How the works and teachings of Henry Cowell influenced the compositions of John Cage up to c.1950. |
By: Roger Hansford |
John Cage (1912-1992) might have been the first to deny any influence of Henry Cowell (1897-1965) upon his own works: ‘it is clear that ways must be discovered that allow noises and tones to be just noises and tones, not exponents subservient to . . . imagination’, he wrote in his ‘History of Experimental Music in the United States’ (1968, p.69), identifying musical sound as a self-sufficient entity independent from input by the foregoing composers in history. As David Nicholls (1990, p.216) puts it, however, ‘no one is born an orphan, especially among composers’. Thus when Cowell, writing in ‘Current Chronicle: New York’ in 1952, defined Cage’s aesthetics:
‘A concentration upon unfamiliar relationships of space and time, and sound and silence, rather than on new melodies and chords, and a conviction that all musical relationships, whether arrived at by chance or by design, have potential value . . .’
Gann 1997, p.211
he was describing aspects which he himself had helped bring about. Cowell’s influence - both musical and conceptual - can be seen in all the major works of Cage’s early period, including the Constructions in Metal, the Imaginary Landscapes, and the prepared piano works including Sonatas and Interludes. In order fully to understand the extent of Cowell’s impact on Cage’s early works, though, we should also acknowledge the influence of other composers and teachers and, not least, assess Cage’s own original role.
Cowell, in fact, is just one of a number of people said to have influenced John Cage. Alan Rich (1995, p.142) mentions two figures: Cage’s father John Milton, a maritime inventor during World War I, and Henry David Thoreau, inventor of a process in lead pencil manufacture, who may have led to Cage’s stance as ‘not a composer, but an inventor. Of genius’ (Nicholls 1990, p.217). Thoreau, at least from the 1960s, certainly stimulated Cage’s desire to appreciate every sound of the environment with his statement that ‘music is continuous, only listening is intermittent’ (Rich 1995, p.172). Cage’s view that ‘everything we do is music’, together with his exploration of sounds from everyday objects, has close links with Oscar Fischinger’s idea that ‘everything in the world has its own spirit, which can be released by setting it into vibration’ (Rich 1995, pp.168,147). Another important conceptual influence post-1950 came from David Tudor and the New York School; their belief that music could be freed from ‘the need for sounds to relate to one another’ may have stimulated Cage’s desire to ‘get rid of the glue so that sounds would be themselves’ (Rich 1995, pp.159,169). Even the piece Rich (1995, pp.141-2) describes as Cage’s most famous has been linked to a source other than Cowell: 4’33’’ is an aural equivalent to Robert Rauschenberg’s plain white paintings, made ‘dynamic’ only by the shadows from movement of people in the art gallery. Therefore, many important elements of Cage’s eventual conceptual aesthetic came from sources other than Cowell.
Even when the focus is turned towards musical influences to 1950, Cowell does not have the monopoly. Cage admired Edgard Varèse as the person who ‘fathered forth noise into twentieth-century music’ (Cage 1968, p.69), perhaps a reference to Varèse’s use of sirens in Ionisation (Nicholls 1990, p.190). Arnold Schoenberg was also important to Cage, pointing out Cage’s ineptitude at composition structured by harmonic progression, and thereby encouraging him to adopt a radical, experimental approach to music: forever banging his head defiantly against Schoenberg’s ‘wall’ of harmony (Nicholls 1990, pp.216-7). Other musical influences may be less important but are nevertheless present. Nicholls describes how the writings of Gertrude Stein, and the music of Eric Satie, Virgil Thompson, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Skryabin and Crawford (Nicholls 1990, pp.175,205) led to different aspects of Cage’s work. Other authors list influences from a wide range of teachers and composers including Debussy (Rich 1995, p.152), Buhlig (Pritchett 1993, p.7), Charles Seeger, Adolph Weiss, Johanna Beyer, William Russell, Webern, and even Mozart (Bernstein 2002, pp.65-6,69-70,80). Therefore Cage absorbed influences from a wide range of sources, and not from Cowell alone.
