John Cage - Sonata V

Sonata V from 'Sonatas and Interludes' for prepared piano by John Cage
Bobby Mitchell, piano and prep
Katy Mitchell, photography

John Cage

The American composer John Cage broke new creative ground with his compositions in chance music and his works for prepared piano, in which the piano is tuned to sound, in many instances, very unlike a piano. In many of these works Cage directs the pianist to pluck the strings of the piano rather than play on the keyboard. But arguably Cage’s most famous work is the “chance” piece 4′33″ (Four Minutes and Thirty-Three Seconds), the “score” to which contains not a single note of music. Performances of the piece were intended to create a space for spontaneous “improvisation” and call to mind the unforeseen elements of the ”music” - audience members coughing (or laughing in bemusement), the shuffling of paper programs, noise of traffic on the street outside the concert hall, etc.

Irving Penn’s photograph shows Cage reaching into a grand piano as though playing one of his own non-traditional scores. But on closer inspection the image also suggests an element of controlled precision at work in this composer whose fascination with the spontaneous forced us to reconsider our definition of music. Here he moves into the bowels of the instrument in the same way a surgeon might enter a patient, with care and calculation, delicately reaching fingers for just the right string, plucking with seemingly just the right amount of spring. Penn’s image leaves us wondering what happened right after the shutter clicked. We’ll never know. That moment was lost to time and chance, probably the way Cage would have wanted it to be.

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