| Category: | Musical composition |
| Dated: | Milan, January 1959 |
| Instrumentation: | For solo television performer |
| Duration: | 3' |
| Premiere and performer(s): | January 1959 in Milan (one week after the first performance of Water Walk), presented in an Italian television quiz-show called "Lascia O Raddoppia" (Double or Nothing), performed by John Cage |
| Dedicated to: | --- (?) |
| Choreography: | --- |
| Published: | Edition Peters 6756 © 1968 by Henmar Press. |
| Manuscript: | Score and list of materials (holograph, signed, in ink (score - 2 p.) and in pencil (list - 3 p.)); Draft of list of 20 items to be used in performance (holograph in pencil, with emendations in ink - 2 p.), both in New York Public Library. |
| This is a score for a solo television performance, involving 20 items to be used during the
performance and
4 single-track tapes, 7½" per second and 3 minutes each. The objects and sounds reflect the city of Venice,
including
bells of various kinds, boat horns and a toy that meows like a cat. The score consists of a floorplan and three pages of timed events using a notation similar to that of Water Walk, but using only linguistic notation, without pictographic symbols. The work was composed using the Fontana Mix. Together with Water Walk it was written for and performed in the Italian quiz "Lascia O Raddoppia", where Cage was asked questions (for 5 weeks!) on the subject of mushrooms. After these weeks he won the jackpot of 8000$ enabling him to buy a van for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and a grand piano. Every week Cage would perform one of his compositions, including the prepared piano solos from Amores, Water Walk and Sounds of Venice. New York Public Library online catalog; Paul van Emmerik: Thema's en Variaties; William Fetterman: John Cage's theatre pieces: Notations and performances |