JOHN CAGE

Cage: or the most incredible inventions not to compose (this was Arnold Schönberg's opinion, who had Cage as a pupil). 'The desire for freedom' is perhaps the definition that best summarizes a tireless and unclassifiable work: freedom from structuralist dogmas (Boulez, Stockhausen), freedom from form (Berio), freedom from content, freedom from political commitments (Nono); freedom – in short – from freedom itself. From the silent paradox of 4'33'', which showed the 'other' sounds during the messalic ritual of the bourgeois concert, to the pieces that – still – followed the true initiator of all the extra-musical gimmicks of the last Century: Erik Satie, true père of 'conceptual' music and an elusive mammal in every analysis; reducing everything to a quick definition: but not entirely misleading. 

Dario Agazzi for SAFT