Cage John

John Cage, musician and poet, he made his name above all as an avant-garde pianist and composer, exerting his influence not only on musical thinking, but on broad sectors of contemporary culture, with radical consequences on the traditional conceptions of art and music. A pupil of Cowell, Schoenberg and Varèse, he taught at the New School in New York from 1956 to 1960. He devised the 'prepared piano', a piano whose sound is modified by inserting small objects such as rubber gaskets, bolts and nuts between the strings, thus achieving new and unpredictable sounds. His experimentation was not limited to instruments but encompassed the very concepts of sound and concerts; his style changed radically when he decided that sounds should be freed - from intention, taste, history, memory - to live a life of their own. 4′33″ is Cage's most famous and controversial composition. Conceived around 1947-1948, while the composer was working on the Sonatas and Interludes cycle, it is a composition in three movements where the score instructs the performer not to play anything (tacet) for the duration of the piece. In the author's intentions, the sounds present in the environment in which it is performed will create the composition. Cage, who was also always attentive to the visual dimension, was connected by a lasting artistic association with choreographer Merce Cunningham. His works for cinema include Music for Marcel Duchamp and the music for Herbert Matter's film Works of Calder.

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