A John Cage Compendium: Text (Last modified 1 January 2024)
[Title unknown]
Description: texts for Le flambeau
Date: between 1922-29 June 1928
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: no publication data are known [Stevenson, Robert 1982, 6-8].
[Untitled]
Description: program note on The Seasons
Date: prior to 18 May 1947
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1947a.
[Untitled]
Description: program note for a piano recital by William Masselos on the music of Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Ben Weber, and Anton Webern, 22 November 1947, New York, Carnegie Hall
Date: prior to 22 November 1947
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1947b.
[Unititled]
Description: program note on Pierre Boulez, Second Sonata for David Tudor’s performance, 17 December 1950
Date: 1950
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1950b.
[Untitled]
Description: program note on Williams Mix
Date: 1952?
Sources: New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 192
Publication: none? [or = Cage 1959h/1970, 109-111?***].
[Untitled]
Description: manifesto on painting [white paintings] of Robert Rauschenberg
Date: before 27 December 1953; Cage’s statement appeared in Genauer’s columns almost three months after the show had closed [Stable Gallery]
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1953b.
[Untitled]
Description: program note on 34'46.776" for a Pianist and 31'57.9864" for a Pianist
Date: before 17 October 1954
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1954.
[Untitled]
Description: commentary on Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955
Date: 1955
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1955d.
[Untitled]
Description: program notes on Concert for Piano and Orchestra, orchestral parts and solo for piano, First Construction (in Metal), Imaginary Landscape No. 1, Music for Carillon No. 1, She Is Asleep (duet for voice and prepared piano and quartet for twelve tom-toms), Six Short Inventions, Sonatas and Interludes [1 and 2], Williams Mix, The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs
Date: ca. 1957-1958
Sources: New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 217
Publication: Cage 1959h.
[Untitled]
Note: editorially titled Two Short Poems
Description: collective effort of Cage’s class
Date: June-July 1958
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage et al. 1970
Literature: Kostelanetz 1970d, 120n.
[Untitled]
Description: statement about musical notation, for symposium, “Form is a Language”
Date: prior to April 1960
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 1 folder 6
Publication: Cage 1960UNTITLED.
[Untitled]
Description: notes on various compositions written between 1933-1962
Date: completed July 1962
Publication: Cage 1962e.
[Untitled]
Description: program note on Cartridge Music
Date: 1962
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 2 folder 2
Publication: Cage 1962d.
[Untitled]
Description: recipes
Date: before or during 1965
Sources: presumably none
Publication: included in Lyon 1965.
[Untitled]
Description: statement about notation
Publication: Cage 1969d.
[Untitled]
Description: liner notes on Jeanne Kirstein
Date: before or during 1970
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1970p.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “Marcel” [Duchamp]
Date: 1971
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1973o.
[Untitled]
Description: program note on 62 Mesostics re Merce Cunningham
Date: 1972?
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1972MESOSTICS.
[Untitled]
Desciption: review of Louise Varèse, Varèse. New York: Norton, 1972
Date: 1972-1974
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1974BOOKS.
[Untitled]
Desciption: review of Mary Caroline Richards, The Crossing Point
Date: 1973
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 11 folder 8-10
Publication: Cage 1973a.
[Untitled]
Description: statement for Edition Peters Contemporary Music Catalogue
Date: before September 1975
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1975g.
[Untitled]
Description: statement for Vinko Globokar’s Orchester
Date: 1974 or earlier
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none
Literature: Polaczek 1986.
[Untitled]
Description: program note on Renga with Apartment house 1776
Date: 1976
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1976NOTES; ?=?ALSO Cage 1976[UNTITLED?>ISCM-PROGRAM?].
[Untitled]
Description: program note on Cheap Imitation, identical with Cage 1981? [Untitled] (liner notes re Cheap imitation, Chorals). Port Jefferson, New York: Cp2 Records (liner notes for Cp2/7, on the sleeve)
Date: 21 September 1977
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1977e.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on the name of Joan La Barbara
Date: before or during 1977
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1977d.
[Untitled]
Description: program note on Etudes Australes
Date:
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1978ETUDES.
[Untitled]
Description: program notes on Etudes Australes and Freeman Etudes
Date: circa 1978
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1978UNTITLED.
[Untitled]
Description: program note on Sounday
Date: circa 1978
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1978UNTITLED.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “train”
Date: 1977 or 1978, before 26 June 1978
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979q.
[Untitled]
Description: program note on Seven-Day Diary [artwork]
Date: before or during April 1978
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1978kZU.
[Untitled]
Description: program note on Chorals for phonodisc Cp2/7
Date: ca. 1981
Publication: Cage 1981l.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostics on “Swift”
Date: ca. 1981
Publication: Cage 1981k.
[Untitled]
Description: macrobiotic recipes
Date: prior to 18 March 1981
Publication: in Hodgson 1981.
[Untitled]
Description: program notes on various pieces
Date: circa 1982
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1982AMORES; Cage 1982ARIA; Cage 1982CREDO; Cage 1982ETUDES; Cage 1982KONZERT; Cage 1982QUARTETT; Cage 1982SONG.
[Untitled]
Descrition: mesostic on “Klaus Schöning”]
Date: before 12 August 1982 (or 1979?)
Publication: Cage 1982UNTITLEDSCHÖNING.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “Klaus Schöning”
Date: August 1979; completed before or on 12 August in Paris
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1982UNTITLEDMESOSTIC.
[Untitled mesostic on “Klaus Schöning”]
Date: prior to 12 August 1982 (or 1979?)
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1982XUNTITLED-SCHÖNING.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “James Joyce”
Note: written to thank those who contributed tapes for Roaratorio: An Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake (co-signed by Klaus Schöning)
Date: 15 August 1979
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1982oo.
[Untitled]
Description: program note on Reunion
Date: 1979
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: (in German trans only): Cage 1980g.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “Muzički Salon”
Date: 1982
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1982UNTITLED.
[Untitled]
Description: program notes on Thirty Pieces for String Quartet
Date: 1983 OR 1984 [from SCORE?]. Darmstadt: Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, mimeographed, [2].
[Untitled]
Description: program note on Etudes Boreales
Date: July 1984 in New York
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1985X[ETUDES<CHANGE].
[Untitled]
Description: program note on Ryoanji
Date: December 1984 in New York
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1985RYOANJI<CHANGE.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “Artics”
Date: 25 July 1985
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1985m.
[Untitled]
Description: remark (caption text for Fanny Schoening’s Portrait John Cage)
Date: 24 September 1985
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1989o.
[Untitled]
Description: program notes on Atlas Eclipticalis with Winter Music
Date: October 1985
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1986e.
[Untitled]
Description: autoku on “I have nothing to say...” (two different texts?)
Model: John Cage, Lecture on Nothing, 109, “I have … need it”
Date: November 1986
First reading: 5 December 1986
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: included in Cage 1988c, 16-17
Literature: Cage 1988c, 11, 16n.
[Title unknown]
Description: [Ratschläge für meine Freunde über makrobiotische Diät]
Date: prior to 14 February 1987
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1987g.
[Untitled]
Description: autoku based on “I, you...”
Date: before 15 February 1987
First known reading: 15 February 1987
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none.
[Untitled]
Description: program notes on Winter Music, Satie and Webern]
Date: prior to ** June 1987
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1987UNTITLED.
[Title uncertain]
Description: program book for Europeras 1 & 2
Date: 1987 in Frankfurt am Main
Sources: a. MSS for the first (rejected) version of the program book (in German only, extent unknown); b. MSS for the definitive version of the program book (in German only); Berlin, estate of Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn
Publication: CHECK.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostics on “Dorothea Tanning”
Date: before 18 May 1988
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1988e.
[Untitled]
Description: statement for Life
Date: before December 1988
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1988f.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “Andy Warhol”
Date: before or during 1989
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1989l.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “de Kooning”
Date: before or during 1989
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1989m.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “Roberto Fabbriciani”
Date: circa 1989
Sources: present location unknown.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “words nd ends”
Date: circa 1989
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1989n.
[Untitled]
Description: preface to Guido Facchin, Le percussioni
Date: August 1989
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage, John 1989PREF.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “Luigi Nono”
Date: between 9 May-July 1990
Note: printed error
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1990b.
[Untitled?]
Description: Darmstadt 1990 introduction plus mesostics
Date: 1990?
First reading: 25 July 1990
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1991e.
[Title uncertain]
Description: mesostics on “Samuel Beckett”
Date: circa 1990?
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: NNB Cage 1991?[In program, Nederlandse Opera, Feldman, Neither].
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “Demetrio Stratos”
Date: 17 February 1991
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1998b.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “Bratislava”
Date: prior to 18 June 1992
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1992j.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “Večery novej hudby”
Date: prior to 18 June 1992
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1992i.
[Untitled]
Description: mesostic on “Mauricio Kagel”
Date: 26 June 1990
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1991gNOTE-O-GRAM.
!
Description: mesostic on “Gerd Zacher”
Date: 2 April 1989
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1989a.
I-VI
Note: full title MethodStructureIntentionDisciplineNotationIndeterminacyInterpenetrationImitationDevotionCircumstancesVariableStructureNonunderstandingContingencyInconsistencyPerformance
Note: Charles Eliot Norton Lectures 1988-1989
Description: mesostics on “method,” “structure,” “intention,” “discipline,” “notation,” “indeterminacy,” “interpenetration,” “imitation,” “devotion,” “circumstances,” “variable structure,” “nonunderstanding,” “contingency,” “inconsistency,” “performance”
Date: June 1988-January 1989
First performance:
Sources: New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 814
Publication: Cage 1990f
Literature: Cage/Retallack 1991, passim; Cage/Retallack 1996, passim; Fetterman 1996a, 222-224; Gillott 2018; Gronemeyer 2004; Hannes 1993; Herwitz 1994; Kostelanetz 1990c; O’Driscoll, M. 1997; Pasler 1991; Perloff, M. 1991a; Perloff, M. 1991b; Smoliar 1990.
2 Pages, 122 Words on Music and Dance
Date: before or during November 1957
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 2 folder 23
Publication: Cage 1957d.
7 out of 23
Description: mesostics on “James Joyce”
Model: James Joyce, Finnegans Wake. New York: Viking, 1939, 626-627
Date: 1976 or 1977
Commission: at the request of Eliott Anderson for TriQuarterly
Sources: LOCATION***, draft (2 leaves, 28 cm, white paper [unidentified], typescript, blue and purple ballpoint ink)
Publication: Cage 1977a
Literature: Cage 1979c, 133-136; Cage 1980e; Cage/Schöning 1982, 73.
12 Pairs of Synopses
Description: collage of various opera synopses for Europeras 1 & 2 (Music)
Model: unknown
Date: after 2 April 1985
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1987c (twelve different editions).
25 Mesostics re and not re Mark Tobey
Description:
Date: 1972 or earlier
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1973n.
