Two Pieces for Piano (1935)



Category: Musical composition
Dated: Ca.1935 Santa Monica, Calif.
Instrumentation: for piano
Duration: 4' (2'+2')
Premiere and performer(s):
Dedicated to: ---
Choreography: ---
Published: Edition Peters 6813 © 1974 by Henmar Press. Also published in "John Cage: Pianoworks (1935-1948)", Edition Peters 67830 © ?.
Manuscript: Score (Holograph in pencil, signed - 4 p. Folder 21), Sketches for the 1974 revision (holograph sketches in black and blue ink and black and brown pencil, written on a stenographer's pad - 33 lvs. with 7 manuscript pages. Folder 22)


Titles of the pieces: I - Slowly; II - Quite fast. The pieces use only flats as accidentals and have no markings for phrasing and dynamics. They are constructed in a way, using the twelve-note row as the source for small motifs. These are played at the very beginning and are not transposed or rhythmically modified. The repetitions produce a work which has absolutely nothing in common with other serial music being composed in those years.
The work was revised in 1974.

Sources: New York Public Library online catalog; David Revill: The Roaring Silence; Wolfgang Thein: Liner notes of CD: MDG 613 0793-2