Nevertheless, Cowell did have a strong influence on the early works of John Cage, one so profound that Cage himself could acknowledge Cowell as ‘the open sesame for new music in America’ (Cage 1968, p.71). Cowell’s influence can be seen most clearly in Cage’s works for prepared piano from 1943-44; these include repetitive dance pieces like Totem Ancestor, Root of an Unfocus, Tossed as it is Untroubled and The Unavailable Memory of, as well as more expressive concert works such as Amores (Bernstein 2002, pp.78-9). The pieces depend on the insertion of a gamut of ‘foreign objects’ like rubber, metal, wood and paper into the strings of the piano (Griffiths 1994, p.110). In this way they draw upon techniques pioneered in Cowell’s ‘Varian’ piano pieces. In Cowell’s The Aeolian Harp, ‘all tones and chords are produced by striking the strings rather than the keys of the piano’, and The Banshee has a structure designed around soft-sounding ‘flesh’ sections and more metallic-sounding ‘nail’ sections, according to which part of the finger sounds the strings (Johnson 1997, pp.24,26). Nicholls (1990, p.160) describes some of Cowell’s invasive techniques: the performer can play glissandi on strings with the pads or tips of the finger, and can also pluck strings and strike them with the palm of the hand. Cowell’s insertion of a metal object into the piano, introducing a ‘sound-producing/sound-altering medium other than the performer’s hands’, links his technique even more directly to that of Cage (Nicholls 1990, p.164) Even non-invasive Cowell pieces such as The Tides of Manaunaun and The Voice of Lir, with their tone clusters (Johnson 1997, pp.17, 21), introduced the idea of innovative and dissonant use of the piano. Therefore there is both a similarity of technique between Cowell’s Varian pieces (Burn 1993) and Cage’s prepared piano pieces (Quin 2001), and a similarity of sound, showing that Cowell’s influence on Cage’s early works was a considerable one.
If Cowell inspired Cage’s prepared piano works then he can also be linked to performance issues arising from the works: not least the issues of chance and noise which were to dominate Cage’s works to 1950, and beyond. Steffen Schleiermacher (1997) draws attention to the chance elements of the prepared piano works. Not only are the tempo and dynamics of the works partially decided by the performer, but a number of more complex ambiguities arise from their ‘non-pianistic’ nature. Preparation tables are provided but it is not always clear exactly where in the piano the metal objects should be placed, either in relation to the dampers or according to the ‘choirs’ -- the number of strings per note -- in the particular piano being used. The tone colour of the work can vary considerably according to the use of rubber materials, and extraneous rattling can result when no insulation tape is used. (Schleiermacher 1997, pp.6-9) Therefore, although the prepared piano works are conventionally notated, the sound of the music especially in the earlier examples may ‘bear virtually no resemblance’ (Nicholls 1990, p.212) to that suggested by the score. In this way the prepared piano works contain the element of chance that would cause critics to have difficulty describing Cage as a ‘composer’ (Pritchett 1993, p.1). From the still ‘fully composed’ chance works like Music of Changes would grow the indeterminate works (Griffiths 1994, p.118-20), in which Cage would have ‘no ideas as to what would be pleasing’ because he wanted to create works ‘free of musical taste’ and free from tradition (Nyman 1999, pp.60,62). 4’33’’ - a piece completely given over to sounds not chosen by the composer - was already in preparation from 1948 (Kuhn 2001, pp.797-8). In taking up the sound medium of the piano which Cowell had pioneered, Cage may therefore have discovered the aesthetic issues that would drive his technique before 1950 from ‘choice’ to ‘chance’, and affect the rest of his career. This influence, although indirect, makes Cowell of primary importance in the early works of John Cage.
Indeterminacy was not the only aesthetic which Cowell’s use of the string piano would inspire in John Cage. By encouraging Cage to treat the piano as a percussion ensemble (Griffiths 1990, p.110), Cowell helped provide what Cage called the ‘transition’ to ‘the all-sound music of the future’, because ‘any sound is acceptable to the composer of percussion music’ (Cage 1968, p.5). On a more practical level we know that it was Cowell who suggested Cage should visit junkyards and begin exploring the sounds of “found” objects (Rich 1995, p.147). Therefore it is possible to view Cage’s percussion works as the manifestation of a Cowell-inspired vision. The Second Construction of 1940 actually includes a string piano, while the First Construction (In Metal) of 1939 utilises brake drums and a thundersheet (Bernstein 2002, p.74). According to Griffiths, the prepared piano also introduced Cage to fine timbral adjustments and therefore led him towards the electronic techniques (Griffiths 1994, p.110) which, along with noise, were integral to his ‘future of music’ (Cage 1968, p.3). Thus Imaginary Landscape No. 2 has ‘parts for an electronic buzzer and a radio aerial coil’, played - in true Cowell fashion - with the performer’s fingernail plus a handkerchief, while Imaginary Landscape No. 3 includes parts for an audio frequency oscillator and variable-speed turntables that imitate a generator whine (Bernstein 2002, pp.75-6). Therefore, although Cage’s vision of music including noise emanates from sources other than Cowell, the percussive and electronic means by which he realised this vision can be linked to Cage’s use of the string piano, as Cage (1968, p.71) himself acknowledged.