26 Statements re Duchamp
Description: essay
Date: 1962 or 1963; completed prior to September 1963
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 4 folder 11-13, 15
Publication: Cage 1963a
Literature: Cage 1967o, 70n; Charles 1974; Kostelanetz 1988b, 133-134; Perloff, M. 1994a.
36 Mesostics re and not re Marcel Duchamp
Description: poem
Note: original title 36 Acrostics re and not re Marcel Duchamp [cf. M, 26?]
Dedication: for Shigeko Kubota
Date: July 1970
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 4 folder 14
Publication: Cage 1970[36]
Literature: Cage 1973h, ix; Cage/Roth and Roth 1973, 78; Mac Low 1980, [43].
45' for a Speaker
Description: lecture
Note: may be performed in whole or part, with or without 26'1.1499" for a String-Player, 27'10.554" for a Percussionis, 31'57.9864" for a Pianist, and 34'46.776" for a Pianist, as a solo or ensemble for any combination of up to two pianists, five string players, percussionist, and speaker; the title to be appropriately changed to indicate the length in minutes and seconds and decimal fractions of the latter, and the performers involved
Duration: maximum 45 minutes
Date: October 1954 or earlier
First reading: late October 1954
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 1 folder 1-5
Publication: Cage 1961e
Literature: Cage 1961h, 146n-147; Cage 1962e, 26; Cage 1973d; Cage 1993d, 119; Cage/Charles 1976, 34; Charles 1970a; Fetterman 1996a, 206-208; Griffiths, P. 1981a, 30; Herrmann 2016; Toop 1968[?], 15; Metzger, H.-K. 2011; Pritchett 1993, 76, 96, 175, 182, 210n20; Schäfermeyer 1990, 157-158; Schmidt-Pirro 2003; Schulze, H. 2000; Thorman 2002, 34-46; Vogels 2014, 25, 183-186, 197.
45 Questions. See Communication.
A Few Ideas about Music and Films
Description: article
Date: before or during 1951
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 10 folder 5-6
Publication: Cage 1951a.
About Roaratorio
Description: acceptance speech on the occasion of receiving the Karl-Sczuka-Prize for Roaratorio: An Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake
Date: prior to 20 October 1979
Sources: present location unknown
First reading: 20 October 1979
Publication: Cage 1980e.
Address to an Orchestra
Note: orginally untitled
Description: address to The Hague Philharmonic [Residentie Orkest]
Date: 3 July 1976
Sources: transcript by Michael Nyman; present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1976d.
Adolph Weiss: Reminiscences
Description: article
Note: written in response to a request by William B. George; withdrawn from planned publication in A Year from Monday at the request of Adolph Weiss
Date: completed 13 February 1965
Sources: Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Library
Publication: none
Literature: none.
Afterword
Description: afterword to A Year from Monday
Date: circa 1967
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 13 folder 17-18
Publication: Cage 1967a.
Agenku2
Description: text [poem]
Date: November 1984
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: none.
Anarchy
Description: lecture consisting of twenty “50 %”-mesostics based on thirty quotations
Model: Michael Bakunin, Dieu et l’état, 1871, and quoted by Paul Berman, Quotations from the Anarchists, 1972; Norman O. Brown, quoted in John Cage, M, 1973, 213; Richard Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path, 1981; John Cage, M, 1973, 12, 20, 110; A Year from Monday, 1967, 17, 52, 53, 59, 68, 158, 161; Andrew Culver, graffiti noticed in New York subway, August 1987; Albert Einstein, personal memoir of William Miller, Life, 2 May 1955; Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays, 1910, Preface and Living My Life, 1931, 556; Paul Goodman, Drawing the Line, 1977; Hippolyte Havel, Biographic Sketch of Emma Goldman, 1910; Peter Kropotkin, Revolutionary Studies, 1892; Errico Malatesta, Pensiero e Volontà, 1924; Henry David Thoreau, Essay on the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1849 and quoted in John Cage, X, 1983, 155; Leo N. Tolstoy, Address, Swedish Government Congress Peace Conference, 1909, Saturday Review, 9 August 1958; Walt Whitman, To a Foil’d European Revolutionaire, 1856
Date: January 1988
First reading: 27 February 1988
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 1 folder 9-14
Publication: Cage 1989b
Literature: Cage/Retallack 1996, 2, 42, 163; Gronemeyer 1991.
Another Song
Description: poem
Model: Henry David Thoreau
Date: Fall [September or early October] 1979
Dedication: for Susan Barron
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1981a
Literature: Cage 1980e; Barron and Cage 1993.
Apropos of (Marcel Duchamp 1961)
Description: mesostic on “Kubota Shigeko Kubota”
Date: 1981
Dedication: for Shigeko Kubota
Sources: dated “(twenty years after)”; present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1981b.
Art and Technology
Description: text
Date: 1969
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 1 folder 15
Publication: Cage 1993a.
Art Has Quite Changed: Music Today
Date: before 22 October 1962
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1962a.
Art is Either a Complaint or Do Something Else
Model: Jasper Johns, statements taken from Mark Rosenthal, Jasper Johns: Work Since 1974. New York: Thames and Hudson in association with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1988
Description: text in 13 parts
Date: 1988
First reading: (presumably) 6 November 1988
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1991a
Literature: Cage/Retallack 1991, 107, 109-116, ***; Cage/Retallack 1996, xxiv, 54, 56-64, 66n20, 68, 108; Kostelanetz 2000c; Retallack 2015.
The Arts in Dialogue
Note: Editorially titled
Description: statement for “The Arts in Dialogue”, exhibition of graphic music notation at the Honolulu Academy of Art
Date: April 1964
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 1 folder 16
Publication: Cage 1970a
Literature: Cage 1967o, 40; Kostelanetz 1970d, 149n.
An Autobiographical Statement
Note: earlier title Lecture at the Commemorative Lecture Meeting
Decription: prose text
Date: February-August 1989
Commission: written for the Inamori Foundation
First reading: 10 November 1989
Sources: New York, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (8 leaves, typescript)
Publication: Cage 1991b.
Avertissement II
Description: foreword to Pour les oiseaux (Cage/Charles 1976)
Date: 1972
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1976a.
B.W. 1916-1979
Description: mesostics on “Ben Weber”
Date: before or during 1979
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979b.
The Beginning of a Connection between Satie and Thoreau
Description: collage of quotations
Model: writings of Erik Satie and Henry David Thoreau
Date: 4 November 1979
Sources: Berlin, estate of Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn (autograph)
Publication: Cage 1980a
Literature: Metzger, H.-K. and Riehn 1980, 3.
Bolivia Mix
Model: collage of eighty-nine excerpts from newspaper articles
Date: 21 July-26 August 1988
First reading: 17 June 1990, London?
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none (on printout: “Cottage Publications 1”).
By Way of an Introduction
Description: letter to Ornella Volta
Date: 25 May 1983
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1989c.
Canada, November 1989, Montreal
Note: title possibly not by Cage
Description: mesostic on “Chapelle du Bon Pasteur”
Date: 3 November 1989
Dedication: “poudrerie pour Guy Soucie”
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1997.
CBC Interview re Bach with Anne Gibson
Description: typescript in proportional notation of a recorded interview made in December 1984 in Toronto (Cage/Gibson 1989, 56)
Date: November 1985 in New York
Publication: Cage/Gibson 1989.
Centering
Description: ten mesostics on “M.C. Richards”
Date: 1989 or earlier
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1989d.
Changes
Description: lecture
Date: before or during September 1958 and completed prior to 6 September 1958
First read: 6 September 1958
Sources: Los Angeles, California, Getty Center, 940073 box 7 folder 2; Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 2 folder 15
Publication: Cage 1961a
Literature: Cage 1961h, 18n; Metzger, H.-K. 2011; Thorman 2002, 46-50; Vogels 2014, 25.
Chavez and the Chicago Drouth
Description: review
Date: before or during March-April 1942
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1941-1942a.
Cinekus2
Description: six mesostics on “Cinéma”
Note: part of The First Meeting of the Satie Society (Text)
Model: Marshall McLuhan, “The Agenbite of Outwit,” Location 1, no. 1 (Spring 1963), 41-44
Date: February-March 1985
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none
Literature: none.
_, _ _ Circus on _
Note: each realization should be titled as follows: (title of composition), (article), (adjective) Circus on (title of book)
Text: indeterminate
Medium: means for translating a book into a performance without actors, a performance which is both literary and musical or one or the other, for voice (optionally recorded), recordings, and any number of musicians, or any combination of these categories; substitions for recordings (as a radio play or installation) may be made
Extent: 38 sentences
Duration: indeterminate
Commission: Klaus Schöning for Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne
Dedication: for Klaus Schöning
Date: early September 1979
First performance: 20 October 1979; 22 October 1979 (first broadcast); 24 May 1980 (version with both tapes played simultaneously); 19 January 1981 (first live performance)
Realizations: (1) by John Cage in collaboration with John David Fullemann (15 June-15 August 1979), as Roaratorio, an Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake, after James Joyce, Finnegans Wake. New York: Viking Press, 1939 [the title derives from p. 41], radio play (text: John Cage, Writing for the Second Time through Finnegans Wake) co-produced by Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Süddeutscher Rundfunk and Katholieke Radio Omroep Hilversum, duration approximately 60 minutes; Cage also gave live performances accompanied by recordings and authored a multiple tape version for 2 stereo tapes (made for radio broadcast and concert use), lasting approximately 30 minutes each; 4 loudspeakers) with instructions for playing the tapes simultaneously or overlapping, 1980; (2) by John Cage, [Untitled], after Franz Kafka, Die Verwandlung, unfinished; Cage completed Writing through Die Verwandlung I, 1983
Sources: Bensberg, collection Klaus Schöning; New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 581-583, 1019-1020
Publication: New York: Henmar Press, 1979 (Peters; 66816); repr. in Cage 1982k, 173, 175; repr. in Aufbrechen Amerika., ed. Bojan Budisavljevic. Bochum: Stadt Bochum [etc.], 11, 13; Italian trans. Alessandro Carrera. In Bonomo and Furghieri 1998, 138-139; ***?first chapter of “Listing through Finnegans Wake” published as Cage 1979hLISTING
Literature: Benson, S. 2012; Burt, W.A. 2014; Cage 1980e; Cage 1982a; Cage 1982k; Cage 1983j, 54; Cage 1990f, 439-440; Cage/Boenders 1980, 221; Cage/Cope 1980, 14; Cage/Kostelanetz 1986; Cage/Kraglund 1982; Cage/Parfitt 1982; Cage/Rolland 1981; Cage/Schöning 1982; Cage/Timar, Frasconi, and Ingelevics 1981, 10-11; Campana 2001; Crampton 1985; Cunningham, M./Kuhn 1998; D’Harnoncourt 1993; Ferguson, R. and Schottlaender 1993 (reproductions of worksheets); Fetterman 1996a, 216-219; Froneman 2010; Green, J.M. 2020; Köhler, T. 2000; Koning 1980; Kostelanetz 1987d; Kostelanetz 1989d; Monaghan 2015; Müller, H.-C. 1985; Perloff, M. 1987; Perloff, M. 1991b, 149-161; Perloff, M. 1996a; Perloff, M. 2006; Perloff, M. 2012; Pisaro 2011; Pritchett 1996; Reichert 1985; Schäfermeyer 1990; Schöning 1982; Shimoda 1982; Smith, Gr. 1983; Timper 1990, 246-248; Vormweg 1979.
