| Category: | Musical composition |
| Dated: | Stony Point, New York, January 1957 |
| Instrumentation: | 1-20 Pianos |
| Duration: | Indeterminate |
| Premiere and performer(s): | January 12, 1957 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, NYC, performed by John Cage and David Tudor. |
| Dedicated to: | for Bob Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns |
| Choreography: | Merce Cunningham: Aeon (1961) |
| Published: | Edition Peters 6775 © 1960 by Henmar Press |
| Manuscript: | Score, pages 2-20 (holograph photocopy - 19 p.); Realization (printed edition with holograph emendations in ink - 14 lv.), both in New York Public Library |
| The score consists of 20 unnumbered pages plus a title pages with performance instructions. The 20 pages
may be used in part of in whole by 1 - 20 pianists. The performer(s) make(s) a program of a determined timelength and
translates this to the page(s) to be played (space=time). Every page contains 5 systems, notated on 5 bars. Some pages contain very few events (one of them even just 1!), while other are more or less 'filled up'. Most events are aggregates of notes, to be played as a single ictus. Dynamics, resonances, overlappings and interpenetrations are free. The composing means involved both chance operations and observation of imperfecions in the paper upon which the music was written. The work may be performed with Atlas Eclipticalis and with Song Books. |