Our Spring Will Come



Category: Musical composition
Dated: 1943, New York City
Instrumentation: Prepared piano
Duration: 4'
Premiere and performer(s): Probably April 23, 1944 at the 92nd Street Y in New York City with Sarah Malament playing the piano and recitation of a poem by Langston Hughes
Dedicated to: ---
Choreography: Pearl Primus
Published: Edition Peters 66763 © 1977 by Henmar Press. Also published in "John Cage - Prepared Piano Music, Volume 1 ¤ 1940-47", Edition Peters 67886a © 2000
Manuscript: Score (holograph, signed, in ink with annotations in unidentified hand in pencil - 5 p.) in New York Public Library


In Our Spring Will Come Cage uses prepared as well as unprepared tones, giving the composition an even more unusual effect. The materials used as preparations are bamboo strips, screws, nuts, bolts and a hook screw. The published version was edited by Richard Bunger (with Cage's approval). It is a lively and rhythmically intense work in a kind of rondo form.