The City Wears a Slouch Hat
Description: radio play
Text: Kenneth Patchen
Note: there were two different versions of this composition; only the manuscript material of the second version survives
Medium: four speakers, four percussionists and sound effects person using five tin cans, bell, two bongos, two cowbells, 1 maraca, Chinese woodblock, music stand, Turkish cymbal, three temple gongs, tom tom (player 1); teak woodblock, large tom tom, bell, claves, thundersheet, edges of tom toms, Balinese gongs, music stand, iron pipe (player 2); ratchet, tractor, thundersheet, tam tam, horn (player 3); whistle, buzzer, telephone, metronome, rattle, [bass strings of] piano (player 4); records: auto [automobile or any motor sound], variable frequency record, airplane, rain, wind, ocean, [steel] coil, baby cries (player 5 [sic]); two muted gongs, large Chinese cymbal, water gong, alarm bell, oxen bell, marimbula, washboard, music stand (player 6) [sic], also water gong, bass drum, Siamese rattle, Chinese gongs, Japanese temple gongs
Extent: unknown
Duration: approximately 40 minutes
Commission: Columbia Broadcasting System for their Columbia Workshop radio play series on WBBM radio in Chicago
Dedication: for Xenia Cage
Date: Late 1941-late May 1942
First performance: 31 May 1942 (broadcast)
Sources: New York, Public Library, JPB 88-70, JPB 94-24 Folder 84-85; Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: New York: Henmar Press, 2010 (Peters; 67497)
Literature: Cage 1951a, 12, 13; Cage 1993d, 38-39, 63, 64, 240; Cage/Charles 1976, 193-194; Cage/Kostelanetz 1986; Cage/Schöning 1982, 91; Cage/Schöning 1983, 291-293; Cox, Gerald P. 2011, 186-188; Fetterman 1996a, 9-11; Gann 1990a; Green, J.M. 2020; Patchen 1977.
Communication
Note: earlier titles 45 Questions and Rutgers Lecture
Description: lecture
Model: John Cage, earlier writings***; Kwang-Tse; Christian Wolff, “New and Electronic Music.” Audience 5, no. 3 (Summer 1958)
Date: before or during April 1958; revisions before September 1958
First reading: before or during April 1958
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 1 folder 7, box 2 folder 10-12
Publication: Cage 1958b
Literature: Cage 1959g, [2]; Cage 1961h, 18n, 41n; Metzger, H.-K. 2011; Nicholls 2012a; Thorman 2002, 50-52.
A Composer’s Confessions
Description: lecture
Date: [presumably February] 1948
First reading: 28 February 1948
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 2 folder 7
Publication: Cage 1991c
Literature: Cage 1993d, 243; Cage/Gillmor 1976, 20; Kostelanetz 1988b, 66.
Composition. See To Describe the Process of Composition Used in Music for Piano 21-52 and To Describe the Process of Composition Used in Music of Changes and Imaginary Landscape No. 4.
Composition in Retrospect
Description: mesostics; renga; “a lecture with slides” (Strawn et al. 1982)
Date: 17-19 August 1981 and 1988
First reading: 5 November 1981
Sources: Evanston, Illinois, Northwestern University Music Library
Publication: Cage 1982b; Cage 1992c
Literature: Baucke 1982[a]; Brennecke 1982[b]; Cage 1993d, 178, 242; Cage/Duckworth 1989, 32; D’Harnoncourt 1982JOHN/1982, 61; Lück 1982; McLean, P. 1982; Pasler 1994; Vargas 1982.
Composition as Process. See Changes, Communication, and Indeterminacy.
Concerto grosso für 4 Fernsehgeräte und 12 Radios
Description: program note
Date: 1979?
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1980b.
Congratulations and Love
Description: two mesostics on “Dieter Schnebel”
Date: 26 July 1989
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1990a.
Contemporary Japanese Music: A Lecture
Description: transcript of a freely spoken lecture authorized by Cage
Date: circa 1963
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1963b.
Contemporary Music Festival: A Report
Description: review
Date: prior to 15 May 1949
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1949a.
Contemporary Music Festivals Are Held in Italy
Description: review
Date: before or during June 1949
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1949b.
Correction
Description: mesostic on “silence”
Date: before or during 1979
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979r.
Counterpoint
Description: article
Date: prior to 15 February 1934
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1934.
Defense of Satie
Description: lecture
Date: 1948
First reading: summer 1948
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 2 folder 24
Publication: Cage 1970b
Literature: Erdmann 1990c; Nyman 1973a; Perry, J. 2014.
Diary: Audience 1966
Description: text
Date: March 1966
First reading: 21 May 1966
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 1 folder 17-19
Publication: Cage 1966a
Literature: Cage 1967o, 50n; Shultis 1995; Shultis 1998c, 101-114.
Diary: Emma Lake Music Workshop 1965
Description: mosaic of statements, anecdotes, observations
Note: requested by Canadian Art
Date: 15-28 August 1965
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 4 folder 18-23, box 14 folder 10
Publication: Cage 1966b
Literature: Cage 1967o, 21n, 50n; Cage/Kostelanetz 1968WE/1970, 16; Shultis 1998c, 101-102, 106.
Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)
Note: the title derives from Kwang-Tse
Description: TEXT
Extent: ten installments each comprising one “month” of thirty “days” of approximately 100 words each; 1. 1965. I-XXIX; 2. Continued 1966. XXX-LX; 3. Continued 1967. LXI-XC; 4. Continued 1968. XCI-CXVIII; 5. Continued 1969. CXIX-CL; 6. Continued 1970-1971. CLI-CLXXVIII; 7. Continued 1971-1972. CLXXIX-CCVIII; 8. Continued 1973-1982. CCIX-CCXXXVI
Date: during or after September 1965 (1); July-early September 1966 (2); 1967 (3); 1968 in Champaign, Illinois; revised in 1969 (4); 1969 (5), 1970-1971 (6), 1971-1972 (7), between 1973 and 1982 (8) and completed before or during March 1982
First performance: presumably 4 February 1966 (Part One)
Note: in 1967, Cage also designed a typography for subsequent publication in collaboration with Dick Higgins (Cage 1967c, esp. [15])
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 2 folder 27-47, box 3 folder 1-25, 27
Publication: Cage 1966c; Cage 1967b; Cage 1967c; Cage 1968a; Cage 1971b; Cage 1971c; Cage 1973b; Cage 1983a; Cage 1983c
Literature: Anonymous 1967X[NOTE]; Cage 1967o, 3n, 52n, 70n, 145n; Cage 1973h, x-xi; Cage 1979c, ix; Cage 1983j, 155n; Cage/Retallack 1996, xxi-xxii, 72, 152; Kostelanetz 1970a; Vogels 2014, 26.
Diary: Inter-Arts
Description: text
Date: prior to 4 February 1983
First reading: 4 February 1983
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none.
Dickins
Description: mesostics on “Dick Higgins”
Date: before or during 1991
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1991d.
The Dreams and Dedications of George Antheil
Description: article
Date: before or during January 1946
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1946a.
The East in the West
Description: article
Date: before or during April 1946
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1946b
Literature: Patterson, D.W. 1996, 96.
Edgard Varèse
Description: article
Date: 23 September 1958
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 12 folder 20
Publication: Cage 1958-1959
Literature: Cage 1961h, 83n.
Eight Whiskus
Description: mesostics
Model: Chris Mann, [untitled text]
Date: prior to or during November 1984
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: [as text of songs of the same title]
Literature: Vogels 2014, 51-56.
Electronic Souls
Description: letter to the editor
Date: 12 January 1966
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 4 folder 16-17
Publication: Cage 1966d.
Empty Mind
Description: radio play for male voice
Text: John Cage, Themes and Variations, introduction
Extent:
Duration: unknown
Date: before 14 February 1987
First broadcast: 15 February 1987, Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none.
Empty Words (text composition)
Description: for speaker / vocalist using amplification/ Lecture for amplified voice, consisting of a nonsyntactical mix of phrases, words, syllables and letters with optional slides (made by Babette Mangolte) of drawings by Henry David Thoreau shown simultaneously, and tape recordings made by Maryanne Amacher
Model: Henry David Thoreau, Journal, text and marginal drawings
Extent: Part I (223 stanzas); Part II (173 stanzas); Part III (12 columns); Part IV (12 columns)
Duration: 11 hours and 30 minutes, including 3 intervals of 30 minutes each; each part 2 hours 30 minutes
Date: August 1973-1974, completed before 8 August 1974
First reading: (part 4) 8 August 1974; (complete) 6-7 June 1979
Sources: Present location unknown, private collection of Michael Frauenlob Bauer; Berlin, estate of Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn; Evanston, Illinois, Northwestern University, Music Library
Publication: Cage 1974c; Cage 1974d; Cage 1975b; Cage 1975c; Cage 1978a; Cage 1978b; Cage 1979EW
Literature: Bell, G. 2015; Bolis 2012; Cage/?GILLMOR 1982[b] (omitting punctuation); Cage 1979c, 11, 33, 51, 65 (INTRODUCTIONS), 133, and 189; Cage 1978WRITING, [7]; Cage 1980e; Cage 1993d, 98-99; Cage/Anonymous 1975; Cage/Anonymous 1977; Cage/Bosseur 1981, 105; Cage/Cope 1980, 11-12; Cage/Kostelanetz 1980; Cage/Malina 1986; Cage/Retallack 1996, 140; Cage/Smith, S.S. 1992; Edmeades 2013; Edmeades 2014; Edmeades 2016; Fetterman 1996a, 210-216; Frank, W. 2013; Gronemeyer 1981-1982; Hannes 1993; Johnson, Tom 1975a; Jürging 2002; Köhler, T. 2000; Kostelanetz 1988b, 124-125; Luty 2009d; Mac Low 1980, [44]; Mersch 1986; Metzger, H.-K. 1994; O’Driscoll, M. 1997; Peters, M. 2014; Pritchett 1996; Shultis 1995; Zeller 1979b; [?Cage/]Schöning 1979, 15 [?=1982, 87?]; Thorman 2002, 108-118.
Empty Words (collection of writings)
Description: collection of writings
Date: 1977-1979
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 5 folder 1-2, 7
Publication: Cage 1979EW.
