At 4:03 AM +0100 1/08/03, jef chippewa wrote:
could you arrange mahler's 3rd for actors and for performance in a theatre setting? how about just the trombone solo in the 1st movement?
Yes, I probably could. (smile!) It would certainly bring a new point of view to the work. This kind of concept is what I enjoy about Berio's Sequenzas, particularly #5 for trombone, the one for solo voice (I think it's #1), and his Sinfonia, which is kind of a Sequenza for full orchestra. He's wacky! (in a good way!)
ask a traditional music performer what a gesture is. ask a new music composer. ask a dancer. an actor. a painter...
fundamentally i agree with you on this point, but such an approach can only be implemented at the level of creation [of a new work].
Hmm, I suppose so, unless one were to arrange (by this I mean to use the original work, and give it a new setting reflecting your interpretation rather than the composer's) an existing work for a new group, perhaps including choreography, lighting, or something else besides a change of orchestration.
the idea[s] in 4'33" can certainly be transposed into and reinterpreted in a dance or theatre performance, but will lose some of the original intention,
Is there a problem with this result? It will certainly gain some other intention in the process...
simply by the fact that cage's intentions relate to a sound context, and other mediums have other priorities. further, "silent" dance pieces are not rare. such a transposition may of course be able to articulate other aspects or concerns which are specific to dance, which could not be articulated in the realm of music/sound.
if it were to be transposed into a dance medium, for example:
snip
are these three distinct works still to be considered 4'33" by cage, or would they be[come] entirely different pieces, "inspired" by this specific work of cage?
Very good question. I don't know, really, but it seems that if you are using an acknowledged composer's original realisation of an idea, then you must give him credit, even if you have adapted/re-orchestrated/transcribed/arranged it to fit some other group or medium and show off its new attributes in a new context.
in structures 1, boulez uses messiaen's tone rows from modes de valeurs et d'intensités, yet noone would deny that boulez composed structures 1. noone would claim that structures and modes de valeurs are the same work, yet these exist in the same medium for the same instrument using the same materials.
Well, it's little different. Right now you are using the same letters and words as some famous authors, but the idea that you are realising is different, as Boulez' and Messiaen's works are different realisations of related ideas. Using the SAME realisation, well, that's plagiarism if you claim it as your own.
Have you been following the controversy (if you can call it that) over Yann Martel's "Life of Pi", in which Martel borrowed an idea (a boy stranded with a Bengal tiger) and made a completely different work out if it. He hadn't even read the book he got the idea from, he only heard about it, and he got accused of plagiarism, apparently by people who don't know what the word means.
without a programme explicitly stating it, would anyone witnessing any of the three dance performances above recognize it/them as 4'33"?
Maybe not, but is your criterion of audience recognition essential?
it seems to me that the identity of 4'33" lies specifically in the relation it holds to sound, to the experience of sound,
Which is why an 'arrangement" would be necessary...
and that it cannot be so simply interpreted in another medium, that it is not "inherently/intrinsically theatrical" as is sometimes claimed, that it is not simultaneously a music, dance, theatre, performance art piece. its distinction as a piece of sound/music seems indubitable to me. i would, however, agree that 4'33" is a complex enough work to offer or be able to withstand being regarded from extra-musical perspectives, as are mahler's 3rd, beethoven's große fugue, boulez's structures, but these perspectives are supplementary to the [understanding of the] essence of the work, they don't define it.
Hmm, I think I am a little more laissez-faire about this than you are. If some tin-eared audience member gets more out of the choreographed version of the Grosse Fugue than they do from an orchestra performance, who am I to argue? Of course, as a composer, I am moved to nausea by the idea. But there very well may be an arranged version of 4'33" that could do justice to a dance recital. I'm not certain any of the three versions you mentioned are it, though...
oh yeah... the finale content? um, is there any sense at all in "composing" "new" works once a work such as 4'33" exists, and if not, well, some of us here are out of a job aren't we?
Hee, hee! A last anecdote, illustrating the idea of 4'33" here at home. My office is in the basement, next to the laundry room. Over the holidays our washing machine got unbalanced during the spin cycle, and was emitting an interesting progression of squeaks rising in pitch and accelerating in tempo, accompanied by an alarming whir and a series of bumps. My daughter, all of 9 years old, came downstairs. "Dad? I want to go on Neopets on the computer. Are you fooling around with that program that messes up sounds again?" As far as she was concerned, she was expecting to hear music from the basement, and that's what she heard, even though I was quietly paying bills. I was proud of her.
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