Not so tough a question. A Beethoven symphony expresses the human condition in all its complexity. A cowbell expresses the location of a cow.
That aside, a very appropriate commentary. I'm reminded of Henry Miller's remark: "In America, everybody has the opportunity to become somebody. In Europe, everybody has the opportunity to become nobody." -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, December 19, 2003 5:39 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: John Cage Though I was never, even in my most radical student days, an admirer of Cage's music, his influence has been enormous. The music I always found profoundly dull, the notorious 4' 33" silly (though it must be one of the first pieces of concept art in modern times (pace Duchamps et al). But questions like his 'Why is a Beethoven symphony more interesting than a cow bell?' is much less easy to answer than might at first seem. One usually ends up arguing in circles, 'Beethoven is better than a cow bell because Beethoven us better than a cow bell'. And the concept of silence or the effects of extraneous noise not only in the world in the world around us, but also in music itself, is something that, as Howard pointed out, often overlooked. As regards silence, Webern made its dramatic effect clearer than ever before, and I find it difficult to imagine a time when I didn't hear, say, the beginning of the 'Eroica' without taking into account the effect of the pauses (there are, of course, countless other examples of the structural significance of silence in classical music). Cage knew what he was doing, and why. Of course he was an iconoclast, but a fascinating one, like so many intelligent Americans. We Europeans tend to look at our heritage in an incestuous way, while the Americans see it from the outside, and ask, perfectly sensibly, 'Why all the fuss?' I first came across this as a post-grad in Oxford in the 1960s, where many of my best friends were Americans. Initially one was shocked by their questions, but very soon saw that they were in reality questioning not the 'thing in itself', but our European attitude towards it, encrusted with devotion, history, reverence because it was 'old', and convinced it was 'great' because we had been told by the powers that be that it was. Their attitude was, 'What does it mean to ME?', and not what the establishment intend it to mean to me. It was intensely refreshing, and has certainly left its mark on me for life. 'Go your own way', was the message, 'Do your own thing, and if the toffs don't like it, well, hard luck on the toffs!' There is lot to be said for that. Friends think it odd that a lover of serial music like me should take up the lute, but, following the lesson my American friends taught me, I've always gone my own way, and am glad I've done so. John Cage is part of that way of thinking. He questioned the basis of European music, above all its love of itself, and that was a great moment in the recent history of the art. Boulez, Messiaen and others owe a huge debt to him, for he helped return sound to the world of sound, and it no longer was there merely to portray things, landscapes, feelings, etc., but simply to be sound for its own wonderful sake. Mallarme, did much the same for poetry. But as I say, I never liked Cage as a musician. But as a pointer and prophet, he was peerless. Cheers Tom --