Literature:
Erik Satie
Description:
Note: title in first publication “On Erik Satie”
Model: Erik Satie, excerpts from writings
Date: before or during 1958
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 11 folder 11-12
Publication: Cage 1958a; Perry, J. 2014.
Essay (1985). See Writings through the Essay: On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.
An Essay on Essay
Description: essay
Date: prior to or during 1991
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1993bb.
Etudes Australes
Description: program note
Date: before or during January 1975
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1975NOTES.
Experimental Music
Description: address
Date: winter 1957, prior to 10 February 1957
First reading: 10 February 1957
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 5 folder 8
Publication: Cage 1959a
Literature: Cage 1961h, 7n.
Experimental Music: Doctrine
Description:
Note: first published as “Experimental Music”
Date: prior to June 1955
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 5 folder 9-10
Publication: Cage 1955a.
Fifteen Domestic Minutes
Description: radio play consisting of nine parts for the playing of records in different radio stations at the same time [Denver, Colorado; Los Angeles, California; Washington, D.C.; New York], two speakers (one male, one female), all to be brought together in one station and rebroadcast live
Text: John Cage, after James Joyce, Finnegans Wake. New York: Viking, 1939
Extent: instructions for performance (22 sentences); Denver, Colorado (three parts, 59 systems and 3 diagrams); Los Angeles, California (two parts, 50 systems and 2 diagrams); Washington, D.C. (two parts, 38 systems and two diagrams); New York (two parts, 26 systems and two diagrams); speech parts (two parts)
Duration: 15 minutes
Commission: National Public Radio
Dedication: for Ev Grimes and National Public Radio
Date: August 1982
First broadcast: 5 November 1982
Sources: Burlington, Vermont, University of Vermont, Bailey/Howe Library, Special Collections, Ev Grimes Papers; New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 598-602
Publication: none
Literature: Vogels 2014, 187.
The First Meeting of the Satie Society
Medium: for two speaking voices, a singing voice, and other musicians (optionally recordings); includes Cinekus2 (Text), Mesdamkus2 (Text), Musikus2 (Text), Relakus2 (Text), and Variations with Interludes and Variations (Text)
Model: Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie, James Joyce, Marshall McLuhan, Chris Mann, Henry David Thoreau and Genesis
Extent:
Duration: 90 minutes
Date: 1984-1985 and completed March 1985
First performance: 31 March 1985
Sources: New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 641-654, 657-659, 1048
Publication: none [Sonnekus separately]
Literature: Cage 1985e; Cage 1986SATIE; Cage 1993d, 139, 178, 195; Cage/Retallack 1996, 78, 147-149, 150, 316-318; Cage/Sweeney-Turner 1991, 2-3; Cage et al. 1986; Erdmann 1993f, 168-182.
FM 94
Description: mesostic on “WNYC”
Extent: 1 stanza (4 lines)
Date: prior to 16 February 1983
Dedication: for WNYC [radio station]
First performance: 16 February 1983
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none
Literature: Rothstein 1983.
For A.C. on His 70th Birthday
Description: poem/Mesostic on “Aaron Copland”
Date: prior to 14 November 1970
Dedication: for Aaron Copland
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1973c.
For d.d.
Description: mesostic
Date: February 1988 in New York
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: CHECK.
For Her First Exhibition with Love
Description: mesostic on “Fanny Schöning”
Model: James Joyce, Finnegans Wake. New York: Viking, 1939
Date: October 1982
Dedication: for Fanny Schöning
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1982FOR.
For More New Sounds
Description: theoretical study
Date: before or during May-June 1942 in Chicago, Illinois
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1941-1942b
Literature: Austin, W.W. 1966, 379.
For n.
Description: mesostic on “Niki de Saint Phalle”
Date: July 1987
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1987b.
For S. Fort, Dancer
Description: mesostic on “Syvilla Fort”
Date: between 1973 and 1978
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979d.
For the S.S.O.
Description: mesostic on “Savaria Symphony Orchestra”
Date: July 1986
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1986a.
For William Mc N. Who Studied with Ezra Pound
Description: mesostic on “William Mc Naughton”
Date: between 1973 and 1978
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979e.
For Your 50th
Description: mesostic on “Fylkingen”
Date: 22 August 1983
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1983-1984.
Forerunners of Modern Music
Description: article
Date: before or during 1949
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 5 folder 12
Publication: Cage 1949c
Literature: Clarkson 2001.
Foreword
Description: foreword to Silence (book)
Date: June 1961 [and 1959]
Note: partly identical with Cage 1959g
Publication: Cage 1961d.
Foreword
Description: foreword to Dunn 1962
Date: July 1962
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1962b
Literature: Cage/Schaardenburg 1970, 51.
Foreword
Description: foreword to A Year from Monday (book)
Date: October 1966
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 14 folder 4-5
Publication: Cage 1967d.
Foreword (1972). See How the Piano Came to Be Prepared
Foreword
Description: foreword to M (book)
Date: ca. 1972-1973
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 8 folder 26-29
Publication: Cage 1973e.
Foreword
Description: foreword to Empty Words (book)
Date: prior to or during 1979
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979f.
Foreword
Description: foreword to X (book)
Date: 1982 or 1983
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1983b.
Foreword
Description: foreword to Heidi Von Gunden, The Music of Ben Johnston
Date: before or during 1986
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1986b.
Foreword
Description: foreword to Colin C. Sterne, Arnold Schoenberg: The Composer as Numerologist
Date: before or during 1992
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1993c.
Forgive Me
Description: mesostic on “Oscar [sic] Fischinger”
Date: 8 May 1980
Dedication: to Elfriede Fischinger
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: as part of Cage/Anonymous 1993CORRESPONDENCE, 129.
Four Statements on the Dance. See 2 Pages, 122 Words on Music and Dance, Goal: New Music, New Dance, Grace and Clarity, and In This Day….
The Future of Music
Description: lecture
Date: prior to 3 April 1974; revised before or during 1979
First reading: between 3-6 April 1974
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 5 folder 3-4; New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 1003
Publication: Cage 1974f
Literature: Cage 1979c, 177n.
The Future of Music: Credo
Description: lecture
Date: prior to 18 February 1940
First reading: 18 February 1940
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 5 folder 13
Publication: Cage 1959b
Literature: Brown, R.H. 2012c; Cage 1961h, 3; Dahlhaus 1984b; Fetterman 1996a, 2-3; Griffiths, P. 1981a, 7; Spinello 1970; Yates 1967, 323.
Genekus2
Description: TEXT
Date: April 1985 in New York
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: none
Gentlemen of the Wesleyan Glee Club
Description: lecture
Date: [before spring 1961]
First reading: spring 1961
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 12 folder 23-26
Publication: none.
Goal: New Music, New Dance
Description: article
Date: before or during December 1939
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1939
Literature: Cage 1961h, 87n.
Grace and Clarity
Description: article
Date: before or during November 1944
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 2 folder 20
Publication: Cage 1944
Grand Street and Monroe (for R.L. Twenty Years After)
Description: five mesostics on “Richard Lippold”
Date: early 1973
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1973ee.
h2 WDR
Description: Eight mesostics on “Hörspiel”
Date: before 29 September 1985; revised between 29 September 1985 and February 1987
First reading: 29 September 1985 (first version)
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1985H2WDR; Schäfermeyer 1990.
Haikus: Letters from the Seventeen Chapters of Finnegans Wake
Description: mesostics
Model: James Joyce, Finnegans Wake. New York: Viking, 1939
Date: November 1983
First performance: presumably 21 May 1991
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: none.
Happy Birthday
Description: ten mesostics (five on “Evelyn” and five on “Hinrichsen”) on the name of Evelyn Merrell Hinrichsen (1910-2005) on the occasion of her 70th birthday
Date: 1981
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1981dd.
Happy New Ears!
Description: text
Note: comprises three texts (on page 30, 30-33, 33-34)
Date: ca. 1962-1964
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 6 folder 4-8
Publication: Cage 1967e.
History of Experimental Music in the United States
Description: article
Date: 1958 or 1959 [part of the classes at the New School for Social Research]
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 6 folder 9-10
Publication: Cage 1959j.
HMCIEX
Note: the title fuses HCE (“Here Comes Everybody”, after James Joyce) and “mix”
Description: radio play on magnetic tape for male voice, female voice, reciting a collage from a list of 502 syllables (English) and 520 syllables (German) derived from the names of 151 countries recognized by the United Nations, and recordings of excerpts of folk music selected from those countries
Extent: *** systems
Duration: approximately 50 minutes (sendung?), piece 30 minutes?
Commission: Independent Composers Association, Los Angeles, California, co-produced by Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Dedication: for the Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival
Date: 1983-1984
Realization: May 1984
First broadcast: 10 July 1984
Sources: Bensberg, collection Klaus Schöning; New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 628-629
Publication: excerpt of draft in facsimile in Charles 1987-1988, 402
Literature: Cage/Kostelanetz 1986; Kostelanetz 1987d; Schäfermeyer 1990.
How Many Years ago
Description: mesostic
Date: before or during 1985
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1985b.
How the Piano Came to Be Prepared
Note: earlier title Foreword
Description: text
Date: April 1972
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 5 folder 5-6
Publication: Cage 1973d.
How to Get Started
Description: improvised brief comments on ten topics (written on ten sheets), all of which are recorded and played back simultaneously with the next
Date: 31 August 1989
First performance: 31 August 1989
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: none.
How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run
Note: continuation of Indeterminacy: New Aspect of Form in Instrumental and Electronic Music
Description: stories
Date: before 24 November 1965
First reading: 24 November 1965
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 6 folder 11-17
Publication: Cage 1967f
Literature: Hilger 1990; Mumma 1967.
If There Isn’t Any, Why Do You Wear Them?
Description: five mesostics on “shoes”
Date: before or during 1977 or earlier
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1977b.
“I’m the Happiest Person I Know” (S.W.)
Description: three mesostics on “Sue Weil”
Date: between 1973 and 1975 and completed before 3 April 1975
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1975e.
The Immaculate Medawewing
Description: short story
Date: prior to December 1929
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1930 (as “Jonathan Cage”).
In Memoriam S.W.
Description: mesostic on “Stefan Wolpe”
Date: between 4-10 April 1972
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1973f.
In This Day…
Description: introductory remarks for programs with Merce Cunningham and Dance Company
Date: fall 1956, prior to 9 November
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 2 folder 21-22
First reading: presumably 9 November 1956
Publication: Cage 1957b
Literature: Cage 1961h, 94n.
Indeterminacy
Description: lecture
Date: September 1958-completed before 8 September
First reading: 8 September 1958
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 2 folder 13-14
Publication: Cage 1958ÜBER; Cage 1959g; Kim, R.Y. 2011; Metzger, H.-K. 2011.
