John Cage

John Cage (1912--1992) defined a radical practice of composition thatchanged the course of modern music and shaped a new conceptual horizon for postwarart. Famous for his use of chance and "silence" in musical works, apioneer in electronic music and the nonstandard use of instruments, Cage was one ofthe most influential composers of the last century. This volume traces a trajectoryof writings on the artist, from the earliest critical reactions to the scholarshipof today. If the first writing on Cage in the American context, often written byclose associates with Cage's involvement, seemed lacking in critical distance, younger scholars--a generation removed--have recently begun to approach the legacyfrom a new perspective, with more developed theoretical frameworks and greaterskepticism. This book captures that evolution. The texts include discussions ofCage's work in the context of the New Music scene in Germany in the 1950s; YvonneRainer's essay looking back on Cage and New York experimentalism of the 1960s; acomplex and original mapping of Cage's place in a wider avant-garde genealogy thatincludes Le Corbusier and Moholy-Nagy; a musicologist's account of Cage's process ofdefining and formalizing his concept of indeterminacy; and an analysis of Cage'sproject that considers his strategies of self-representation as key to his uniqueimpact on modern and postmodern art.