John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer, visual artist and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic 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 composers of the 20th century.. "He has had a greater impact on music in the 20th century than any other American composer." 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's teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage's major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951. The I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text and decision-making tool, became Cage's standard composition tool for the rest of his life.John Cage – Music of Changes. By David Ryan, taniachen.com 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".
Cage's best known work is the 1952 composition 4′33″, a piece performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who perform the work do nothing but be present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is intended to be the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance.Reviews cited in The work's challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage was also a pioneer of the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by objects placed between or on its strings or hammers), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces. These include Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48).: "Most critics agree that Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48) is the finest composition of Cage's early period."
Life 1912–1931: Early years Cage was born September 5, 1912, at Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown Los Angeles.Mark Swed (August 31, 2012), John Cage's genius an L.A. story Los Angeles Times. His father, John Milton Cage Sr. (1886–1964), was an inventor, and his mother, Lucretia ("Crete") Harvey (1881–1968), worked intermittently as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times. The family's roots were deeply American: in a 1976 interview, Cage mentioned that George Washington was assisted by an ancestor named John Cage in the task of surveying the Colony of Virginia.Cage quoted in . For details on Cage's ancestry, see, for example, . Cage described his mother as a woman with "a sense of society" who was "never happy", while his father is perhaps best characterized by his inventions, which were sometimes idealistic, such as a diesel-fueled submarine that gave off exhaust bubbles. The senior Cage was uninterested in an undetectable submarine. Other inventions were revolutionary and against the scientific norms, such as the "electrostatic field theory" of the universe. John Cage Sr. taught his son that "if someone says 'can't' that shows you what to do." In 1944–45, Cage wrote two small character pieces dedicated to his parents: Crete and Dad. The latter is a short lively piece that ends abruptly, while "Crete" is a slightly longer, mostly melodic contrapuntal work.Recording and notes: John Cage – Complete Piano Music Vol. 7: Pieces 1933–1950. Steffen Schleiermacher (piano). MDG 613 0789-2.
When Cage was 18 months old, he ate two or three strychnine tablets. "At first the baby's life was despaired of," an article stated, but "a stomach pump was administered with success"."Saving baby Cage"
Cage's first experiences with music were from private piano teachers in the Greater Los Angeles area and several relatives, particularly his aunt Phoebe Harvey James who introduced him to the piano music of the 19th century. He first received piano lessons at school in fourth grade and enjoyed music, but expressed more interest in sight-reading than technique without yet thinking of composition. During high school, one of his music teachers was Fannie Charles Dillon. By 1928, though, Cage was convinced that he wanted to be a writer. He graduated that year from Los Angeles High School as a valedictorian, having also in the spring given a prize-winning speech at the Hollywood Bowl proposing a day of quiet for all Americans; by being "hushed and silent," he said, "we should have the opportunity to hear what other people think."
Cage enrolled at Pomona College in Claremont, California, as a theology major in 1928. At Pomona, he encountered the work of the artist Marcel Duchamp via Professor José Pijoan, of the writer James Joyce via Don Sample, of the philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy, and of the composer Henry Cowell. In 1930, he dropped out of Pomona, having come to believe that "college was of no use to a writer" after an incident described in his 1991 autobiographical statement:
Cage persuaded his parents that a trip to Europe would be more beneficial to a future writer than college studies. He subsequently hitchhiked to Galveston, Texas, and sailed from there to Le Havre, France, from where he took a train to Paris. Cage stayed in Europe for 18 months, trying his hand at various forms of art. First, he studied Gothic and Greek architecture, but decided he was not interested enough in architecture to dedicate his life to it. He then took up painting, poetry and music. It was in Europe that, encouraged by his teacher Lazare Lévy,John Cage, National Inter-Collegiate Arts Conference, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie (New York), February 28, 1948. he first heard the music of contemporary composers (such as Igor Stravinsky and Paul Hindemith) and finally got to know the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, which he had not experienced before.