It was not only through his compositions that Cowell was able to affect Cage’s early works. Cowell was also a theorist and his New Musical Resources is said to have influenced many later composers (Gann 1997, pp.171-2). Nicholls (1990, p.190) suggests that although features of Cage’s aesthetic can not always be traced specifically to New Musical Resources, some aspects of his work can; these include the theories of sliding tones which may have brought about Cage’s use of the unusual sound sources in Imaginary Landscape No. 1 and the three Constructions. Another of Cowell’s pitch-related ideas in New Musical Resources is that of ‘dissonant counterpoint’ (Cowell 1996, pp.35-42). This is the reverse of the conventional system of harmony: ‘dissonance, rather than consonance, is the norm [and] consonance is resolved by dissonance’ (Bernstein 2002, p.65). This again points towards Cage’s interest in noise, as, like Cowell’s use of tone clusters (Cowell 1996, pp.117-139), it removes the emphasis only on sounds that are aesthetically pleasant. Also, Cowell’s idea that music involving the repeated restatement of a consonant tonic was a form of ‘tautology’ (Cowell 1996, p. 42) is echoed by Cage with his belief that music of any future worth should be ‘free from the concept of a fundamental tone’ (Cage 1968, p.5). Therefore Cowell’s influence as theorist was just as strong as his influence as composer in Cage’s early works.
Cowell’s ideas on rhythm in New Musical Resources, because of their quality (Gann 1997, p.176), are particularly likely to have influenced future composers like Cage. Gann (1997, p.180) takes Cowell’s broad definition of rhythm - something ‘covering all instances of musical phenomena undefinable as sound’ - to mean that ‘rhythm is the form to be filled, sound is the material with which it is filled, and thus form becomes the macro-level of rhythm’. Many descriptions of Cage’s rhythmic structures echo this. Michael Hall (1996, p.187) believes that each part of any form used by Cage acts as an ‘empty container’, while Michael Nyman (1999, p.61) suggests that Music of Changes is structured by ‘lengths that exist only in space’ and are differentiated by the number of simultaneities occurring within each. N. Catherine Hayles (1994, p.231) writes that Cage’s work is ‘a performance of time, as well as a performance in time’, and Pritchett (1993, pp.13,14,16) believes that the notion of compositions ‘as time structures’ was used in Imaginary Landscape No. 1 and the Constructions. If Cage did use Cowell’s rhythmic ideas to determine his forms this would certainly reflect his view that form would be future music’s only real connection with the past (Cage 1968, p.5-6), and that rhythm was the only aspect of music underpinning both sound and silence (Griffiths 1994, p.118).
Nicholls believes that it is the section of New Musical Resources on ‘Tempo’ (Cowell 1996, pp.90-8) that most directly influenced the structures Cage used, including “square-root form” (Cowell 1996, p.173). A good example of “square-root form” is the First Construction (In Metal). Based on the manner in which dancers think in “counts”, the piece has sixteen timbres arranged in sixteen sections of sixteen bars in 4/4 time, and sixteen rhythmic motives; the cycle of rhythmic motives, and the phrasing of the bars, is determined by the ratio 4: 3: 2: 3: 4 (Hall 1996, p.186). This structure may be compared to the diagram in New Musical Resources (p.95), which shows how tempo can be changed across a certain number of bars to create ‘sliding rhythm’, according to a set ‘arithmetical ratio’ (Cowell 1996, pp.94-5). Such a mathematical ratio would have attracted Cage as it freed music from the ‘psychological intentions’ of the composer (Cage 1968, p.71), and he often drew on the structures Cowell used in practice, such as in Rhythmicana, Pulse, and the music for string quartet (Nicholls 1990, pp.192,199,207,213). Therefore we see that Cowell as rhythmic theorist, and as practitioner, was a major influence on form in Cage’s early works.
Cowell also had more direct contact with Cage through the ethnomusicological lectures he gave (Nicholls 1990, p.184), and we know from Lou Harrison’s personal account that Cowell could effectively encourage composers to draw on ethnic musics (Harrison 1997, p.161). An important ethnically-inspired piece of Cage’s early work is Sonatas and Interludes, which explores the eight Bhavas of Indian aesthetics - the odious, anger, mirth, fear, sorrow, the erotic, the heroic, and wonder - plus their combined ninth effect of tranquility (Bernstein 2002, p.81). It is perhaps the incorporation of these “permanent emotions” that causes Pritchett (1993, p.35) to view Sonatas and Interludes as Cage’s most effective work to 1950. Although the piece draws specifically on Ananda K. Coomaraswamy’s The Dance of Shiva and the Transformation of Nature in Art (Schleiermacher 1997, p.10), the fact that Cage was using non-Western influences can ultimately be attributed to Cowell. So too can Cage’s other uses of Asian aesthetics: the rhythmic structures, the I-Ching-controlled chance techniques in Music of Changes (Griffiths 1994, p.118), and even indeterminacy itself (Hall 1996, p.186). Therefore we see that Cowell as lecturer in ethnomusicology influenced many of the most effective aesthetics driving Cage’s works to 1950 and after.
