[silence] silence Digest, Vol 79, Issue 13

[John Kennedy]

If I am not mistaken, I think we have been through this topic some  
years ago on this list. Since I have led these works as well,  
including the recording of 103, I feel obliged to contribute a longer  
opinion about the approach to these pieces, so forgive me in advance –  
but I think it is a very very important topic for interpreters of  
Cage, that should be thought of as an opportunity to advance our  
performance practice of these works. I also have led, with Andrew  
Culver, multiple performances of “Ocean”, the work for 112 musicians  
Cage conceived before his death that Andrew completed/composed in  
Cage’s number piece method. It is regrettable that John did not have  
the good fortune of Elliot Carter, so he could weigh in.

All music deserves multiple interpretations, and the ambiguity of  
Cage’s instructions certainly makes space for this in his music –  
which I believe he intended as a means of forsaking specific  
intention, and for every performance to be different. Isn’t this very  
clear? Oral tradition in music is significant. But beware of anyone  
who claims that their connection of working with Cage gives them a  
special authority.  He was extremely ecumenical in working with many,  
was famously generous towards those who exhibited sincere interest but  
an incomplete understanding of his work (which we all have), and there  
is no evidence whatsoever that any specific interpreters of the work  
of his last 25 years received any confirmed “interpretive authority”  
other than his enthusiastic enjoyment and praise for hearing things  
anew.

It is preposterous to think that having worked with a composer, one  
can claim special privilege, let alone broad interpretive latitude to  
the extent of violating instructions in the score to make it more  
“faithful”. I have worked with many of the leading composers of our  
time in conducting performances of their work, and discussing their  
work, and I would never pretend that any such contact has led to  
anything more than a discretely unique collaboration and  
interpretation at that moment in time. What I learned is useful but  
not gospel.

But specific to Cage – can anyone take seriously the idea that to get  
a proper interpretation, it music be administered by an authority  
figure, a governing musical master who makes sure that rules are  
enforced and no chance of accident is possible? Read Cage’s writings  
describing 103; read his notes for 101. Is he wrong? What is most  
profound about these works is the possibility that every performance  
can be a truly different musical event, and this principle should not  
be undermined. And I would say as well, that while they might create  
“anarchic harmony”, observing these works “ideally” from my  
perspective is not about achieving an anarchic ideal. The pieces are  
structures for the exertion of disciplined freedom – but not anarchy.

While I am not familiar with what specific interpretive applications  
might have triggered this discussion, in my opinion, anyone who  
“arranges” a late Cage score to pre-determine what individual  
musicians execute at a given time, has immediately revealed their  
ignorance of Cage’s work and their disrespect for his core aesthetic,  
and disqualifies themselves from claiming any sense of expertise  
regarding the work. Perhaps we might be more charitable and say that  
if one thinks of the orchestra as one instrument, it might be possible  
to conceive of it as an execution like the mid-career pieces requiring  
operations to make a score. But there is no evidence that 103 is  
anything other than a work for 103 people without conductor, and it is  
impossible to think that Cage would have endorsed this – the most  
basic nature of the work is violated by such arrogance. We would never  
accept the inverse proposition, of a highly ordered work by Boulez  
being deconstructed to modules for better effect. Because Cage left  
space for possibility and unknowns, and trusted the judgment of  
individuals, this needs to be fixed??? This is a laughable construct –  
these are finished works constructed the way the composer intended.

I was the “conductor” of the 103 performance at Spoleto on the Mode  
DVD, done by an orchestra of young professionals (some were members of  
the New World Symphony) and grad students from major conservatories. I  
sat in the audience for the performance, as my work was done in  
rehearsal – mostly sectionals for discussing techniques particular to  
each instrumental group. Maybe some of you don’t like this recording,  
but it was the product of a rehearsal process which respects the  
intelligence of musicians, which outlines the possible parameters of  
their performance actions, and which takes a broad view of Cage’s  
notations.

But really, the most interesting question raised in this discussion to  
me is if a performance by Berlin or the Chicago would somehow sound  
more wonderful if observed “faithfully”. The values of such orchestras  
– uniformity in string style on wonderful instruments, homogeneous  
wind sound, technical virtuosity – are not necessarily useful to a  
work composed in the style of 103. The sheer number of string players  
in these works, liberated from playing 5 parts by section (VN I, VN  
II, VA, VC, CB) to individual parts, means that you are asking over  
half of the orchestra to play in an individualist manner to which they  
are unaccustomed. Instead of matching texture and bow, they should be  
choosing from a palette of techniques that are ever-changing. It is  
also an open question if an orchestra should tune together before  
these pieces perhaps besides agreeing on 440. What is a “B” in these  
pieces? Like the Variations of the early 1960s, every musician is the  
“conductor” of their own part, with their own governance. The number  
pieces after all, are 103 or whatever parts, not a score for an  
ensemble. To me, a certain deviance of agreement on pitch makes these  
works more interesting, the clouds and textures more faithful to the  
richness and breadth of the possibility of a sound. A “B” on a violin  
can be more than one thing.

You can hear on the 103 recording two very different notions of  
approaching the work. The WDR performance, to me, sounds like a  
veteran orchestra wrestling with the material while trying to maintain  
the usual conformity to how a violin is normally bowed and how it  
should sound. It is one way, with its own virtues. The Spoleto  
performance is darker and has more textural complexity, because we  
worked with the notion of non-uniformity of sound.

As for the readiness of musicians to interpret these works: musicians,  
like all people, can be inspired to excellence in this kind of  
situation if they gain the understanding that the composer is asking  
them to collaborate in something extraordinarily different than their  
usual fare. It is like children - if you treat someone like they are a  
bad kid who is on the verge of making mistakes because they do not  
have your knowledge, chances are they resist and become a bad kid. If  
you treat them like they might be brilliant, they will aspire to that.  
If you get excited by their success and creativity in learning this  
new thing, and you praise them, they will learn this new mode of  
performance and grow. I have found the enthusiasm and dedication of  
musicians in these works to be extraordinary when the concepts and  
rules of the work are presented to them as a shared discussion and  
understanding, requiring their collaboration – a challenge which  
appeals to their best instincts. They respond to these works as if  
they have been given a gift. And it is certain that the individual  
instrumental expertise of musicians, in conceiving of a palette of  
sounds, textures, and activity, is core to achieving the result Cage  
would have wanted.

In short, they will develop into the individuals that Cage hoped for.  
His music is a place for social possibility, and it is not about right  
and wrong notes. Give me a performance that has the correct social  
spirit, with a handful of dullards or bad apples, over an  
authoritarian dictation of specific actions which have stripped the  
music of its true gestalt.

Music is broad and music is generous. Cage was an especially generous  
person. I cringe at any treatment of his work that closes the sense of  
expansiveness and inclusion, into a narrow interpretation that  
pretends it gets the one best way to do it. Cage’s music is no  
different that any other music – it benefits from multiple  
interpretations, and it suffers from those who say that it must be  
done a certain way. In any case, we tip our hat to all advocates of  
Cage’s work and only wish that this kind of worthy musical discussion  
was being held in the wider halls of the music world which these  
pieces deserve.
- John Kennedy