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Centenary in Romania

The event John Cage's Centenary- Black Mountain College Phenomenon – John Cage and his art, has as its objective the organisation of three exceptional festive days during artistic and educational activities will take place in order to celebrate 100 years from the birth of the avantgarde composer John Cage. 

This event sets its goal in promoting his work and his distinct innovations in music, visual arts and literature, within a symposium with representative guests from the fields on which the artist left his imprint (music, visual arts, literature), workshops in which innovations of the artist will be presented, open debate - sessions on musical topics and musical information, video conferences with renowned experts from the U.S.A., projections and open discussions on different topics, a photo exhibition, a vernissage and concerts with works belonging to John Cage or to some of his contemporary composers.

This event will have a special importance for Romania and Eastern Europe, Timișoara being a candidate city to the 2020 European Cultural Capital.

THE AVANTGARDE
The John Cage phenomenon

          

The century of scientific progress has left its mark in music and in the visual art. Undoubtedly, no composer or player of the 20th century would have had an imagination that would lead to the reality and the effects we live today. However, the avant-garde in music and in the visual art manifested itself later than in literature.


Progress is extremely fast in the 20th century, starting from Stravinsky’s specific rhythmic or the dodecaphonic of the second Viennese School to electronic music, the use of different devices as instruments or even the replacement of the player with robots.


In Romania, the avant-garde phenomenon appeared rather late. The evolution of music in the Romanian composition school was slower than in the rest of Europe maybe because of the social-political situation in the 20th century. Like in any national school, folk elements were primordial. Although there were some avant-garde attempts belonging to Zeno Vancea, the phenomenon appears only around the 1960s and it goes on until today. Among the promoters of the Romanian avant-garde we could mention Ștefan Niculescu, Tiberiu Olah or Cornel Țăranu. However, a “hidden avant-garde” that uses etherophone under the influence of fiddlers’ folklore can be found in George Enescu’s music, after centuries of monadic and then polyphonic music.


The Black Mountain College has left an extremely important mark both in literature and in music or the visual arts. Among the pioneers of this phenomenon we encounter Allan Kaprow and John Cage. The latter has made a “revolution” in the field of music. The main novelty elements are the prepared piano, the synthesizers, the generation of noise under different forms, non-conventional instruments, electronic music, and the work that made him famous 4’33” (1952). This innovative work represents silence, both on the part of the player and on that of the listener, highlighting the background noises in the concert hall, which, according to Cage, are music. Any noise is a sound. This work has a classical tripartite structure, in which no sound is used. The idea of the silence concept has its roots in the visual arts. Cage was strongly influenced by a series of white paintings on canvas, apparently empty belonging to Robert Rauschenberg, that generated different colours depending on the light and the place where they were displayed. The sublime message of this piece is the level of silence that floods the concert hall, the power to capture music as well as the player’s and the listener’s level of attention. That’s all the minimalism one can get! According to John Cage any sound that we hear can be music, and for this reason everything is based on the naturalness and the plasticity of the environment.


The prepared piano is another novelty introduced by John Cage. In his first work for prepared piano, Bacchanale, Cage introduces between the chords of the classical piano bolts and screws of different thickness and length, that placed in a certain position, at a certain distance, form a twelve-tone system which gives the piano a timbre that is close to the percussion instruments. Apart from the sound palette that he made, Cage combines different alternative or mirror rhythms. In the following compositions for prepared piano Cage explores more and more this timbral system introducing different bolts, nuts, plastic, rubber, canvas, bamboo or wood in order to create different sound effects: clicking, buzzing, scratching. The majority of his pieces were composed as accompaniment for Merce Cunningham’s dance group, being complex from the point of view of rhythm, the novelty element being present – the timbral diversity.


