Music for Piano 20



Category: Musical composition
Dated: New York City, August 8, 1953
Instrumentation: Piano
Duration: indeterminate
Premiere and performer(s): Paul van Emmerik: A Cage Compendium mentions a (not as being a first) performance in July 1953 (compare date of composition!): Water Front Auditorium, Black Mountain College, Black Mountain, MC. Performed by David Tudor
Other performances:
Dedicated to: Jimmy Curley
Choreography: Merce Cunningham: Suite for Five in Space and Time / Suite for Five / Suite for Two / Stillness (1956), Solo Suite in Space and Time (1953) and Minutiae (1954)
Published: Edition Peters 6733 © 1960 by Henmar Press
Manuscript: instructions for reproduction (1 lf.) in New York Public Library


1 page of music, with 5 staves and a total of 11 notes. Dynamics are left to the performer. Tone production was determined using chance operations, the notes themselves by paper imperfections.

Sources: New York Public Library online catalog; Paul van Emmerik: Thema's en Variaties; Paul van Emmerik: A Cage Compendium; David Revill: The Roaring Silence; C.F.Peters catalog; Richard Kostelanetz: John Cage: Writer - Previously uncollected pieces