American Mavericks: Program 7: If Jackson Pollock Wrote Music





	This episode is dedicated to Earle Brown, who died the week we were scheduled to interview him. Contact with the abstract expressionist painters after World War II inspired many American composers to look for a new American language in chaos, complexity, and freedom. For some composers, like the so-called "New York School" (Cage, Brown, Feldman, Wolff), and also for the burgeoning Free Jazz movement, the emphasis was on freedom, chance, improvisation. For others, the emphasis was on structure and scientific models. But both arrived at a chaotic musical energy that seemed to be the sonic analogue of a Jackson Pollock painting.

"If Jackson Pollock Wrote Music"
An essay by music critic and author Kyle Gann.

View 206 John Cage paintings at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco

Interview with Earle Brown (44:08s)
Recorded May 5, 2002 by Cornelius Dufallo and Gregg Bendian of the Open Aspects Ensemble, less than 2 months before Earle Brown's death.

John Cage
Morton Feldman
Anton Webern
Earle Brown
Arnold Schönberg
Igor Stravinsky
Milton Babbitt

Lehman Engel
Olivier Messiaen
Pierre Boulez
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Stefan Wolpe
Christian Wolff

In addition to host Suzanne Vega and San Francisco Symphony Orchestra Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, this show includes the voices of these composers, performers, and scholars:

Aaron Jay Kernis
Milton Babbitt: "Interview" (50:21s)
Elliott Carter: Interview (67:59)
Martin Bresnick: "Interview" (70:46s)
Charles Amirkhanian: "Interview" (76:02s)

IN TALK
John Cage was a close friend of the abstract expressionist painter, Robert Rauschenberg. As a matter of fact, Cage and Rauschenberg went on tour with the choreographer, Merce Cunningham, in the early days, driving around together in a little van. Cage did the music, and Rauschenberg did the sets. Listening to Cage's music on this site, what visual images do you see? Can you name a painting that particularly fits the music?

Christian Wolff, Earle Brown, John Cage, Morton Feldman

Music heard in the radio show:

Gamelan music ("Bopong"/Lyrichord LYRCD 7408)

MORTON FELDMAN: "Pollock Paints" (Mode 66)

MORTON FELDMAN: "Shadow" (Mode 66)

ARNOLD Schönberg: Variations for Orchestra (BBC Philharmonic/Boulez/Sony Classical SMK 48 464)

IGOR STRAVINSKY: "The Rite of Spring" (San Francisco Symphony/Tilson Thomas/RCA 9026-68898-2)

MILTON BABBITT: "Post-Partitions" (Miller/New World Records 80466-2)

MILTON BABBITT: "Reflections" for Piano and Synthesized Tape (Miller/New World Records 80466-2)

ANTON WEBERN: Concerto for Nine Instruments (Gould et al/Sony Classical SMK 52 661)

MORTON FELDMAN: "For Samuel Beckett" (Kairos 0012012KAI)

JOHN CAGE: "Music of Changes" (Sultan/Concord Concerto CCD-42030)

MILTON BABBITT: Composition for Four Instruments

MILTON BABBITT: "Ensembles"

ELLIOTT CARTER: Cello Sonata (Krosnick/Jacobs/Elektra Nonesuch 9 79183-2)

ELLIOTT CARTER: Double Concerto for Harpsichord, Piano and Orchestra (Jacobs/Kalish/Contemporary Chamber Ensemble/Weisberg/Elektra Nonesuch 9 79183-2)

STEPHAN WOLPE: "Enactments"

EARLE BROWN: "Cross Sections and Color Fields" (Saarbrucken Rundfunk/Zender/EBCD02 - Private Release)



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