Cage selon Metzger für Heinz-Klaus Metzger zum 60. Geburtstag

Abstract

This material was presented at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 1992. It highlights some features of Heinz-Klaus Metzger’s writings on John Cage introducing some perspectives that have not been sufficiently previously followed. A pupil of Arnold Schoenberg’s, Cage is viewed within the tradition of the Second Viennese School and therefore belongs among Webern, Berg, and Eisler, not Stockhausen and Boulez. Cage’s experimental music has been interpreted as a consequence of Schoenberg’s prohibition of tone repetition in the twelvetone technique. Also Metzger was the first to state that after his abolition of compositional coherence Cage started to write coherent music again, but on a different level than before. Close observation of musical notation is crucial in Metzger’s texts. In the piece called Music Walk dedicated to Metzger, Cage uses the graphic symbols of conventional Western notation, but assigns them different functions.