The Classical Music Book

302

I CAN’T UNDERSTAND

WHY PEOPLE ARE

FRIGHTENED OF

NEW IDEAS; I’M

FRIGHTENED OF

THE OLD ONES

4'33" ( 1952 ), JOHN CAGE

F

or centuries, “indeterminacy”

has been a compositional

feature of classical music—

from Baroque works with a figured

bass that trusts the keyboard player

to fill in the harmony in a manner

not stipulated by the composer, to

the “musical dice games” that were

popular in the 18th century, in

which players threw dice to decide

on the order of a series of musical

ideas given by a composer. A

version of the game attributed

to Mozart, for example, has the

possibility of creating as many

as 45,949,729,863,572,161 waltzes.

In the 20th century, avant-garde

composers pushed the concept

further, and the term “aleatory

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Indeterminacy, aleatory

music, and silence

BEFORE

1787 Mozart is thought to

write “Instructions for the

composition of as many

waltzes as one desires

with two dice, without

understanding anything

about music or composition.”

1915 Marcel Duchamp

composes Erratum musicale

for three voices, written by

drawing cards out of a hat.

AFTER

1967 Cornelius Cardew

completes Treatise, a large

graphic score with no

musical parameters.

1983 Morton Feldman

completes String Quartet No. 2,

his longest work exploring the

slow unfolding of music.

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