[silence] Messiaen & Cage

[Charles Turner]

I think the (sometimes specious) power of harmonic motion lies the way it manipulates the expectations of the listener.  A dominant harmony in a certain rhythmic context (surely the most obvious example) causes the listener to expect a resolution at some predictable time, and when the resolution to tonic does not occur on time, the listener's expectation is heightened.  In certain pieces, this principle is taken to extremes (I am thinking of the Liebestod in 'Tristan und Isolde') so that (for some people, at least) the long-delayed resolution is quite orgasmic.  

Also, having lots of musicians play/sing together at once to produce a result that sounds orderly implies that there is some authoritarian hand (the composer) that is directing everybody's actions.  I think that Cage might have disliked the idea that his own work could be authoritarian in that sense.

There is a story that Cage once heard a performance of the 'Hallelujah Chorus', and a friend asked him 'Weren't you moved by it?' and Cage said "I like to be moved, but I don't like to be pushed."

I like that story, because I really think that Cage was onto something when he implies that (functional) harmony can seem coercive, and it seems obvious that commercial interests (films, TV commercials, rock bands, etc) use it that way.  You might say that the Liebestod is telling (or forcing) the listener to feel emotion.  

For me, sheer loudness often seems coercive, for example certain pieces of Messiaen in his 'monumental' mode that do not use functional harmony seem oppressive to me because they seem to blast away for long stretches of time for no good reason.

On the other hand, large numbers of people (I include myself) quite enjoy being coerced by Wagner, Handel, and U2.  It is difficult to imagine any of Cage's music achieving that kind of popular acceptance (or being exploited by large commercial interests...).

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Rob Haskins wrote:
> I don't think anyone has brought up this written Cage criticism of 
> Messiaen:
> 
> It is, incidentally, the emphasis on harmony in Messiaen’s music which 
> accounts for its occasional bad taste.  This element, harmony, is not 
> medieval nor Oriental but baroque.  Because of its ability to enlarge 
> sound and thus to impress an audience, it has become in our time the 
> tool of Western commercialism.
> 
> from “The East in the West,” in John Cage: Writer, ed. Richard 
> Kostelanetz, p. 24–25.  The original article was published in /Modern 
> Music/ 23, no. 2 (April 1946): 111–15.
> 
> I've often wondered what piece Cage had in mind when he made this remark.

If I might take a stab at this -- Harmony draws interest from the 
interactions of two or more sounds, not merely coincidence or 
superimposition.  Harmony also tends toward a perception of the 
resulting combination rather than individual tones.  In this way, 
harmony is a form of sonic multiplication rather than sonic addition.

Any connection to Western commercialism is less clear.  To extend the 
analogy, I might submit that harmony uses "cheaper" materials to produce 
complex sonorities with greater "added value", therefore more "profit" 
than other types of sound combinations.

--Mark

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