Indeterminacy: New Aspect of Form in Instrumental and Electronic Music
Description: lecture in the form of a series of ninety short stories
Date: Late September-prior to 9 October 1958, with 1959 additions
First performance: 9 October 1958
Sources: Los Angeles, California, Getty Center, 940073 box 7 folder 2 and 960036, box 40 folder 10; Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 6 folder 18, box 7 folder 1-3
Publication: Cage 1959f; Cage 1961GG; facsimile of an autograph sketch in Kostelanetz 1970d, illustration 42, between 197-198. Cf. also Cage 1968[Cunningham stories]/1970; Dunn 1962, 32 (data); compare John 1970: Cage ?et al. 1968[Cunningham-Stories]
Literature: Bell, G. 2015; Cage 1959g; Cage 1961h, 260-261; Cage 1967o, 133; Cage 1993d, 75-79; Fetterman 1996a, 208-209; Gillott 2018; Helms 1959; Kostelanetz 1992a; Thorman 2002, 65-67; Vogels 2014, 90-93; Yates 1967, 306-307.
Indian Sand Painting, or The Picture That Is Valid for One Day
Description: lecture
Date: 1949
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none
Literature: Nicholls 2007, 49; Sandler 1970, 213.
International Patriotism
Description: valedictorian address
Date: prior to 29 June 1928
First read: 29 June 1928
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none
Literature: none.
Inter-View
Date: circa 1985.
Introduction
Description: introduction to English translation of Pour les oiseaux
Date: ca. 1981
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1981d.
Introduction
Description: introduction to the book Marshall McLuhan: The Man and His Message
Date: before or during 1989
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1989e.
Introduction to Mushrooms et Variationes
Description: explanatory note
Date: circa 1983
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1986c (previously as program notes).
Introduction [to Themes and Variations]
Description: explanatory note
Note: originally published as “Introduction to an Unpresented Text - Oral Poetry, Themes and Variation”
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1982h.
ISCMkus
Note: title uncertain; possibly Sounds and Silence
Description: mesostics
Date: March 1989
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none [possibly in ISCM World Music Days 1989 program].
James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie: An Alphabet
Description: mesostics and quoted excerpts
Note: in 1980-1982 Cage transformed the text into a radio play
Model: Marcel Duchamp, Salt Seller: The Writings of Marcel Duchamp. Ed. by Michel Sanouillet and Elmer Peterson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973; James Joyce, Finnegans Wake. New York: Viking, 1939; Erik Satie, Ecrits, réunis, établis et annotés par Ornella Volta. Paris: Editions Champ Libre, 1977
Commission: Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Date: October-December 1979
First performance: 25 January 1980
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1981e; Cage1988FurnitureBallade (excerpt)
Literature: Cage 1983X, 53-55 (headnote Alphabet); Cage/Cope 1980, 11; Cage/Kostelanetz 1986; Cage/Roth and Roth 1973***; Cage/Schöning 1984-1985a; Cage/Schöning 1984-1985b; Cage/Stanton 1982; Cage/Timar, Frasconi, and Ingelevics 1981, 14; Charles 1979, 139-160; Crampton 1985; Fetterman 1996a, 219-222; Fullemann 1984-1985; Hinz 1985; Kim, R.Y. 2005; Kostelanetz 1987d; Kostelanetz 1988b, 168; Perloff, M. 1994a; Perloff, M. 2006; Reichert 1984-1985; Schäfermeyer 1990; Schöning 1982; Schöning 1985.
James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie: Ein Alphabet
Description: radio play on magnetic tape
Text: John Cage (German trans. by Klaus Reichert)
Extent: *** systems
Duration: 82 minutes
Date: between 1980-1982 and completed 27 February 1982 in New York
First broadcast: 6 July 1982
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none
Literature: Behrendsen 1984-1985b; Cage/Kostelanetz 1986; Cage/Schöning 1984-1985a; Cage/Schöning 1984-1985b; Fetterman 1996a, 219-222; Fullemann 1984-1985; Hinz 1985; Kostelanetz 1987d; Reichert 1984-1985; Schäfermeyer 1990; Schöning 1982, 21; Schöning 1985.
Jasper Johns
Description: mesostic
Date: 1979 or earlier
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979g.
Jasper Johns: Stories and Ideas
Description: article
Date: September 1963-January 1964
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 7 folder 24-44
Publication: Cage 1964JASPER
Literature: Kostelanetz 1988b, 133-136; Perloff, M. 2006.
Juilliard Lecture
Description: text. I-IV
Note: used in Untitled Black Mountain piece
Date: prior to 27 March 1952
First reading: 27 March 1952
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 8 folder 1-4
Publication: Cage 1967g
Literature: Cage 1961h, x; Cage 1967o, 95n; Kostelanetz 1969[D]/1970, 198; Thorman 2002, 25-34.
July 13, 1972
Description: mesostic on “Verena”
Date: 13 July 1972
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1973g.
Klassik nach Wunsch
Description: radio play for records and speaking voices?
Extent:
Duration:
Date: 1982 and finished on or before 23 April
First performance: 23 April 1982, Cologne, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Klassik nach Wunsch, John Cage and Klaus Schöning (voices) (Cage/Schöning 1983CHECK; Kölner Gesellschaft 1983, 31)
Sources: New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 603
Publication: none
Literature: Cage/Kostelanetz 1986; Schäfermeyer 1990; Schöning 1983a.
Eine kleine Tagmusik
Description: mesostic on “Fanny Schoening”
Date: 1992
Sources: present location unknown, collection Fanny Schoening
Publication: none.
Ladies of the Monday Club and Gentlemen of the Faculty
Description: lecture
Date: after October 1960
First reading: after October 1960
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 8 folder 5
Publication: Cage 1970c.
Lecture at the Commemorative Lecture Meeting. See An Autobiographical Statement.
Lecture on Commitment
Description: mosaic of statements, anecdotes, stories
Extent: fifty-six cards, twenty-eight with texts, twenty-eight with numbers representing seconds, both categories to be combined randomly (one text excepted)
Duration: 20 minutes (Cage’s realization)
Note: written for the Beta Symposium at Wesleyan University
Date: completed 21 February 1961
First performance: 23 February 1961
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 2 folder 4-6
Publication: Cage 1967h
Literature: Cage 1967o, ix, 112; Thorman 2002, 75-79.
Lecture on Nothing
Description: text
Date: 1950
First reading: 1950, New York, Artist’s Club on 8th Street, John Cage (Cage 1959g; Cage 1961d, ix; Snyder, E. J. 1970a, 38)
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 10 folder 22
Publication: Cage 1959c
Literature: Aeberhard 2017; Alpert, Barry 1975; Benson, S. 2012; Bernstein, D.W. 2002b; Cadenbach 1998; Cage 1959g; Cage 1961d, ix-xi; Cage 1961h, 109n; Campbell, I. 2015, 108-113; Edmeades 2013; Hamm, U.E. 2023; Herzfeld, G. 2007, 197-242; Kim-Cohen 2011; Maier, T.M. 2001b; Powers, E.D. 2014; Pritchett 1993, 55-59 and passim; Retallack 2003a; Shultis 1995; Stöbe and Görlitz 2007; Thorau 1994; Thorman 2002, 9-16; Vogels 2014, 24-25, 160-168.
Lecture on Something
Description:
Date: 1951
First reading: 1951
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 11 folder 29-32
Publication: Cage 1959d
Literature: Alpert, Barry 1975; Benson, S. 2012; Cage 1961h, 128n; Campbell, I. 2015, 108-113; Budweg 1982; Oehlschlägel 1979a; Shultis 1995; Thorman 2002, 17-21.
Lecture on the Weather
Text: Henry David Thoreau, Essay on the Duty of Civil Disobedience and Walden
Medium: radio broadcast or theatrical performance for twelve amplified speaker vocalists (AI-XII) optionally also using singing voices or any instruments or a combination thereof, using independent sound systems, recordings and a film
Note: a collage of texts by Henry David Thoreau with recordings by Maryanne Amacher (1938-2009) of sounds of wind, rain, and thunder (BI-III) and a film (representing lightning by means of briefly projected negatives of drawings by Thoreau) (C) by Luis Frangella (1944-1990)
Extent: 11 sentences (instructions for performance); speaker parts range from three to fourteen pages
Duration: preface approximately 10 minutes; composition indeterminate between 22 minutes and 45 seconds and 36 minutes and 24 seconds
Commission: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Richard Coulter), in observance of the Bicentennial of the United States of America
Date: September 1975
First performance: 26 February 1976
Sources: New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 432-444
Publication: New York: Henmar Press, 1976 (Peters; 6817); preface also separately published as Cage 1979l
Literature: Brooks, W. 2002b; Brooks, W. 2010; Cage 1979c, 3n; Cage/Kostelanetz 1980/1981, 268-269; Cage/Stanton 1982; Cage/Zimmermann 1976, 62-63; Finkel 2015; Griffiths, P. 1981a, 43; Herzogenrath, B. 2009; Perloff, M. 1991b, 21-28; Retallack 1994a; Kostelanetz 1988b, 81-82; Shultis 2000; Thorman 2002, 142-148; Valdeira 2020; Zeller 1979b.
Letters to Erik Satie
Note: to be performed simultaneously with Sound Anonymously Received (Music)
Choreography: Merce Cunningham, Tango
Medium: speaker/vocalist and tape loops (performer recites the name, “Erik Satie,” letter by letter, has it recorded and made into a tape loop played during the first four minutes; at the fourth minute sound stops and on-stage television set plays for 30 seconds, followed by the sound of a wailing teapot with boiling water; at the end tea is made and drunk by performer wearing a throat microphone)
Extent: unknown
Duration: each of the two letters approximately 5 minutes
Dedication: for Walter Marchetti (1) and Juan Hidalgo (2)
Date: 6 May 1978 (1) and 7 May 1978 (2)
First performance: 8 May 1978
Sources: New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 576-577; Paris, collection Ornella Volta; Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: none; facsimile sketches in Avant-scène Ballet/danse [***]; Charles 1987-1988, 414-415; Thorman 2002, 151-153
Literature: Cage/Raymond and Roberts 1980, 6; Sears 1981; Thorman 2002, 150-163; Thorman 2006.
List No. 2
Description: text
Date: after October 1960 or 1961
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1970e.
Listening to Music
Description: lecture
Date: prior to or during fall 1937
First reading: fall 1937
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 8 folder 21
Publication: Cage 1993e.
A Long Letter
Description: mesostics on “Conlon Nancarrow”
Date: before or during 1977
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1977c.
Looking at Painting from a Musical Point of View
Description: text
Date: 1974?
First read:
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 8 folder 22
Publication: none.
Macrobiotic Cooking
Description: recipes
Date: 1984
Sources: New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 816
Publication: Cage 1991f.
Macrobiotic Diet
Description: recipes
Date: prior to or in 1982
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1982ii.