After several months in Paris, Cage's enthusiasm for America was revived after he read Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. He wanted to return immediately, but his parents, with whom he regularly exchanged letters during the entire trip, persuaded him to stay in Europe for a little longer and explore the continent. Cage started traveling, visiting various places in France, Germany, and Spain, as well as Capri in Italy and, most importantly, Mallorca, Spain, where he started composing. His first compositions were created using dense mathematical formulas, but Cage was displeased with the results and left the finished pieces behind when he left. Cage's association with theater also started in Europe: during a walk in Seville he witnessed, in his own words, "the multiplicity of simultaneous visual and audible events all going together in one's experience and producing enjoyment."Cage quoted in .
1931–1936: Apprenticeship
Cage returned to the United States in 1931. He went to Santa Monica, California, where he made a living partly by giving small, private lectures on contemporary art. He got to know various important figures of the Southern California art world, including arts patron Galka Scheyer and his later composition teacher Richard Buhlig. By 1933, Cage had decided to concentrate on music rather than painting. "The people who heard my music had better things to say about it than the people who looked at my paintings had to say about my paintings", Cage later explained. In 1933, he sent some of his compositions to Henry Cowell; the reply was a "rather vague letter",Cage quoted in . in which Cowell suggested that Cage study with Arnold Schoenberg—Cage's musical ideas at the time included composition based on a 25-tone row, somewhat similar to Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique. Cowell also advised that, before approaching Schoenberg, Cage should take some preliminary lessons, and recommended Adolph Weiss, a former Schoenberg pupil. Weiss had been asked by Schoenberg to be his assistant and to train students who might not be ready for Schoenberg's teaching.
Following Cowell's advice, Cage traveled to New York City in 1933 and started studying with Weiss as well as taking lessons from Cowell himself at The New School. He supported himself financially by taking up a job washing walls at a YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association) in Brooklyn. Cage's routine during that period was apparently very tiring, with just four hours of sleep on most nights, and four hours of composition every day starting at 4 am. Several months later, still in 1933, Cage became sufficiently good at composition to approach Schoenberg. He could not afford Schoenberg's price, and when he mentioned it, the older composer asked whether Cage would devote his life to music. After Cage replied that he would, Schoenberg offered to tutor him free of charge.This conversation was recounted many times by Cage himself: see Silence, p. 261; A Year from Monday, p. 44; interviews quoted in .
Cage studied with Schoenberg in California first at the University of Southern California and then at the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as privately. The older composer became one of the biggest influences on Cage, who "literally worshipped him", particularly as an example of how to live one's life being a composer. The vow Cage gave, to dedicate his life to music, was apparently still important some 40 years later, when Cage "had no need for it [i.e. writing music]", he continued composing partly because of the promise he gave.Cage interview quoted in . Schoenberg's methods and their influence on Cage are well documented by Cage himself in various lectures and writings. Particularly well-known is the conversation mentioned in the 1958 lecture Indeterminacy:
Cage studied with Schoenberg for two years, but although he admired his teacher, he decided to leave after Schoenberg told his students that he was trying to make it impossible for them to write music. Much later, Cage recounted the incident: "... When he said that, I revolted, not against him, but against what he had said. I determined then and there, more than ever before, to write music." Although Schoenberg was not impressed with Cage's compositional abilities during these two years, in a later interview, where he initially said that none of his American pupils were interesting, he further stated in reference to Cage: "There was one ... of course he's not a composer, but he's an inventor—of genius." Cage would later adopt the "inventor" moniker and deny that he was a composer.Broyles M. (2004).Mavericks and Other Traditions in American Music, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, (p. 177).
At some point in 1934–35, Cage met artist Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff while working at his mother's arts and crafts shop,. She was the Alaskan-born daughter of a Russian priest; her work encompassed fine bookbinding, sculpture and collage. Although Cage was involved in relationships with Don Sample and with architect Rudolph Schindler's wife Pauline, he fell in love with Xenia immediately. Cage and Kashevaroff were married in Yuma, Arizona, on June 7, 1935.For details on Cage's first meeting with Xenia, see ; for details on Cage's homosexual relationship with Don Sample, an American he met in Europe, as well as details on the Cage-Kashevaroff marriage, see .
1937–1949: Modern dance and Eastern influences