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    "A Ping, Qualified by a Thud": Music Criticism in Manhattan and the Case of Cage (1943-58)

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    Author
    Robinson, S
    Date
    2007-02-01
    Source Title
    JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR AMERICAN MUSIC
    Publisher
    CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
    University of Melbourne Author/s
    Robinson, Suzanne
    Affiliation
    Music
    Metadata
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    Document Type
    Journal Article
    Citations
    Robinson, S. (2007). "A Ping, Qualified by a Thud": Music Criticism in Manhattan and the Case of Cage (1943-58). JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR AMERICAN MUSIC, 1 (1), pp.79-139. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196307070046.
    Access Status
    This item is currently not available from this repository
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/11343/29873
    DOI
    10.1017/S1752196307070046
    Abstract
    <jats:p>This article surveys the reception of concert performances in Manhattan of music by John Cage, from his arrival in 1942 until his gala retrospective held in Town Hall in 1958, in particular comparing responses from composer-critics such as Virgil Thomson, stabled at the<jats:italic>New York</jats:italic>Herald<jats:italic>Tribune</jats:italic>, with that of music journalists based at the<jats:italic>New York Times</jats:italic>and other local dailies. Close reading of reviews and of an array of archival sources suggests that Cage's personal and professional relationships with composer-critics ensured that the reception of his music was uniquely well informed, and that his prepared piano works and early experiments with chance were treated with a remarkable degree of affirmation. Much of Cage's critical identity can be attributed to the aegis of Thomson, who, if he denied acting as “hired plugger” for Cage, nonetheless sympathetically construed him as Americanist, Francophile, post-Schoenbergian, and ultramodernist. Thomson's resignation from the<jats:italic>Tribune</jats:italic>in 1954 coincided with a pronounced deterioration in Manhattan critics' appreciation of Cage. I argue that the reasons for this lie as much with the demise of the composer-critic—and a reversal of Cage's own attitude to criticism—as with conservative disaffection with new forms of experimentalism.</jats:p>
    Keywords
    Performing Arts and Creative Writing

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