Sonatas for Prepared Piano John Cage

Learning Objectives ▪ To understand how the prepared piano works ▪ To understand the reasoning for the term sonata in this context and study the background and performing circumstances of the Cage ▪ To annotate our scores with harmony, tonality and texture detail

Prepared Piano (Performing Forces) Each note has 3 strings/2 lower down/1 in bottom register Mutes can go between all 3 (percussive sound/no pitch), just 2 (mixture of percussive sound & pitch), or none (sounds normally) Una corda moves hammers to the right so they miss string 1; can either intensify or reduce mute’s effect

Mute effects ▪ Quietens it ▪ Changes the timbre ▪ Splits it into 2 or 3 sounds ▪ Shortens its duration (Cage 1949) ▪ NB not required to follow preparation instructions exactly ▪ Essentially turns piano into percussion ensemble

Background ▪ ▪ Studied with Schoenberg in 1930s – atonality ▪ Main achievements: – Developed use of percussion – Aleatory – New sound sources (e.g. prepared piano) – Graphic notation – Eastern philosophy ▪ Studied with Henry Cowell (American avant-garde) – new piano techniques – Strumming – Chord clusters ▪ Asked by Syvilla Fort to compose music for a dance with African theme in 1940 – not enough room for percussion ensemble – birth of the prepared piano!

Eastern Philosophy ▪ Hindu rasa (idealised emotional character) theory ▪ Four light moods: heroic, comic, wondrous, erotic ▪ Four dark moods: fury, fear, disgust, sorrow ▪ Ninth rasa: tranquillity (the aim) ▪ The Sonatas and Interludes each portray a single emotion, becoming more tranquil towards the end ▪ Cage does not state the emotion. But each movement clearly has its own mood – describe the principal features of each movement which establish the mood ▪ What ideal is this similar to?

Sonata Classical ▪ Symphony for one instrument ▪ 3 or 4 movements ▪ First movement in sonata form ▪ e.g. Beethoven piano sonatas Baroque ▪ Keyboard piece ▪ One movement ▪ Binary form, repeated AABB ▪ e.g. Scarlatti piano sonatas

Two easy things Tonality ▪ Basically absent ▪ No cadences ▪ BUT there are some “normal” notes and repeated patterns which give a bit of a sense of a tonal centre Harmony ▪ Nope ▪ There are some written-out “normal” chords but they don’t sound normal ▪ Bar 1 ▪ Bar 20

Texture ▪ Why does Cage avoid very full textures? ▪ Significance of silence (cf 4’33”) ▪ Sonata I:1 ▪ Sonata II: 1 ▪ Sonata II: 10 ▪ Sonata II: 17 ▪ Sonata II: 30 ▪ Sonata III: 1-9

Plenary 1.Name two composers who influenced Cage’s early work. 2.In what sense are the three movements sonatas? 3.Explain how the concept of rasa applies to this work. 4.Explain what is meant by una corda and why the use of this effect makes such a difference to these sonatas. 5.What is the main reason for rhythm, texture and dynamics seeming to be more significant than either melody or harmony when listening to this work?