Research Catalog

Title

Silence; lectures and writings.

Author

Cage, John

Publication

Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University Press [1961]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 276 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

Silence, John Cage's first book, was published in October 1961. In these lectures, scores, and writings, Cage tries, as he says, to find a way of writing that comes from ideas, is not about them, but that produces them. Often these writings include mesostics and essays created by subjecting the work of other writers to chance procedures using the I Ching. A landmark book in American arts and culture, Silence has been translated into more than forty languages and has sold over half a million copies worldwide.

Subjects

• Cage, John
• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Composition (Music)
• Music > History and criticism

Genre/Form

• Criticism, interpretation, etc.
• Music

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Foreword -- Manifesto -- The future of music: Credo -- Experimental music -- Experimental music: Doctrine -- Composition as process. I. Changes ; II. Indeterminacy ; III. Communication -- Composition. To describe the process of composition used in music of changes and imaginary landscape no. 4 ; To describe the process of composition used in music for piano 21-52 -- Forerunners of modern music -- History of experimental music in the United States -- Erik Satie -- Edgard Varèse -- Four statements on the dance. Goal: new music, new dance ; Grace and clarity ; In this day ... ; 2 pages, 122 words on music and dance -- On Robert Rauschenberg, artist, and his work -- Lecture on nothing -- Lecture on something -- 45' for a speaker -- Where are we going? and What are we doing? -- Indeterminacy -- Music lovers' field companion.

ISBN

0819560286 (pbk.)

LCCN

^^^61014238^/MN/r93

OCLC

• 1175426
• SCSB-10129636

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library