Manifesto
Note: originally untitled
Description: manifesto on music
Date: 1952
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1952b.
Many Happy Returns
Description: mesostic on “Lou Harrison”
Date: between 1973 and 1978
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979i.
Marcel Duchamp and Suzuki Daisetz
Description:
Note: Part of Themes and Variations?
Date: before or during 1981
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1981g.
McLuhan’s Influence
Description: essay
Date: 11 January 1967
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 9 folder 17
Publication: Cage 1970f.
The Meadows Award 1989
Description: mesostic on “Robert Rauschenberg”
Date: 3 October 1989
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1989f.
Meister Duchamp or Living on Water
Description: mesostic on “Meister Eckhart”
Date: 14 April 1991
Sources: estate of Daniel Charles
Publication: Cage 1994c.
Mesdamkus2
Description: seventeen mesostics on “Trois poèmes d’amour”
Note: part of The First Meeting of the Satie Society (Text)
Model: James Joyce, Finnegans Wake. New York: Viking, 1939
Date: February-March 1985
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none.
Mesostic
Description: mesostic on “Mac Low”
Date: before or during 1992
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1993f.
Mesostic
Description: mesostic
Model: Kurt Schwitters, An Anna Blume (Merzgedicht 1)
Date: before or during 1987
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1987d
Literature: Erlhoff and Stadtmüller 1987.
Message
Description: mesostic on “Yoritsune Matsudaira”
Date: unknown
Note: in French
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1998c.
Mirage verbal: Writings through Marcel Duchamp, Notes
Description: poem in ten parts (ten writings through); mesostics on “mirage verbal”
Model: Marcel Duchamp, Notes, arranged and translated by Paul Matisse. Paris: Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, 1980; repr. 1983
Duration: circa 25 minutes
Date: April-May 1984
First read: 26 August 1984
First broadcast: 14 February 1989
Note: in French
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1990d; Schäfermeyer 1990, 177.
Mirakus2
Description: twelve mesostics on “mirage verbal”
Model: Marcel Duchamp, Notes, arranged and translated by Paul Matisse. Paris: Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, 1980; repr. 1983
Note: also used as text for songs of the same name
Date: November 1984
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1990e.
Miró in the Third Person: 8 Statements
Description: statements
Extent: 8 statements comprising 29, 62, 40, 7, 35, 23, 47, 58 words respectively
Date: September 1966
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 9 folder 19-22
Publication: Cage 1967j
Literature: Cage 1967o, 85n.
More Satie
Description: letter to the Editor of Musical America
Note: title presumably not by Cage
Date: prior to 1 April 1951
Sources: unknown
Publication: Cage 1951b; Perry, J. 2014.
Morris Graves
Description:
Date: summer 1957, prior to 29 June
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 6 folder 3
Publication: Cage 1957c.
Mosaic
Description: review of Arnold Schoenberg, Letters. Selected and ed. Erwin Stein. Trans. Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965
Date: April 1965, completed before 21 April; revised September-October 1966
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 9 folder 24-29
Publication: Cage 1965a
Literature: Cage 1967o, 43n; Perloff, M. 1982a; Perloff, M. 2012b.
A Movement, A Sound, A Change of Light
Description: essay on Merce Cunningham for program booklets of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company
Date: circa 1963
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1963MOVEMENT
Literature: none.
Mud Book
Description: book for children on the various ways to make pies and cakes out of mud
Note: written in collaboration with Lois Long (drawings)
Date: ca. 1959
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage and Long 1982
Literature: Tomkins 1965, 114.
Muoyce (Writing for the Fifth Time through Finnegans Wake)
Description: text, mainly whispered, occasionally chanted (including ten electronic thunderclaps)
Model: James Joyce, Finnegans Wake. New York: Viking, 1939
Duration: approximately 120 minutes
Extent: 17 sections (as chapters in Joyce) in the same proportions as the length of the chapters; total 608 lines; one line lasts approximately 11.35" seconds
Date: 1981 or 1982-prior to 27 March 1983
First reading: 27 March 1983
Sources: New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 900
Publication: Cage 1982j
Literature: Cage 1980e; Cage 1983e; Cage 1983j, 173; Cage/Kostelanetz 1986; Culver 1994; Kostelanetz 1987d; Mac Low 1980, [47]-[48]; Schäfermeyer 1990; Schöning 1985.
Muoyce (Writing for the Fifth Time through Finnegans Wake)
Description: program note
Date: before or during 1983
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1983e.
Muoyce II (Writing through Ulysses)
Description: poem in eighteen sections for soloist with six tapes of traffic sounds recorded in different cities
Model: James Joyce, Ulysses
Date: 1992 in New York and completed before or during May
First reading: 5 October 1993
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1992eMUOYCE
Literature: Cage 1992eMUOYCE, 151n; Culver 1992[CHECK], 287; Thorman 2002, 126-132.
Mureau
Description: poem
Note: earlier titles Music of Thoreau, Mueau [May 1972 Bremen, presented as such]; version for solo voice and three pre-recorded tapes realized by John Cage
Extent: I. N columns [M, 35-38]; II. N columns [M, 40-44]; III. N columns [M, 45-49]; IV. N columns [M, 50-56]
Duration: approximately 70 minutes
Model: Henry David Thoreau, Journal
Date: prior to 7 November 1970
First performance: shortly after 7 November 1970
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 9 folder 30-32
Publication: Cage 1971d
Literature: Bell, G. 2015; Bruns, G.L. 1994; Cage 1972c; Cage 1972[LETTER-TO-OTTE-B]; Cage 1972[LETTER-TO-OTTE-C]; Cage 1973h, ix, xiii, 219; Cage 1979c, 11; Cage 1980e; Cage/Kostelanetz 1980; Cage/Smith, S.S. 1992; Cage/Stanton 1982; Charles 1978c, 227+; David 1977; Griffiths, P. 1981a, 41; Mac Low 1980, [43]; Shultis 1995; Thorman 2002, 106-109.
Mureau
Description: program notes
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1972c.
Mushroom Book
Description: stories, observations, and poems about mushrooms and various other topics (part of artwork made in collaboration with Lois A. Long and Alexander H. Smith)
Date: 1972
Publication: Cage 1972d.
Mushroom Haiku
Description: this is presumably the mesostic on “morel” cited in the preface to “Writing for the Second Time through Finnegans Wake”
Date: 1974
Publication: .
Mushrooms
Description: sixteen mesostics on “mushrooms”
Date: 1979
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979j.
Mushrooms et Variationes
Description: mesostics
Duration: 75 minutes
Date: September-October 1983
First performance: October or November 1983 (possibly 31 October 1983)
Sources: Berlin, estate of Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn (fair copy, typescript)
Publication: Cage 1984a; Cage 1985d
Literature: Cage 1986c; Gronemeyer 1985b; Mersch 1986; Schäfermeyer 1990; Schöning 1985.
Music and Art
Description: collage of texts
Date: prior to or during 1985
Model: Editorial, 291 [New York] no. 2 (February 1915); John Cage, various self-quotations; Marcel Duchamp, La mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même, 1934; Michele Porzio, letter to Cage; Erik Satie, “Claude Debussy,” Vanity Fair (1922); Alberto Savinio (pseudonym of Andrea de Chirico), “Dammi l’anatema, cosa lascivia,” 291 [New York] no. 4 (June 1915), 4; Alberto Savinio, “Erik Satie”, La Fiera Letteraria [Roma] new series 2, no. 9 (27 February 1947), 8, repr. in Alberto Savinio, Scatola sonora. Milano: Ricordi, 1955; in Scatola sonora; Arturo Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, 1969
Publication: Cage 1985dd.
Music and Dance
Description: TEXT
Date: early January 1983
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1983MUSIC.
Music and Particularly Silence in the Work of Jackon Mac Low
Description: text
Date: before or during 1980
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1980d.
Music and the University: What Kind? What Aim?
Description: transcript of spoken statement
Date: 18 November 1967
Sources: Urbana, University of Illinois, University Archives
Publication: none
Literature: none.
Music for Magnetic Tape: History
Description:
Date: prior to 21 March 1953; presumably revised or completed Spring 1955
First read: 22 March 1953
Sources: Evanston, Illinois, Northwestern University Music Library; Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 12 folder 5-10
Publication: none
Literature: referred to by Pritchett 1988, 198.
Music for Thirteen
Description: program note
Date: before 23 October 1987
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1987e.
Music in Aix
Description: review
Date: 1949, prior to 13 August
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1949d.
Music Lovers’ Field Companion
Description: article
Date: 1954 or 1955
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 10 folder 7
Publication: Cage 1955b
Literature: Cage 1961h, 274n.
Musical Manuscripts – An Introduction to Notation
Description: theoretical text
Date: prior to November 1979
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979k.
Musikus2
Description: fourteen mesostics on “Furniture Music”
Note: part of The First Meeting of the Satie Society (Text)
Model: Chris Mann, Whistlin is Did
Date: February-March 1985
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none.
Nam June Paik: A Diary
Description: text
Date: October 1965
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 10 folder 8-11
Publication: Cage 1965b; Perloff, M. 2012b.
The New School
Note: originally untitled?
Description: text
Commission: written at the request of Clara Meyer, as contribution to a monography on the New School for Social Research, which presumably never appeared
Date: during or after 1960
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1970g.
Literature: Kostelanetz 1970d, 118n.
New York Mycological Society
Description: text
Date: prior to 9 May 1965
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1970h
Literature: Kostelanetz 1970d, 151.
Nine Mesostics re Jackson Mac Low’s Tree* Movie
Description: poem
Date: 9 February 1975
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: included in Cage 1975PART.
Notations
Description: text, typographical design and preface to Notations
Note: compiled in collaboration with Alison Knowles (and initially with Dick Higgins)
Date: 1965-May 1968
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1969a
Literature: Cage 1967a, 163; Zomer and Barros 2016.
Notations for A.K.
Description: mesostic on “Alison Knowles”
Dedication: for Alison Knowles, for her show “Um-Laut,” Galerie Schüppenhauer in Köln (Engelbertstraße 30), 17 January-22 February 1992, vernissage 17 January 1992
Date: December 1991 or earlier
Publication: printed on the invitation for the vernissage, December 1991.
Note re Recent Texts
Description:
Date: before or during the fall of 1973
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1973i.
Now (1987)
Description: mesostic on “listening”
Date: before or during 1987
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1987NOW.
Now (1988)
Note: part of Time (Three Autokus)
Model: Buckminster Fuller, “Now Hourglass”, in Synergetics 2: Further Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking. New York: Macmillan, 1979
Date: March 1988
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: included in Cage 1990h.
On Dylan Thomas
Description: text
Date: prior to 26 January 1972
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 12 folder 13-14
Publication: none.
On Film
Description: address to Creative Film Foundation
Date: prior to 6 April 1956
First reading: 6 April 1956
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 5 folder 11
Publication: Cage 1970i.
