![]() ![]() ![]() He later said ‘I had poured a great deal of emotion into the piece and obviously I wasn’t communicating this at all’. Cage gave the premiere of the work on 5 April 1944 at the Studio Theatre in New York. 6- (Joshua Pierce, prepared piano)Ĭage was puzzled by the ‘extraordinary hostility’ that occurred at early performances. One writer called out the ‘fiendish rhythmic complexities’ of the final movement. Some moments have an exotic feel to them, and Cage acknowledged his interest in Indian philosophy and Buddhism as part of the background of the work. ![]() Twenty-six notes of the piano are prepared with rubber, weather stripping, screws, bots, nuts, bamboo, wood, and cloth and Cage provides very exacting instructions for the preparation, even specifying certain Steinway piano models to create the sound he wanted.Įach of the six movements has a different rhythmic structure, and, although not written to be danced, as many of Cage’s works were, the strong rhythmic qualities give a choreographic feel to the work. One writer said ‘The music recounts the dangers of erotic love, the misery of people separating, and the loneliness and terror one may experience when love becomes unhappy.’ It was a time of emotion and confusion for Cage. Cage had met the dancer Merce Cunningham and the three who lived menage à trois devolved into a couple (who were together until Cage’s death in 1992) and Xenia. He was in the middle of separating from his wife, the American surrealist sculptor Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff, whom he had married in 1935. Cage extended this metaphor of a night of danger to his current situation. ![]()
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