[silence] Cage's calligraphic scores

[kos@panix.com]

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007, kkrka kr <haajg5@gmail.com>

> By "calligraphic" I mean that the scores are carefully prepared handwritten
> copies that all conform to a particular typeface.

"Particular typeface"?  What I think you mean is "handwriting style."

After the mid-1930s, Cage's handwriting style in his scores is pretty much 
established.  By that time (at least for "finished" scores) he was measuring 
the spacing of measures (often a measure is 1 inch long), and 
judging the spacial position of notes as well.

> its just
> that they are not simply autographs, but very neat, specially prepared
> autographs (I remember an illustration from a book showing a draft of the
> prepared piano concerto, which didn't have any kind of typeface and looked
> very different from the score).

It's really a simple matter that most composers know:  When you can't afford 
copyists, you learn how to write neatly.  That doesn't mean that you need to 
write neatly all the time.  If you're sketching out material for yourself, of 
course you don't need to go through the trouble of calculating physical 
distance of everything on the page.

> Its clear that Cage did not use the same kind of handwriting in daily life
> (a letter from 1950:
> http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/music/2-2.jpgand one from 1984:

As I'm sure you'll discover, when you get older, your handwriting changes.

> http://www.alvincurran.com/Cage%20letter.jpg ), so the typeface used in the
> scores must've been specially invented for them. Hence, "calligraphy". Of
> course, I may be wrong about it all, but I've seen his scores described as
> "calligraphic" many times.

Typeface implies a machine reproduction.  But up to a certain point, Cage wrote 
his scores by hand, so it's called "manuscript."

> Oh, and the relationship with Edition Peters started in 1960, so for at
> least 10 years he supplied them with handwritten scores, rather than asking
> to typeset them - which he could've done easily by that time, I think.

Do you have any idea how much it costs to engrave a page?  For good quality 
reproductions, they didn't do typesetting of music in the 1960s - it was all 
done by hand.  Today, publishers like Henle and Baerenretier scores are still 
done entirely by hand.  A few years ago, that cost was about $1,000 a page.  I 
once spoke with Carl Schachter about the creation of the textbook he co-authored 
with Felix Salzer, "Counterpoint in Composition" (published in 1969, but 
gestating throughout the 1960s).  All the musical examples in that book were 
hand-engraved, and he said the cost for each example was enormous (several 
hundred dollars), so they had to choose their examples judiciously.

I surmise that Cage's scores were not "typeset" (i.e. were not written out by a 
professional copyist) simply because it would have been exorbitant, based on 
the rate of return of the investment.  Of course, by the time you get to the 
number pieces in 1984, that's what Peters was doing, since Cage's reputation 
had risen.


Bob Kosovsky, Ph.D. -- Curator, Rare Books and Manuscripts,
Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
   Listowner: OPERA-L ; SMT-TALK ; SMT-ANNOUNCE ; SoundForge-users
--- My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my institutions ---