John Cage's Greatest Hits

In this enjoyable and extremely informative guide to John Cage’s greatest works, Richard Kostelanetz begins by introducing the man, identifying why he is a one of the most revolutionary and influential 20th-century artists. Making crucial discriminations in a charming personal literary style, Kostelanetz then describes what and why he considers Cage's major works—namely Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (1948), which exhaustively climaxes Cage’s transformation of the piano into a percussion instrument by placing screws and bits of rubber between the strings; HPSCHD (1969), for seven harpsichords, fifty-two computer-generated sounds, and several thousand slides; Roaratorio (1979), which combines the sounds mentioned by James Joyce in Finnegans Wake with live Irish folksong musicians; and Europeras I/II (1987), an immense assemblage of song, scenery, and costume from 19th-century European opera. Kostelanetz also talks about Cage's Song Books score (1970) as book-art and his comparably innovative writings. By the time we've finished this short minibook, very much a pleasure to read, we not only understand a lot about Cage and his music, we want to read it again.