[#285] January 06, 2025
1938 | Wind Quintet | Grade 5 | 5' - 10' | Chamber winds
Music for Wind Instruments, by American composer John Cage is our Composition of the Week.
Written in 1938 at the Cornish School in Seattle, Music for Wind Instruments is structured in three movements, using for the first, a trio composed of a flute, a clarinet, and a bassoon; a duet for the second, made of the oboe and the horn; and the full quintet for the third.
Music for Wind Instruments corresponds to the first period of Cage's work, before he fully embarked on the musical elaboration of his philosophical thought.
The first movement features the instruments in a highly rhythmic, almost percussive style. Cage notes on the score that isolated notes should be treated as punctuation.
The second movement, more legato, offers an important contrast. The melody plays on a succession of second intervals, alternating with a descending four-note motif, almost like a distant souvenir of Mahlerian Romanticism.
In the third movement, elements of the composer's early language can be seen: short, repeated cells, a marked rhythm contrasted by more linked moments, a choice of pitches highlighting the strength of intervals and chromaticism. This last, almost thematic, element passes from one instrument to another, contrasting with the blocky writing of the rest of the work.
Music for Winds has a duration of 8 minutes and it is available at Peters.
Poet, visual artist, theorist, philosopher, writer, mycologist, John Cage is an iconoclast who had a profound impact on 20th-century art and music.
A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde.
He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.
Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4'33", which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound. Cage was also a pioneer of the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by objects placed between or on its strings or hammers), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces. The best known of these is Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48).
He studied composition with Richard Buhlig and Henry Cowell, then took private lessons with Adolph Weiss. In 1935 he married Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff, from whom he separated ten years later. From 1934 to 1936, he studied analysis, composition, harmony, and counterpoint with Arnold Schoenberg, and came to understand his lack of inclination for harmonic thought. Between 1938 and 1940, he worked at the Cornish School in Seattle, where he met Merce Cunningham - who became his companion and collaborator.
In 1949, in Paris, he worked on Satie's music and met Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Boulez, with whom he kept up a long correspondence until 1954.
His lectures at the Darmstadt Summer School in 1958, “Composition as Process”, and his indeterminate pieces, including Variations I, sparked great debate within the European avant-garde.
From 1987 to 1991, the last period of his production, saw the emergence of automated writing processes, based on computer programs created by his assistant Andrew Culver. His final years were marked by recognition and prestigious prizes, such as the Kyoto Prize (1989), a life of experimentation and freedom.
Other Works for Winds include:
· 4’33 (for any combination of instruments) (1952)
· Atlas Eclipticalis (for flexible ensemble) 1961
· Fifty-Eight (1992)
· Living Room Music (1940)
· Quartets I, V, VI (1976 – 1977)
More on John Cage music