Book description
Silence, John Cage's first book and epic masterpiece, was published in
October 1961. In these lectures, scores, and writings, Cage tries, as he
says, to find a way of writing that comes from ideas, is not about them,
but that produces them. Often these writings include mesostics and
essays created by subjecting the work of other writers to chance
procedures using the I Ching. Fifty years later comes a beautiful new
edition with a foreword by eminent music critic Kyle Gann. A landmark
book in American arts and culture, Silence has been translated into more
than forty languages and has sold over half a million copies worldwide.
Wesleyan University Press is proud to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary
of the book's publication with this special hardcover edition.
"'It's the book I've reread most often in my life,' writes the
composer-critic Kyle Gann in his illuminating foreword to the 50th
anniversary edition. ... To reread Silence today is to see how complex,
playful, but also deeply ironic Cage's seemingly upbeat and casual
aesthetic really was." --Marjorie Perloff, Los Angeles Review of
Books JOHN CAGE (1912-1992) was an American composer, philosopher,
poet, music theorist, artist, printmaker, and amateur mycologist. A
pioneer of percussion, chance, and electronic music, Cage was one of the
most influential American composers of the twentieth century. He was
also instrumental in the development of modern dance in America, mostly
through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham. Cage is
perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4'33", the three
movements of which are performed without a single note being played.
KYLE GANN is one of the nation's leading music critics. Since 1997 he
has taught music theory, history, and composition at Bard College. He is
the author of The Music of Conlon Nancarrow, American Music in the 20th
Century, Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice, No Such Thing
as Silence: John Cage's 4'33", and Robert Ashley.
