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?
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