| 27' 10.554" | |
|---|---|
| by John Cage | |
 John Cage | |
| Composed | 1956 |
| Performed | 1962 – Munich |
| Published | 1960: |
| Scoring | Percussionist, scoring ad libitum |
27' 10.554" is a composition for percussion by American composer John Cage. It was finished in 1956.
| 27' 10.554" | |
|---|---|
| by John Cage | |
| John Cage | |
| Composed | 1956 |
| Performed | 1962 – Munich |
| Published | 1960: |
| Scoring | Percussionist, scoring ad libitum |
27' 10.554" is a composition for percussion by American composer John Cage. It was finished in 1956.
Initially entitled 27' 7.614", for a percussionist, [1] it is the last work in The Ten Thousand Things project, an unfinished collection of works written by Cage between 1953 and 1956, which also included a collection of short pieces for panflute player, a piece for tape recorder, left unfinished in 1953, a piece for voice, also unfinished in 1953, 34' 46.776", for piano, finished in 1954, 31' 57.9864", for piano, finished in 1954, and 26' 01.41499", for a bow player, written in 1955. [2] [3] [4] The original plan was to write a series of compositions for instruments and electronic devices that could be played one by one or superimposed one on top of the other. [2] [3]
The title was taken from Eastern philosophy, where that number is culturally significant (e. g., Ten thousand years), a culture which Cage was very fond of and referenced throughout his whole artistic career. [3] The rhythmic structure of the work was meant to consist of a hundred musical phrases, each comprising a hundred sounds, which totals ten thousand sounds taking place. [2]
Tao produced the One.
The One produced the two. The two produced the three.
And the three produced the ten thousand things.
— Lao Tzu, The Way of Lao Tzu
The composition process was largely based on random operations, much in the way the 5000-year-old Chinese technique of I Ching is devised. Most of the pieces Cage wrote in this period (including the ones from The Ten Thousand Things Project) approached random composition in the same way, in an attempt by Cage to remove himself from the creative process and allowing chance to take over. [3] [2] The piece was written in 1956 and published by Henmar Press in 1960, exclusively distributed by Edition Peters. It premiered in Munich on February 2, 1962. [1]
The piece is scored for one percussionist and has a total duration of 27 minutes and 10 seconds. The published score is a facsimile [5] where each system consists of four lines: M, for Metal; W, for Wood; S, for Skin; and A, for All others (which includes electronic devices, mechanical arrangements, radios, whistles, etc.). [2] Each line has different unspecified symbols, like dots and straight and curved lines, that the performer is mean to play ad libitum. [1] Instrumentation is also entirely left to the performer. However, Cage specifically mentions that a "virtuoso performance" includes a "wide variety of instruments, beaters, sliding tones, and an exhaustive rather than conventional use of the instruments employed". [6]
The score consists of 28 pages. [6] Cage made a correspondence between time and space in the score so that one page equals one minute, with numbers above the systems being the seconds of the minute. [6] Although the score includes the information needed by a performer to play the piece, Cage also implies that the performance can be carried out with the aid of a recording [1] or rather as a recording by itself. [2]
27' 10.554" is a Cage piece commonly performed by percussionists. Following is a list of recordings of the piece:
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A percussion ensemble is a musical ensemble consisting of only percussion instruments. Although the term can be used to describe any such group, it commonly refers to groups of classically trained percussionists performing primarily classical music. In America, percussion ensembles are most commonly found at conservatories, though some professional groups, such as Nexus and So Percussion exist. Drumlines and groups who regularly meet for drum circles are two other forms of the percussion ensemble.
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American avant-garde composer John Cage (1912–1992) began composing pieces for solo prepared piano around 1938–40. The majority of early works for this instrument were created to accompany dances by Cage's various collaborators, most frequently Merce Cunningham. In response to frequent criticisms of prepared piano, Cage cited numerous predecessors. In the liner notes for the very first recording of his most highly acclaimed work for prepared piano, Sonatas and Interludes, Cage wrote: "Composing for the prepared piano is not a criticism of the instrument. I'm only being practical." This article presents a complete list of Cage's works for prepared piano, with comments on each composition. All of Cage's indeterminate works for unspecified forces can also be performed on or with Prepared Piano.
Music for Piano is a series of 85 indeterminate musical compositions for piano by American avant-garde composer John Cage. All of these works were composed by making paper imperfections into sounds using various kinds of chance operations.
Construction is the title of several pieces by American composer John Cage, all scored for unorthodox percussion instruments. The pieces were composed in 1939–42 while Cage was working at the Cornish School of the Arts in Seattle, Washington, and touring the West Coast with a percussion ensemble he and Lou Harrison had founded. The series comprises three Constructions. A piece titled Fourth Construction, mentioned in several sources, is apparently either an unfinished work from 1942 or, more likely, an early title of the work we now know as Imaginary Landscape No. 2 .
Imaginary Landscape No. 1 is a composition for records of constant and variable frequency, large chinese cymbal and string piano by American composer John Cage and the first in the series of Imaginary Landscapes. It was composed in 1939.
Living Room Music is a musical composition by John Cage, composed in 1940. It is a quartet for unspecified instruments, all of which may be found in a living room of a typical house, hence the title.
The term Number Pieces refers to a body of late compositions by John Cage. Each piece is named after the number of performers involved: for instance, Seven is a piece for seven performers, One9 is the ninth work for one performer, and 1O1 is a piece for an orchestra of 101 musicians. The vast majority of these works were composed using Cage's time bracket technique: the score consists of short fragments and indications, in minutes and seconds, during which the fragment can start and by what time it should end. Time brackets can be fixed or flexible.
Canto Ostinato is a musical composition written by the Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt.
Imaginary Landscape No. 3 is a composition for six percussionists by American composer John Cage and the third in the series of Imaginary Landscapes. It is the last Imaginary Landscape to feature percussion instruments and, therefore, the last one to be considered a chamber piece. It was composed in 1942.
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Piece for Four Pianos is a musical composition for four pianos by American composer Morton Feldman. It was finished in 1957.
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