Further still, how would the support for new music look different today if even those composers working on the fringe, such as the Pan American composers, had been included as well?

Would we have need for forums such as this?  http://www.artisatrocity.com

(This website is actually satirical, though there is no indication of this on the site).

Ultramodernists: Henry Cowell, Edgard Varése, Ruth Crawford Seeger, the American “Five”

A salient feature of the self-proclaimed “Ultramodernists” is the razor-sharp freshness of musical thought that upon its centennial seems as pungent and seemingly unprecedented as the experimentalism of Machaut’s 14th-century isorhythmic motets or Gesualdo’s intensely chromatic Renaissance madrigals.  Ultramodernists like Henry Cowell and George Antheil coined this term for themselves in the decade following World War I as a deliberate way to insert themselves into the American musical scene in a more adventurous vein than so-called “modernists” of the time like Richard Strauss and Gustave Mahler.  Even within this progressive group, the American composers of the Roaring Twenties fall into two camps: the more liberal and progressive Pan American (1927) composers and the French-influenced neoclassicists of the League of Composers (1923).  The aim of the Pan American Association, promoting composers living in the Western Hemisphere like Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, Charles Ruggles, Carlos Chavez, Edgard Varése, and Roy Harris, may be viewed as a branch of late eighteenth-century Romantic Nationalism due to its focus on composers originating from a like geographic region, even though the aesthetic goals of the Pan American composers were staunchly anti-Romantic  and pro-serialist, free dissonance, and rhythmic complexity.

I would argue that the socio-economic climate of the 1920s and 1930s gave rise to three groups of American musicians as typified by prominent conductors.  The Pan American group, largely kept afloat through the financial backing of Charles Ives, became personified by the avant-garde and brilliant conductor Nicholas Slonimsky.  First known for his ambidextrous ability to conduct Ives’ music in two simultaneous tempi, Slonimsky gradually fell out of favor with the mainstream due to his avant-garde ties.  Nonetheless, his musicological contributions such as the Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Music Since 1900, and The Lexicon of Musical Invective show an interesting development: the alignment of the emerging field of American musicology with the avant-garde.  This scholarly bias undoubtedly provides the support that propels many Pan American composers into posterity, even though these same composers led artistic lives marked largely by financial hardship and a relegation to the “fringe” of musical society.  Take for example the tragic situation of Henry Cowell, who was not only ostracized but imprisoned for his bisexuality and false allegations of an inappropriate homosexual relationship with a minor. 

Our second group of conductors/new music promoters consists of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Serge Koussevitsky and the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Leopold Stokowski.  These iconic conductors endorsed American composers belonging to the League of Composers, and the works that they commissioned reflect the influence of Stravinsky, Les Six, and a generally French-leaning, anti-Germanic trend of early 20th-century composition.  Aaron Copland serves as a prime example due to his compositional studies with Nadia Boulanger, support from the New Deal, and mass appeal to the American public through his evocative portraits of a sensationalized and nostalgically-colored American idiom.  

 (To be continued)