The Selected Letters of John Cage. John Cage

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СКАЧАТЬ He is recovering quickly and is in full possession of his mental faculties (he remains somewhat unstable emotionally, but that too will be improved). At any rate, he will be in need of work; and I can think of no other work which would be as congenial to him. Please let me know what your needs are, the work to be done, etc. And I will discuss it with Lou. Or, you might even write directly to him at the

      Psychiatric Institute + Hospital

      722 W. 168th St.

      NYC 32

      To Anni and Joseph Albers¹³⁵

       [Sometime after April 8, 1948] | Location not indicated

      Dear Anni + Albers:

      You were so friendly and Black Mountain was so good to be at, and the last minute gestures and gifts brought us to a kind of ecstasy (the heads among the eggs were discovered near the summit of the Smokies where the mists made everything gently awe-inspiring,—you were as generous as they).

      We visited a Trappist Monastary at Gethsemani in Kentucky (there is also one nearer you in Georgia), and we heard the monks singing Gregorian Chants; we may stay there a few days on the way back.

      Every experience in going through the country and stopping with friends or as with you making new friends is revelatory. Of course, there is also ugliness and meanness too (a disgusting dinner + waitress in Indiana); but for the most part this trip seems tending always toward what is beautiful and meaningful, and I can only say that we feel we were profoundly lucky to spend some days with you.

      Merce is doing his technique now in the middle of [Gretchen and Alex] Corazzo’s kitchen. Last night we read out loud one of your pamphlets, Anni, and all of us were moved by the clarity and truth of your thoughts.

      Being in New York without leaving it for so long had made me believe that only within each one of us singly can what we require come about, but now at Black Mountain and again with the Trappists I see that people can work still together. We have only “to imitate nature in her manner of operation.”

      We love the gifts you gave us, but especially loved being with you.

      Tomorrow morning we go on to Wisconsin.

      [Merce Cunningham’s part] I did my exercising on the Corazzo kitchen floor, but kept thinking about the Black Mountain dining-hall. I wonder why?

      The Trappists were interesting, but Black Mountain was better, because we were able, not just to observe, but to share, if even a little intangibly.

      To Katherine Sophie Dreier¹³⁶ and Joseph Albers

       June 17, 1948 | New York City

      Night Letter for Dreiers and Albers

      From New York City

      GREETINGS TO ALL. HAVE MADE SEVERAL ATTEMPTS TO OBTAIN SCHOLARSHIP FUND FOR MERCE’S STUDENTS BUT TO NO AVAIL.¹³⁷ BECAUSE OF THEIR INNER TRANQUILITY AND SUMMER PLANS (SARA HAD ALREADY GOTTEN SUITABLE CLOTHES AND FLASHLIGHT) PLEASE SEND FINAL WORD BY FRIDAY WHETHER ONE, TWO, OR THREE OF THEM CAN BE TAKEN CARE OF. THEY ARE PENNILESS. ALL OF US ARE EXHAUSTED HERE AND HAVE PROFOUND NEED OF BLACK MOUNTAIN. CAN LIPPOLDS COME TOO?¹³⁸ THEY HAVE TESTED THEIR HEARSE FOR SLEEPING PURPOSES AND FIND IT WORKS. SARA PRACTICALLY INSISTS ON COMING IN THE MANNER OF A STOWAWAY IF NECESSARY. PLEASE CONSIDER ME THOUGHTFUL IN ALL OF THIS FOR I HAVE NOT MENTIONED ALL THE MANY OTHERS WHO WANT TO COME TOO.

      To Peter Yates

       September 9, 1948 | Location not indicated

      Dear Peter:

      Was awfully busy this summer teaching but finally got through the mss., which I found very interesting, and liked very much although you’re probably more interested in “constructive criticism.” So:

      Your information about Satie,¹³⁹ whom I know a good deal about (having spent the summer going through his life + works at Black Mtn. College), is not accurate: e.g., the Messe des Pauvres is an early work (circa 1898), and you give the impression of its being a late work. You leave out mention of most of his important works and in no sense give him the importance due him, which is, I believe, to have consistently structured his music on lengths of time rather than harmonic relations. I’m sure he was aware of doing this but I doubt whether he knew its real importance, which is real: liberation from the Beethoven yoke, far more real than that granted by S[choenberg] with the 12-tone row.

      Your inaccuracies about Satie make me skeptical about the rest of the factual information. Is it accurate?

      How on earth can you call him a dilettante?

      With Webern he is, from my point of view, the 20th century.

      However, I really enjoyed the mss. + don’t mean to give another impression.

      It looks like we’re coming on another tour in January + February this time. Maybe you can arrange something?

      It would be fun to live in the same town + talk the book in detail.

      To Peter Yates

       [Undated, ca. mid 1948] | Location not indicated

      Dear Peter:

      The breathlessness is here in New York and it is very easy to fall into it.

      Lou has returned here and I spent a long time with him yesterday. He seems to me in very good condition. He is not married. But he has, at least it seemed to me, an inner security and general peaceful well-being about him which was very comforting. The breathlessness mentioned above he felt as he came near Chicago, and so he looks forward to a teaching job in San Francisco which he hopes to get for next summer. This year he will teach composition at the Greenwich School Music House.¹⁴⁰ For the first time in about a year and a half we talked about music in the way we used to.

      I do not know whether I am being rabid about Satie or not. However I give him first place with Webern and I fight for them both. So that when you ask for a list of his major works, I am baffled and would find it much easier to list his inconsequential works, for they are so few in number. He himself did not like Genevieve de Brabant and the Jack in the Box: he dropped them behind a piano and told people who asked for them that he had lost them on a bus. They are not very good works. Also I don’t find the 5 Grimaces very interesting. However, one of them is a brilliant piece: the fourth one, and very important from my own point of view because it is written in the same rhythmic structure that I have employed in all my work since 1938.

      The Messe des Pauvres is certainly an early work, since around 1900 Satie said, I will no longer compose on my knees (my information all comes from a biography, Erik Satie, by [Pierre-Daniel] Templier, which people who knew Satie accept as authoritative). It is technically and commentarily part and parcel of the other early works: I know the Sarabandes, Gymnopedies, Gnossiennes, Fils de Etoiles, Porte Heroique du Ciel, 4 Preludes, Danses Gothiques, and a few others. The maturity of the commentary here is because it is in agreement with the perennial philosophy which Satie devoted himself to in his early life, through the Rosicrucians, and through the establishing of his own church. What seems to me as being in even greater maturity is the commentary later in the Third Nocturne (circa 1920) (after Socrate), “avec serenite,” the word serenity never having been used by him before or СКАЧАТЬ