Fred Lonberg-Holm’s Lightbox Orchestra
Classical musicians who enjoy some leeway nowadays can probably thank John Cage for it. While some of Cage’s long, feather-ruffling career was devoted to making sure his work was reproduced with no variance whatsoever–as in his string quartets–at other times he looked for ways to ensure that a piece would sound different each time it was played. One extreme manifestation of this experiment is his 1952 solo piano piece 4«33ÿFD. In fact, what the musician “plays”–four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence–remains the same from performance to performance. But the pages of the score being turned, the chairs squeaking, the coughing, the breathing, and other ambient sounds are guaranteed never to repeat themselves.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Cage drew on Eastern philosophy in his use of what’s called “indeterminacy”; he believed in embracing chance, and yet more accurately what he was doing was incorporating it into controlled situations. As early as his Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (1946-’48) he enlisted the performer as participant, asking him to insert various objects into the strings according to instructions that, though specific, required him to make some independent decisions. Cage disciples like Earle Brown and Morton Feldman often used graphic scores that musicians were meant to interpret for themselves. Yet in almost every case the musicians would make their choices prior to actually performing the work.
While both Zorn and Morris have made great leaps in the name of improvisers, their systems don’t always create the optimal environment for improvisation. The rigid rules and built-in theatricality of “Cobra” put the improvisation second to the general circuslike atmosphere. The musicians not only have to heed the mad gesticulations of the prompter but must also relay commands to one another, and while their own flailing, jumping, and pointing is pretty entertaining, it probably doesn’t foster careful listening. Morris’s work has a different problem: his conducting is so specific it tends to overwhelm the improvisational impulses of the individual participants; there’s no exciting ambiguity about who’s in charge.