Thus Cowell had an extensive influence on the works of John Cage, and although not the sole inspiration for Cage’s vision of future music, he did play a key technical role - through his compositions, his treatise and his lectures - in enabling Cage to manifest his vision. Since Cage was, as Hines (1994, p.65) puts it, already becoming “Cage” in his early years, we can see that Cowell’s influence was to reach far beyond 1950. This does not mean, however, that Cage’s works are simply a continuation of Cowell’s. For Cowell, music was ‘all attempts man has made . . . to fashion tonal and rhythmical material’ (Cowell 1996, p.143), while for Cage it was ‘the point of disagreement . . . between noise and so-called musical sounds’ (Cage 1968, p.4). Therefore the works of Cage show considerable aesthetic development compared to the works of Cowell. This may be due to what Nicholls (2002, p.16) describes as Cage’s ‘spirit of musical adventurousness’, something he inherited from the inventive Cowell (Lichtenwanger 1997, p.149). While it would be superficial to say that Cage’s music was influenced by Cowell because their characters were similar, it certainly seems that both composers were able to synthesise a diverse range of stimuli and then apply their own invention. Thus the statement attributed to Henry Cowell - that he lived in ‘the whole world of music’ (Nicholls 1990, p.134) - could just as easily apply to John Cage.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bernstein, D. (2002)
‘Music I: To the Late 1940s’ in D. Nicholls (Ed.) The Cambridge Companion to John Cage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 63-84.
Burn, C. (1993)
A Henry Cowell Concert. Chris Burn, piano. London: Acta Records.
Cage, J. (1968)
Silence: Lectures and Writings. London: Calder & Boyars.
Cowell, H. (1996)
New Musical Resources (1930) D. Nicholls (Ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gann, K. (1997)
‘Subversive Prophet: Henry Cowell as Theorist and Critic’ in D. Nicholls (Ed.) The Whole World of Music: A Henry Cowell Symposium. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. 171-222.
Griffiths, P. (1994)
Modern Music: A Concise History. 2nd Ed. London: Thames & Hudson.
Hall, M. (1996)
Leaving Home: A Conducted Tour of Twentieth Century Music with Simon Rattle. London: Faber & Faber Ltd.
Harrison, L. (1997)
‘Learning from Henry’ in D. Nicholls (Ed.) The Whole World of Music: A Henry Cowell Symposium. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. 161-168.
Hayles, N. K. (1994)
‘Chance Operations: Cagean Paradox and Contemporary Science’ in M. Perloff & C. Junkerman (Eds.) John Cage: Composed in America. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. 226-241.
Hines, T. S. (1994)
‘Then Not Yet “Cage”: The Los Angeles Years, 1912-1938’ in M. Perloff & C. Junkerman (Eds.) John Cage: Composed in America. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. 65-99.
Johnson, S. (1997)
‘“Worlds of Ideas”: The Music of Henry Cowell’ in D. Nicholls (Ed.) The Whole World of Music: A Henry Cowell Symposium. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. 15-91.
Kuhn, L. (2001)
‘Cage, John’ in S. Sadie (Ed.) The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2nd Ed. London: Macmillan.
Lichtenwanger, W. (1997)
‘Henry Cowell: Composer of Music’ in D. Nicholls (Ed.) The Whole World of Music: A Henry Cowell Symposium. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. 149-159.
Nicholls, D. (1990)
American Experimental Music: 1890-1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nicholls, D. (2002)
‘Cage and America’ in D. Nicholls (Ed.) The Cambridge Companion to John Cage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3-19.
Nyman, M. (1999)
Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pritchett, J. (1993)
The Music of John Cage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Quin, P. (2001)
John Cage - Music for Prepared Piano Vol. 2. Boris Berman, piano. Naxos/HNH International.
Rich, A. (1995)
American Pioneers: Ives to Cage and Beyond. London: Phaidon Press Limited.
Schleiermacher, S. (1997)
John Cage - Complete Piano Music Vol. 1: The Prepared Piano 1940 - 1952. Steffen Schleiermacher, piano. Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm.