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Listening Report 1: John Cage

 

Melike Yücel                                                                                                                                                   15.12.2022

Seminar: The Future of American Music

Instructor: Prof. Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath

WS 22/23

 

                                              

 

 

 

 

 

Listening Report 1: John Cage

Sonata II on the prepared piano, played by Inara Ferreira

An excerpt of “Sonatas and Interludes” (1946-48)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sonata II, composed by avant-garde composer John Cage, is part of a larger compositional piece called “Sonatas and Interludes” (1946-48), which represents some of Cage’s earlier work. This piece is composed for the “prepared piano”, a piano which has an assortment of different screws and bolts, and possibly other materials and objects inserted into the instrument’s strings to alter the sounds it produces. The pianist in the given source material is Inara Ferreira.

Listening to the piece, it is immediately obvious to the listener, that this must be one of Cage’s earlier works, due to the blend of traditional influences and modern twists. At first, it does not seem too strange, but somewhat familiar: coming close to an experimental piano piece, in which the piano sounds slightly out of tune. The rhythmic flow is reminiscent of that of dance music, sometimes even reminding one of the tunes of ringtones. There is no overarching frame of composition, instead, short, and almost “choppy” sounding segments are followed by another. These segments have dynamic rhythm and remnants of melody, which are expressed in some immediate repetitions of rhythmic patterns, as well as limited amounts of pitches and clearly separated phrases. Harmony, however, is absent in this piece, and it seems intentionally absent. Instead of harmonies, the piece is defined by percussive sounds that dominates its musical effect. Therein lies the essence of what makes this piece so familiar yet so strange to the listener: the piano, as the quintessential classical instrument of the 18th and 19th century is being used to produce unfamiliar and deviating sounds. Listening to this piece while omitting the visuals of the prepared piano, one might assume that there were multiple instruments being played at once. The piano now sounds like windchimes, a xylophone, and percussive instruments such as handheld drums. It can now produce sounds like “thud” and “clop” due to the preparation of it, which John Cage pioneered.

Preparing the piano by insertion of screws of varying size (and other possible objects emphasizes and takes full advantage of the percussive character of the piano: the conventional sound is created by a hammer hitting strings in a big, hollow case. There, the options for manipulating the sounds are various: creating dissonance in a note by inserting a screw right in between one of its three strings, or entirely blocking off parts of the hammers which are supposed to create the notes by hitting the strings. Through Cage’s modulation of the piano, an instrument known for the harmonious, melodic tunes that it conventionally produces, has here unfolded an entirely new characteristic: the rhythmic and percussive capabilities, which are explored in this Sonata. It is striking however, how this was not applied to all tones and notes, but that there are a handful of strings which were left “unprepared”, some strings were sparingly “prepared”, and then again were strings which beheld a multitude of altering screws. This created a sound amalgamation of old and new, familiar, and yet strange when listening to the Sonata. Cage has therein successfully merged his ideas of a progressive approach to music, which is to include any and all sounds or noises, with that of the traditional, classical school of music, which is characterized by melody, harmony, and resonance. The preparation leads to the dampening to some of the notes, while others sound dissonant and split in two. Additionally, the strings with insertions of a higher number of screws create sounds that are shortened in its duration and compared to the rich timbre of a classical piano note, now sound short and dull. Those sounds account for the percussive character added to the instrument.

Moreover, the antiteleological character of the Sonata is worth noting. While listening to it, there is no discernible build-up to a climax, or “story” that is told throughout the winding of sounds. It seems more as if it was different rhythmic patterns assembled, their sequences arbitrary. The audience can only assume that a continuation of some sort of patterned rhythmic structures will follow another.

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