On Nam June Paik’s “Zen for Film” (1962-64)
Description: text
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1968b.
On Robert Rauschenberg, Artist, and His Work
Description: text
Date: February 1961
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 10 folder 32
Publication: Cage 1961ON
Literature: Cage 1961h, 98n; Cage 1962CARTRIDGE; Kostelanetz 1988b, 133-134.
On the Surface
Description: program note on Thirty Pieces for Five Orchestras
Date: prior to 19 November 1981
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1981h.
On the Windshield of a New Fiat for James K. (Who Had Not Made Up His Mind Where to Go) and Carolyn Brown
Description: mesostic on “Klosty”
Date: 1970?
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: as text of Solo for Voice 68 from Song Books, 246-247; repr. included in Cage 1973k, 94.
One12
Medium: voice
Extent: 2 sentences
Duration: indeterminate
Dedication: for Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi and the Quaderni perugini di musica contemporanea
Date: February-June 1992
First performance: 22 June 1992
Sources: New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 887; Pieve Caina, Quaderni perugini di musica contemporanea
Publication: in Quaderni Perugini di Musica Contemporanea no. 52-57 (June 1992), 6-7; repr. New York: Henmar Press, 1992 (Peters; 67903); repr. in Brand and Bianchi 1993, 30
Literature: Cage/Retallack 1996, 270; Feisst 2009; Fetterman 1996a, 224-225; Raybaud 1995; Thorman 2002, 132-136.
Other People Think
Description: lecture
Date: prior to 27 May 1927
First reading: 27 May 1927
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 10 folder 23
Publication: Cage 1970j.
Overpopulation and Art
Description: mesostics
Model: letter by Esther Ferrer (published as Ferrer 1995) and other models
Date: December 1991
Dedication: for the Stanford Humanities Center
First reading: 28 and 30 January 1992
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1992g
Literature: Bruns, G.L. 1994; Retallack 1994b.
Package from Switzerland
Description: mesostic on “Hanna”
Date: before or during 1980
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1980f.
Painting Relates to Any Moment
Description: poem; autoku
Model: Robert Rauschenberg, TITLE?, 19NN
Date: 1988
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1989g.
Percussion Music Seattle ’38-NYC ’90
Description: mesostic on “William Russell”
Date: February 1990
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1990P.
Poem for Edwin Denby. See Present.
Postface
Description: afterword to Pour les oiseaux (Cage/Charles 1976)
Date: 1972
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1976c.
Preface to Indeterminacy
Note: editorially titled
Description: introduction the the text, Indeterminacy: New Aspect of Form in Instrumental and Electronic Music
Date: after July 1959
Sources:
Publication: Cage 1959g.
Preface
Description: preface to Notations. See Notations (Text)
Date: May 1968
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: in Cage 1969a.
Present
Note: also published as Poem for Edwin Denby
Description: mesostic on “Edwin Denby”
Date: presumably 1963
Dedication: for Edwin Denby
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1970k
Literature: Cage 1973h, ix; Kostelanetz 1970d, 149n.
Problem
Date: February 1955 or earlier
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1955c.
Program Notes
Description: program notes notes on compositions by Earle Brown, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Bo Nilsson, Henri Pousseur, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Anton Webern and Christian Wolff
Date: prior to 26 April 1957
Sources: location unknown
Publication: Cage 1956.
Proposal to Establish a Center for Experimental Music
Description: text
Date: summer 1963, co-written with David Tudor
Sources: Los Angeles, California, Getty Center, 940073 box 7 folder 3; Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 12 folder 23-26
Publication: none.
Re and not re Fuller and Mao
Description: text
Date: circa 1972
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 3 folder 26
Publication: Cage 1972e.
Relakus2
Description: seven mesostics on “Relâche”
Note: part of The First Meeting of the Satie Society (Text)
Model: Marcel Duchamp, Notes, arranged and translated by Paul Matisse. S.l. [Paris]: Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, 1980 [CAGE zegt: 1983]
Date: February-March 1985
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1986RELA.
Remarks before a Recital
Description: remarks on recital by David Tudor, 19 March 1959
Date: before 19 March 1959
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 10 folder 33-37
Publication: Cage 1959DAVID (as “David Tudor”).
Remarks before a Visit to Japan
Date: 14 September 1962
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1962c.
Remarks on Theatre Song and Ikon
Description: review?
Date: November 1960
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 11 folder 2-3
Publication: Cage 1960a.
Repertoire
Description: text
Date: ca. 1991?
Sources: New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folders 879-880
Publication: ?.
Reply to the Founder of Murder Ink
Description: mesostic on “Dilys Winn”
Date: 1977
Dedication: for Dilys Winn (1939-2016)
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: none.
Rhythm Etc.
Description:
Date: October 1961-May 1962
Note: beginning later used for Time (Three Autokus)
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 11 folder 6-7
Publication: Cage 1966f
Literature: Cage 1967o, 120n.
Roaratorio, an Irish circus on Finnegans Wake. See _, _ _ Circus on _.
Robert Rauschenberg
Description: mesostic
Date: before or during 1979
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979m.
Rutgers Lecture. See Communication.
Ryoanji
Description: program note
Date: prior to 18 November 1988
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1988R.
Satie Controversy
Description: letter to the Editor of Musical America
Note: title presumably not by Cage
Date: prior to 15 December 1950
Sources: unknown
Publication: Cage 1950a; Perry, J. 2014.
Scenario for M.F. (with Numbers in Celebration of his 60th Birthday)
Description: mesostics on “Morton Feldman”
Date: July 1986 in Szombathely
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1987h.
Sculpture Musicale
Description: autoku
Model: Marcel Duchamp
Date: August 1985
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1987i; Thorman 2002, 171-174.
Selkus2
Description: thirteen mesostics on “Marcel Duchamp”
Model: Marcel Duchamp, Notes, arranged and translated by Paul Matisse. Paris: Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, 1980; repr. 1983
Date: November 1984
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1990g.
Series re Morris Graves
Description:
Model: John Cage, rhythmic patterns from Quartet [1935, music]; Sri Ramakrishna; Carl Gustav Jung, Transformation Symbolism in the Mass; the I Ching; Epiphanius; Athenagoras as quoted by Hans Leisegang, The Mystery of the Serpent
Date: 1973-April 1973
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 5 folder 14-box 6 folder 2
Publication: Cage 1974g
Literature: Cage 1979c, 99n; Kostelanetz 2000c.
Seriously Comma
Description: essay
Date: September 1965
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 11 folder 15-16
Publication: Cage 1966g.
Silent Environment
Description: program note
Date: before 20 January 1980
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1980h.
Six Arts and Technology
Description: text
Date: late 1969
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 11 folder 26
Publication: none.
Six Mesostics. See For A.C. on His 70th Birthday, In Memoriam S.W., July 13, 1972, On the Windshield of a New Fiat for James K. (Who Had Not Made Up His Mind Where to Go) and Carolyn Brown, Present, and Ten Years before Sixty-seven.
Sixty-one Mesostics re and not re Norman O. Brown
Description: fifteen mesostics on “Norman”, twenty-four on “O”, twenty-one on “Brown”
Date: during or after 1977 or 1978/before or during 1978 (Cage1979c, 123)
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979n.
Sixty-two Mesostics re Merce Cunningham. See Music.
Song (1970)
Description: poem
Model: Henry David Thoreau, Journal
Date: between August and October 1970
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1973m
Literature: Cage 1973h, x; Cage 1980e.
Song (1973-1978)
Description: mesostic on “Jasper Johns”
Date: between 1973 and 1978
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979o.
Song for the Tibetan Bowl Ensemble
Description: text
Date: unknown (circa 1991?)
Sources: New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 1074
Publication: none?
Song Ghosts
Description: poem
Date: April 1929 or earlier
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1929.
Songs for C.W.
Description: mesostics on “Christian Wolff”
Date: July 1985
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1985-1986
Literature: Cage 1988c, 11.
Sonnekus2
Description: nine mesostics on “Sonneries”
Model: Book of Genesis
Date: February 1985
Note: used as text for Sonnekus2 (Music)
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1985f.
South Winds in Chicago
Description: review
Date: before or during May-June 1942 in Chicago, Illinois
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1941-1942c
Literature: Fürst-Heidtmann 1979CHECK, 21.
Sports
Description: mesostics on “Erik Satie”
Note: see Music
Date: completed December 1985
Sources:
Publication: Cage 1989j
Literature: none.
Stanzas for T.T.
Description: thirteen mesostics on “Toru Takemitsu”
Date: May 1987
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1991h.
Storia dell’opera
Description: text
Date: 1987
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1987j.
Stufen: An Autoku for Siegfried Unseld
Description: for any number of readers and/or singers (using no vibrato, singing very quietly)
Text: John Cage, original texts, 1989
Model: Hermann Hesse, Stufen
Extent: *** sentences (instructions for performance), *** sentences (text)
Duration: indeterminate
Date: 2 June 1989
First performance: after 2 June 1989
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1989k
Literature: Cage/Retallack 1991, 65-66, 117-118; Thorman 2002, 174-182.
Summer Music: The Parks
Description: review
Date: before November-December 1944 in New York
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1944-1945.
Sylvia Streetor Recitalist
Description: review
Date: 13-14 November 1942
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1942a.
Talk I
Description: text
Date: September 1965
First performance: 19 September 1965
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 12 folder 3-4, box 14 folder 9
Publication: Cage 1967l
Literature: Cage 1967o, 141n; CHECKKostelanetz 1969[D]/1970, 198; Thorman 2002, 80-82.
Ten Years before Sixty-seven
Description: mesostic on “Leo Castelli”
Date: 1967
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1967m.
Theme and Variations (McLuhan)
Description: mesostics on “Marshall McLuhan”***
Date: March 1984
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1985g.
Themes and Variations
Description: mesostics
Medium: for voice solo
Extent: [five times fifteen] mesostics
Duration: 60 minutes
Date: [1979?-] 1980; completed prior to 20 May 1980 [January-February?]
First performance: 16 January 1980 (partial); 20 May 1980 (complete)
Sources: present location unknown, but see New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 632
Publication: Cage 1982THEMES
Literature: Cage 1982INTRODUCTION; Cage/De Vree 1980; Cage/Raymond and Roberts 1980, 8; Conte 1991; Radano 1982-1983.
“There is not much difference between the two” (Suzuki Daisetz)
Description: mesostic on “Takiguchi”
Date: 1979 or earlier
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979pTHERE.
There’s Virtually Nothing to Say
Note: part of Time (Three Autokus)
Model: John Cage, Rhythm Etc. (1961-1962)
Date: March 1988
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: included in Cage 1990h.
These Days
Description: text
Date: 1968
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 12 folder 11-12
Publication: Cage 1970n.
They Come
Description: autoku
Note: earlier title For N.Z.
