Payne, E orcid.org/0000-0003-2109-8126 (2022) Instrumental Interaction and Subversion in John Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra. Contemporary Music Review. pp. 1-21. ISSN 0749-4467
Abstract
This article examines the dynamic nature of instrumental interaction in indeterminate music, using John Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1957–58) as a case study. Performing the Concert requires instruments to be dismantled, detuned, and destabilised, and within the parts themselves techniques are often stretched or combined to the point of complete breakdown. Drawing on interviews and observational studies undertaken with the experimental music ensemble Apartment House, I explore how the indeterminacies of the instrumental parts are enacted and negotiated in performance. The article suggests the ways in which indeterminacy is not an abstract compositional device, but is distributed across musicians, their instruments, and their environments. More broadly, it shows how a reading of indeterminacy through performance both underlines and complicates the relationships between individuals, objects, and the kinds of agency that are enacted and animated in creative work.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: | |
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | John Cage, Indeterminacy, Instrumental Interaction, Performance, Technique |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Music (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council) AH/M008444/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 12 Jul 2022 14:27 |
Last Modified: | 12 Jul 2022 14:27 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Routledge |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/07494467.2022.2080454 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:188462 |