[microsound] Re: the Cage fire...

[Richard Zvonar <zvonar@xxxxxxxxxx>]

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At 10:25 PM -0400 7/11/03, Adam Overton wrote:

>[Cage] gets very livid and nearly jumps down the throat of one of 
>the questioners who has just stated "but listening to records can be 
>very useful " ...he also wrote or stated something like "the music i 
>find most interesting is that which i haven't yet heard,"...of 
>course he doesn't say, Don't listen to recordings, or Don't make 
>recordings. he just says that he's very content with not listening 
>to them

A few years back John Cage was composer in residence at the Cabrillo 
Music Festival in Santa Cruz, and as part of his residency he was 
commissioned to compose a new piece for performance at the Mission 
San Juan Bautista. The piece was for four chamber ensembles deployed 
at four spatially separate locations in the sanctuary.

I was the live sound engineer for the festival, so John asked me 
about getting a recording of the piece. I explained to him that 
recording was being done by the radio crew. After the evening concert 
he asked me again about getting a copy of the recording and I 
reminded him that I'd previously told him that the radio crew would 
arrange it. He broke into one of his beatific smiles and said, "I 
suppose it's really on my mind."

At another point during this festival we were preparing a performance 
of "Credo in Us," which includes a part for radio or phonograph. 
Although the recorded material to be used is not specified in the 
score, John showed up to the first rehearsal with a copy of Dvorak's 
"New World Symphony" and asked us to use it. In other circumstances 
he has suggested the use of recordings by Dvorak, Beethoven, Sibelius 
or Shostakovich.

So from my experience John's attitude toward recordings was not 
simple and invariant. He certainly found recordings of his own music 
useful (and not just as a source of income) and he often used 
recordings of other music as collage elements in his own pieces.
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______________________________________________________________
Richard Zvonar, PhD
(818) 788-2202
http://www.zvonar.com
http://RZCybernetics.com
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