''The Seasons'' is a ballet with music by

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

and

choreography Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design ...

by Merce Cunningham, first performed in 1947. It was Cage's first piece for orchestraPritchett, 40 and also the first to use what Cage later called the ''gamut'' technique, albeit in an early form.Nicholls, 189

Overview

Cage composed the music in early 1947, in the midst of working on '' Sonatas and Interludes''. A piano version was first completed, and an orchestral arrangement followed. Cage dedicated ''The Seasons'' to

Lincoln Kirstein Lincoln Edward Kirstein (May 4, 1907 – January 5, 1996) was an American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, philanthropist, and cultural figure in New York City, noted especially as co-founder of the New York City Ballet. He developed and sus ...

. The ballet was premiered on May 17, 1947 by the Ballet Society (by which the work was commissionedWilliam Fetterman. ''John Cage's Theatre Pieces: Notations and Performances'', p. 14. Routledge, 1996. ) at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, with original choreography by Merce Cunningham (now lost). Costumes and scenery were designed by Isamu Noguchi. The dancers at the first performance were Gisela Caccialanza, Fred Danieli, Dorothy Dushock, Gerard Leavitt,

Tanaquil LeClercq Tanaquil Le Clercq ( ; October 2, 1929 – December 31, 2000) was an American ballet dancer, born in Paris, France, who became a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet at the age of nineteen. Her dancing career ended abruptly when she ...

, Job Sanders, Beatrice Tompkins and Cunningham himself.Date on the first performance and contributors from: Anatole Chujoy, Phyllis Winifred Manchester. ''The Dance Encyclopedia'' p. 811. Simon and Schuster, 1967. 992p. The ballet is in one act divided into nine sections: Prelude I, Winter; Prelude II, Spring; Prelude III, Summer; Prelude IV, Fall; Finale (Prelude I). As in ''Sonatas and Interludes'' and the later ''

String Quartet in Four Parts ''String Quartet in Four Parts'' is a string quartet by John Cage, composed in 1950. It is one of the last works Cage wrote that is not entirely indeterminate. Like ''Sonatas and Interludes'' for prepared piano (1946–48) and the ballet '' The Se ...

'' (1950), Cage was influenced by Indian aesthetics and like the latter work, ''The Seasons'' is built on the Indian concept of seasons: winter is associated with quiescence, spring with creation, summer with preservation and fall with destruction. The Finale is a reprise of the first Prelude, symbolizing the cyclical nature of seasons. As in the majority of Cage's compositions from the 1940s, the music of ''The Seasons'' is based on a predefined proportion. In this case the proportion is 2, 2, 1, 3, 2, 4, 1, 3, 1, and it governs not only the construction of individual movements, but also the proportions of the entire work, roughly defining the relative lengths of the movements. The compositional technique involves using ''gamuts'' of sounds, i.e. predefined sonorities (single notes, chords, aggregates); Cage started developing this approach in ''The Seasons'', and later perfected it in ''String Quartet in Four Parts'' and ''

Concerto for Prepared Piano A concerto (; plural ''concertos'', or ''concerti'' from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typi ...

''.

Notes

References

* David Nicholls. '' The Cambridge Companion to John Cage''. Cambridge University Press, 2002. * James Pritchett. ''The Music of John Cage''. Cambridge University Press, 1993. {{DEFAULTSORT:Seasons, The Ballets by John Cage Ballets by Merce Cunningham 1947 ballet premieres Compositions by John Cage

Overview

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References