John Cage: Atlas Eclipticalis (1961-62)

Performed here by James Levine and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• James
• Levine
• Chicago
• Symphony
• Orchestra
• milton
• babbitt
• elliott
• carter
• morton
• feldman
• gunther
• schuller

[sunmosphere]

@peppersax you don't!

[toborexperiment]

@peppersax Cage didn't work with measures, just time.

[MrLiamWright]

As a composer myself, I tend to remain within a boundary of what we do understand, and can quite easily listen to piece of pantonal serialism. I don't believe I could do this if I had not previously studied serial composition. The reason you likely cannot feel the beauty in this music that Cage feels is simply because you are not him. Only he understands this piece because it is a unique experiment, and is not made to be understood, but observed and appreciated - much like a painting by picasso

[MrLiamWright]

@the81stviewer Personally, I believe comprehension of this school of music should be left to the composer, and that it should remain with him/her. Attempting to catagorise an 'experiment' usually leads to failure without sufficient proof. There have been many successful music 'theories' in the past, but as we near the limit of complexity that our established dodecaphonic can acheive, it becomes increasingly difficult to revolutionise music without undermining the basic principia.

[MumbianMelody]

@the81stviewer it's just surrealist music, surrealism is far different in my opinion so it should challenge the mind; what makes it art is that you feel fear and rage.

Cage taught classes on experimental music, I call it surrealism because it challenges the normal preconception of how things are and should be.

I'm sure you agree with it being the most unusual and difficult to understand, unless you found something that tops this music as far as confusion goes.

[the81stviewer]

@MumbianMelody Ok. Let's be real here. I am getting a degree in music, we have to learn the structure, composition and history of the art even back to the babylonians. we listen to world music. Music from the east seems to be the commonly difficult to understand, but in all of my education and degree courses this kind of music is always prefaced by my collegues and professors as the most unusual and difficult to understand. Personally it makes me feel fear and rage. What about you?

[MumbianMelody]

@the81stviewer lol this song is keeping a steady beat, if you listen you can hear the timing and key it's in, there is coherence. It's just the unusual instrumentation throwing you off considering the surrealist delivery, most people don't use sleigh bells & maracas in the same song. The dissonance may cause it to be, at times, imperceptible

There are intervals, for the most part theres organization & harmony, time is existent :p some people think time doesn't exist. Like Einstein

[B0ssYourHighness]

@the81stviewer John Cage went to Julliard School...

[GabrielLasso1]

I didn't understand this music...

I need to study more

I don't understand modern music, it's strange to me

[the81stviewer]

@joznick1 Oh. So...why don't we close the Paris, Moscow, New York, Vienna, Berlin, and Beijing Conservatories. As well as the Juilliard School, every university music department, and fire all music educators, pedagogues, and music instrument makers everywhere? If it is as simple as making a sound, followed by a silence, then more sounds and silences then everyone can do it. What luck. Now all of those previously mentioned things can go away. Tell me will we have music the day after that happens?

[joznick1]

@the81stviewer sounds+silences in time = music

[the81stviewer]

There is no organisation of pitches, harmony, rhythm, time, cadence, or form. There is no motif. There is no theme, and there are no keys, changes, coutnerpoints, parts, or voicing. There is no intonation. What makes it music, then?