Sonatas and Interludes
Sonatas and Interludes is a cycle of twenty pieces for prepared piano by American avant-garde composer John Cage (1912–1992).
Significantly more complex than his other works for prepared piano,[1][2] Sonatas and Interludes is generally recognized as one of Cage's finest achievements.
[8] At the beginning of 1946, Cage met Gita Sarabhai, an Indian musician who came to the United States concerned about Western influence on the music of her country.
[citation needed] At around the same time, Cage began studying the writings of the Indian art historian Ananda K. Coomaraswamy.
These emotions are divided into two groups: four white (humor, wonder, erotic, and heroic—"accepting one's experience", in Cage's words[8]) and four black (anger, fear, disgust, and sorrow).
[17] On several accounts he offered a poetic metaphor for this process, comparing it with collecting shells while walking along a beach.
[14][18] Work on the project was interrupted in early 1947, when Cage made a break to compose The Seasons, a ballet in one act also inspired by ideas from Indian philosophy.
[citation needed] Cage dedicated Sonatas and Interludes to Maro Ajemian, a pianist and friend.
Critical reaction was uneven,[19] but mostly positive,[20] and the success of Sonatas and Interludes led to a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, which Cage received in 1949, allowing him to make a six-month trip to Europe.
There he met Olivier Messiaen, who helped organize a performance of the work for his students in Paris on June 7, 1949; and he befriended Pierre Boulez, who became an early admirer of the work and wrote a lecture about it for the June 17, 1949 performance at the salon of Suzanne Tézenas in Paris.
[21] While still living in Paris, Cage began writing String Quartet in Four Parts, yet another work influenced by Indian philosophy.
[citation needed] In the text accompanying the first recording of Sonatas and Interludes, Cage specifically stated that the use of preparations is not a criticism of the instrument, but a simple practical measure.
Despite the detailed instructions, any preparation is bound to be different from any other, and Cage himself suggested that there is no strict plan to adhere to: "if you enjoy playing the Sonatas and Interludes then do it so that it seems right to you".
[14] For the most part Cage avoids using lower registers of the piano, and much of the music's melodic foreground lies in the soprano range.
[27] The complexity of proportions prompted Cage to use asymmetric musical phrases and somewhat frequent changes of time signature to achieve both microscopic and macroscopic correlation.
[28] Cage had frequently used the nested proportions technique and its variations before, most notably in First Construction (in Metal) (1939), which was the first piece to use it,[29] and numerous dance-related works for prepared piano.