Model: Samuel Beckett, “Elles viennent” (1937), in Samuel Beckett, Collected Poems, 1930-1978. London: J. Calder, 1984
Date: December 1985
Dedication: for Nicholas Zurbrugg
Sources: New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 661
Publication: Cage 1987l; Perloff, M. 2012b.
Thirteen Selkus. See Selkus2.
Thoroughness Like Water
Description: mesostic on “Joseph Beuys”
Date: May 1986
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1986d.
Three Asides on the Dance
Note: editorially entitled
Description: statements on the dance
Date: ca. 1959
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1993h.
Three Mesostics
Note: poems
Description:
Date: prior to or during 1980
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1980i.
Time (Three Autokus)
Description: includes (1) What You Say… (Text), (2) Now (Text), and (3) There’s Virtually Nothing to Say (Text)
Date: October 1986-March 1988
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1990h.
Literature: Deufert 2001.
Time to Walk in Space
Note: originally untitled
Description: stories about Merce Cunningham
Date: prior to 8 May 1968
First performance: 8 May 1968 or earlier
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1968c.
To Describe the Process of Composition Used in Music for Piano 21-52
Description: essay
Date: May 1956
Sources: Los Angeles, California, Getty Center, 940073 box 7 folder 2; Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 2 folder 25-26
Publication: Cage 1957a.
To Describe the Process of Composition Used in Music of Changes and Imaginary Landscape No. 4
Description: essay
Date: after 13 December 1951/circa 1952
Sources: Los Angeles, California, Getty Center, 940073 box 7 folder 2
Publication: Cage 1952a.
To Describe the Process of Composition Used in Not Wanting to Say Anything about Marcel
Description: essay
Date: September 1969
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1969c.
Tokyo Lecture
Description: lecture
Date: prior to 5 December 1986
First reading: 5 December 1986
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: included in Cage 1988c, 6-11.
Toyama 1982
Description: mesostic on “Takiguchi Shuzo”
Date: 1982
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1982TOYAMA.
Two Ackus
Description: poems
Date: 14 April 1985
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: none.
Two Mesostics
Description: two mesostics on “Frank O’Hara”
Date: 1977
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1978d.
Two Performance Dreams
Description: prose text
Date: before or during the fall of 1980
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1980j.
Two Statements on Ives
Description: statements
Date: 7 April 1964 (first statement) and September 1965 (second statement); written out December 1966
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 7 folder 9-23
Publication: Cage 1967n.
Unabstracted
Description: text by Stephen Paul Miller and Cage’s transformation of it
Date: prior to 9 June 1984
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage and Miller 1994
Literature: Cage/Shapiro 1985, 109.
Unfinished Music
Description: mesostic on “musi”
Date: 30 June 1990
Dedication: for Susumu Shôno
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1991i.
Unfortunate Comment on Our Musical “Life,” That Everybody’s Interested in
Description: note on Erik Satie
Date: prior to or during 1951
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1951c.
University in Motion: Matrix for the Arts
Description: address
Date: 1967
First reading: presumably 18 November 1967
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 12 folder 19
Publication: none.
Variations with Interludes and Variations
Description: mesostics on “Erik Satie,” “Gnossiennes,” “Les*** fils d’étoiles,” “Mercure,” “Nocturnes,” “Parade,” “Pièces froides,” “Socrate,” “Sports et divertissements,” “Tendrement,” “Trois morceaux en forme de poire”
Note: part of The First Meeting of the Satie Society (Text)
Date: January-March 1985
Duration: 60 minutes
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none.
Virgil Thomson: His Music
Note: original version unpublished
Description: theoretical study
Date: 1956; revised version completed before or during Spring 1959
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library
Publication: Cage 1959i
Literature: Henahan 1972; Tomkins 1965, 114.
Voiceless Essay. See Music.
Welsh Women’s Chorus in 5th Annual Concert
Description: review
Date: 20-21 November 1942
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1942b.
What You Say…
Description: autoku
Note: part of Time (Three Autokus)
Model: Jasper Johns, [last response in an interview with Christian Geelhaar], in Jasper Johns: Working Proofs, ed. Christian Geelhaar. Basel: Kunstmuseum, 1979
Date: October 1986
First reading: 9 September 1987
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1987o
Literature: Kostelanetz 2000c; Perloff, M. 1997.
Where Are We Eating? and What Are We Eating? (38 Variations on a Theme by Alison Knowles)
Description: Text; used by Pia Gilbert, in her work Food
Date: before or during 1975
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 12 folder 27-29; New York, Public Library, JPB 94-24 Folder 543
Publication: Cage 1975WHERE
Literature: ***Cage 1973h, ix; Perloff, M. 1982b; Weaver 2012.
Where Are We Going? and What Are We Doing?
Description: lecture on four single-track magnetic tapes, to be used, in whole or part, to provide a single lecture, or used in any combination up to four to provide simultaneous lectures; when combinations are made, the loudspeakers are to be separated in space; variations in amplitude may be made, following the score WBAI
Date: during or after July 1960; completed 26 April 1961
Realization: John Cage, voice (recorded 1960?) 45'00" [?each]
First performance: 9 January 1961
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 13 folder 1-10
Publication: 1. Text. Cage 1961[WHERE]; 2. Tapes (rental). New York: Henmar Press (P 6773), 1960? 4 single-track reel tapes, 19 cm/second, mono
Literature: Alpert, Barry 1975; Barnes 1966, 53; Cage 1961h, ix-xi, 194n-195; Cage 1962e, 43; Cage 1962[x in Kostelanetz 1970], 144-145; Cage 1967o, 23; Cage 1970f; Mac Low 1980, [42]: 4 teksten: één ervan heet Silence?; Markgraf 1962, 132-134; Thorman 2002, 67-75; Vogels 2014, 25, 124-130; Yates 1967, 307-308.
Where Do We Go from Here?
Description: article
Note: original title “From a Starting Point”
Date: 1963
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 13 folder 11-14
Publication: Cage 1963c
Literature: none.
White on Blanco for O.P.
Description: poem?
Date: 1980
Dedication: for Octavio Paz
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1980k.
Wishful Thinking
Description: mesostic on “Richard K. Winslow”
Date: between 1979 and 1982
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1983g.
Wright’s Oberlin House Restored by E. Johnson
Description: mesostic on “Ellen Johnson”
Date: between 1973 and 1978
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1979s.
Writing through Finnegans Wake
Description: mesostics on “James Joyce”
Model: James Joyce, Finnegans Wake. New York: Viking, 1939
Date: early August 1976-May 1977 [*** or 1978: in Bargeen 1977a Cage says he is still working on 1st and 2nd time, Cage/Schönberger: just completed]
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1978i
Literature: Cage 1979c, 133-136; Cage 1980e; Cage/Kostelanetz 1982; Mac Low 1980, [47]-[48]; Rohde 1984.
Writing for the Second Time through Finnegans Wake
Description: mesostics on “James Joyce”
Model: James Joyce, Finnegans Wake. New York: Viking, 1939
Date: 1976-1978 [***in Bargeen 1977a Cage says he is still working on 1st and 2nd time, Cage/Schönberger: just completed]
First performance: presumably 4 October 1977
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College; facsimile in Cage 1982k, p. 28
Publication: Cage 1978h
Literature: Cage 1979c, 133-136; Cage 1980e; Cage/Kostelanetz 1982; D’Harnoncourt 1993; Hannes 1993; Schöning 1982.
Writing for the Third Time through Finnegans Wake
Description: mesostics on “James Joyce”
Model: James Joyce, Finnegans Wake. New York: Viking, 1939
Date: 1979
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: none
Literature: Cage 1980e; Cage/Kostelanetz 1982.
Writing for the Fourth Time through Finnegans Wake
Description: mesostics
Model: James Joyce, Finnegans Wake. New York: Viking, 1939
Date: 1979-1980
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1983h
Literature: Cage 1980e; Cage/Kostelanetz 1982; Cage/Raymond and Roberts 1980, 8.
Writing for the Fifth Time through Finnegans Wake. See Muoyce.
Writing through a Text by Chris Mann
Description: mesostics
Model: Chris Mann, [Untitled] [not identical with Eight Whiskus]
Date: October 1984
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: none.
Writing through Die Verwandlung I
Description: mesostics on “Franz Kafka”
Model: Franz Kafka, Die Verwandlung, 1916
Date: 1983; completed before or during May 1983
Dedication: for Dore Ashton
Note: in German
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1990WRITING
Literature: none.
Writing through Howl
Description: mesostics on “Allen Ginsberg”: 1. Writing for the First Time through Howl; 2. Writing for the Second Time through Howl; 3. Writing for the Third Time through Howl; 4. Writing for the Fourth Time through Howl; 5. Writing for the Fifth Time through Howl; 6. Writing for the Sixth Time through Howl; 7. Writing for the Seventh Time through Howl; 8. Writing for the Eighth Time through Howl; 9. Writing for the Ninth Time through Howl
Model: Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), “Howl.” In Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems. San Francisco, California: City Lights Books, 1956, 9-20
Date: January-April 1984
Dedication: for Allen Ginsberg on his sixtieth birthday
Sources: Red Hook, New York, John Cage Trust at Bard College
Publication: Cage 1986f
Literature: Cage 1990f, 341-350; Perloff, M. 2012b.
Writing through The Agenbite of Outwit
Description: acrostics on “Marshall McLuhan”
Model: Marshall McLuhan, “The Agenbite of Outwit,” Location 1, no. 1 (Spring 1963), 41-44
Date: 1992?
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1993i.
Writing through the Bible
Description: mesostics on “Jehovah”
Note: original title Writing through the Five Books of Moses
Model: the Bible
Date: 1983-, unfinished
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1983UNTITLEDNNB; first two stanzas included in Cage/Murphy 1985
Literature: Cage/Sumner, Burch, and Sumner 1986, 15-16.
Writing through the Cantos
Description: mesostics on “Ezra Pound”
Model: Ezra Pound, The Cantos of Ezra Pound. New York: New Directions, 1948; revised edition London: Faber & Faber, 1954
Date: between 1979 and 1982
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1983i.
Writing through Ulysses. See Muoyce II.
Writings through the Essay: On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
Note: also known as Essay
Description: eighteen*** mesostics on “Messe des pauvres”
Model: Henry David Thoreau, Essay on the Duty of Civil Disobedience
Date: January-February 1985
First reading: presumably 15 October 1986
Sources: present location unknown
Publication: Cage 1991W (excerpt); Cage1998e
Literature: Cage 1991ee; Cage/Retallack 1996, 141; Mehring 2003; REL?Schöning 1987JOHN/46-47; Thorman 2002, 164-170.
A Year from Monday
Description: collection of writings
Date: Spring-December 1966
Sources: Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, Olin Library, collection 1000-72, box 14 folder 6-8, 11
Publication: Cage 1967o