[silence] Cage's calligraphic scores

[Caleb Deupree]

I'm not sure what you mean by "calligraphic."  Many of Cage's scores  
are hand-written, with the degree of readability being variable.   
Sometimes the hand-written notation was intended to express some  
performance peculiarity, and sometimes I think it was just hand- 
written.  I don't see much difference in the hand-written quality of  
the scores between Cheap Imitation and, say, The Perilous Night, from  
1944.

Kathan Brown's book on Cage's visual art contains some interesting  
background.  She points out that Cage was engaged in painting prior to  
his meeting with Schoenberg in 1934, and that he lectured on art and  
music during the depression.  All of the early scores that I have are  
hand written, even ones that were later typeset.  He had no publisher  
until his relationship with Edition Peters, which couldn't have  
happened too early.  So, since he had a documented interest in  
painting and no affordable access to typesetting, it was probably a  
necessary step to create his scores by hand.  But, as Brown also  
points out, he also recognized that the scores were a means to an end,  
so when he started creating etchings, prints and other visual  
materials as specific works (in 1977), he was an established composer,  
and Peters probably typeset any of his new scores that he wanted.

On Dec 16, 2007, at 4:54 AM, kkrka kr wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm looking for information on Cage's calligraphic scores. More  
> specifically, I'd like to know when and why did he start doing  
> these, and when and why did he stop. So far, I found absolutely no  
> information on this in any of the books I checked. These include the  
> following -
>
> - James Pritchett's "The Music of John Cage"
> - Richard Kostelanetz's "Conversing with Cage"
> - David Nicholls' "The Cambridge Companion to Cage"
> and Cage's own "Silence".
>
> From the scores I have, I can surmize that he probably started doing  
> calligraphic ones in 1940s, perhaps as early as 1942 (the "The  
> Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs" score I have is calligraphic,  
> although the ones for early prepared piano works are not). The 1969  
> Cheap Imitation score seems to be calligraphic (I don't have it, but  
> there's a scan on the Net - see http://www.ubu.com/concept/images/cage_cheap_02.jpg 
>  ), as are the 1970 Song Books, but the bits I saw from the scores  
> of Etudes Australes (1974), Freeman Etudes (1977), Cheap Imitation  
> violin transcription (1977) and time bracket pieces are not  
> calligraphic.
>
> I'll be very grateful for any details on this topic, as well as any  
> sources (page numbers in books, dissertations, articles..) that have  
> them. The only possible clue I could find (accidentally, while  
> searching books.google.com) is in a little biographical article on  
> Mark Tobey in "The Saints of Modern Art: The Ascetic Ideal in  
> Contemporary Painting" by Charles A. Riley. It mentions a Chinese  
> student, Teng Kuei, who studied at the Cornish School when Cage was  
> there, and introduced Tobey to Chinese calligraphy - could he do the  
> same for Cage?

---
Caleb Deupree
ctdeupree@sbcglobal.net
http://classicaldrone.blogspot.com