John Cage and David Tudor

Abstract

John Cage is best known for his indeterminate music, which leaves a significant level of creative decision-making in the hands of the performer. But how much licence did Cage allow? Martin Iddon's book is the first volume to collect the complete extant correspondence between the composer and pianist David Tudor, one of Cage's most provocative and significant musical collaborators. The book presents their partnership from working together in New York in the early 1950s, through periods on tour in Europe, until the late stages of their work from the 1960s onwards, carried out almost exclusively within the frame of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Tackling the question of how much creative flexibility Tudor was granted, Iddon includes detailed examples of the ways in which Tudor realised Cage's work, especially focusing on Music of Changes to Variations II, to show how composer and pianist influenced one another's methods and styles.

Empirical Approaches to the Performance Analysis of New Music

“…Analyses of performances resulting from such collaborations thus call for a reappraisal of the relationship between the composer and performer, as exemplified by Clarke et al (2005). Certain authors (see, for example, Iddon, 2013;and Karantonis et al, 2014) have explored these processes and relationships via documentary research, though without reference to the artefactual evidence of recordings. Within the performance-analytical literature, the tantalising archival work of Nedelman hints at the epistemological possibilities afforded by cross-examination of performer testimony, working notes, sketch materials, and recordings of New Music.…”

:Music and Digital Media: A Planetary Anthropology

“…I bracket the longstanding controversy in this tradition over the referentiality of recorded sound. Indicative of the incipient critical literature on these lineages are Nicholls (1991); Toop (1995Toop ( , 2016; Potter (2002); Collins (2004); Beal (2006Beal ( , 2009; Labelle (2006); Licht (2007Licht ( , 2009; Joseph (2008); Adlington (2009); Demers (2010); Grimshaw (2011); Piekut (2011Piekut ( , 2014; Piekut and Nicolls (2012); Iddon (2013).…”

Investigating participation in the formation of indeterminate music: example of Cage’s Solo for Piano (1958)

“…In the 20th century, avant-garde musical form was composed and appreciated differently, through the participation of the composer, performers and listeners alike. As Cage permits performers to complete their freedom of choices (Iddon, 2013), the musical work is tightly interwoven with their participation, thus never the same. How should one analyse music with regard to the new formation?…”