The chart system is another composition technique that Cage used. Due to his travelling to Asia he was influenced by the cultural diversity, implementing in his composition techniques the I Ching hexagrams. The Music of Changes (1951), dedicated to his friend, the pianist David Tudor, is the first work totally variable in which he uses the I Ching technique (Chinese oracle). The process of creation consists in applying the sound, the duration, the dynamic, the rhythm and the density on charts. Even the title of the work Music of Changes derives from “I Ching – Book of changes”.


HPSCHD (harpsichord) is the title of another innovation belonging to John Cage. This is a work for amplified harpsichord and 51 computer-generated tapes. The computer program Fortran, invented at the time by IBM engineers, used to work on a I Ching hexagram. This algorithm on tape is overlapped on 208 tapes with computer-generated sounds played through 52 monaural tapes, together with 6400 slides and 40 movies onto rectangular screens. The work approximately 5 hours long and the audience are invited to move around the hall. All these were possible logistically with the help provided by the NASA. The harpsichord solos randomly contain different parts from famous works belonging to Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Gottschalk, Busoni and Schoenberg. HPSCHD was played at the premiere in front of 6000 people.


Being a multi-faceted personality, John Cage imposed himself in the visual arts, literature and natural science. From his childhood, Cage showed his talent in painting, but he concentrated on music. At maturity, Cage started developing his artistic talent, especially in lithography. In his first project – Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel – we come across two pieces composed on the principle of lithography and a group of 8 objects called Plexigrams (silk screen printing on plexiglas panels – the methyl polymethacrylate, a good glass replacer). From 1978 to 1992, Cage joins the Crown Point Press, where he produces a series of printings such as Seven Day Diary in which Cage draws with his eyes closed, thus conforming to a certain development structure.


The poems written in mesostic are another creation of John Cage. The mesostic is related to the acrostic and the telestic type of writing and it consists in a keyword in capital letters running through the middle of the typescript. This keyword can be a proper name, a sentence or even a musical composition. Empty Words – is a collection of texts written between 1973-1978 which is also transposed in a piece for voice and piano. This literary and music volume can be summarized to a series of syllables, abstract sounds or nonsense words. Cage is no longer a simple poet or composer he is an original artist who can adapt to several creation systems. In Foreword to X (1983), his last collection of writings, Cage said “I have more and more written my texts in the same way I write my music.”


John Cage was extremely passionate during his entire life with mycology (branch of biology that studies fungi) during his entire life.


Fluxus, one of the most radical artistic movements of the second half of the 20th century originates in John Cage’s experimental music. This movement is made up of musicians, artists, poets or actors who initiate different performances, events that lead to editing art theory books or initiating street happening. Due to the anti-art, anti-literature, anti-music or anti-commercialism concepts, sometimes this movement was compared to the Dada movement. This concept allows anyone to have access to art, being the foundation of many current artistic trends. The first event was organized by George Maciunas in 1961, at the New York Galleries and in 1962 the first Fluxus Festival was organized in Europe. Tens of artists join a space of freedom in a funny practice. Among them are George Maciunas, John Cage, Dick Higgins, Marcel Duchamp, Allan Kaprow, Le Monte Young, Al Hansen or Jackson Mac Low. Music starts to become visual, the creation of diverse artistic works emerges, the Mail Art and the video art are invented. The last Fluxus event was organized in Chicago in February 2012. A long story with numerous knots – Fluxus in Germany 1962-1994 is the title of the first similar exhibition organized in Romania between 12 December 2011 and 31 January 2012, where essential works belonging to this trend were brought.


The year 2012 has a special significance in the international cultural area. It is the anniversary of 100 years from John Cage’s birth. The spirit of his art can be encountered everywhere from Washington to Lublin, or, why not, even to Timișoara. In October 2012 a debate entitled “Black Mountain Phenomenon – John Cage and his art” will be organized in Timișoara, the event consisting of different conferences, workshops, 20th century art exhibition and a recital with the composer’s significant works, presented by guests representing all the fields of John Cage’s creation. The purpose of this event will be to promote a multi-faceted artist of the 20th century.