The Limits of Indeterminacy: The Performance and Analysis of Selected Indeterminate Compositions by John Cage and Earle Brown
type: CreativeWork
description: This study elucidates the relationship between notation, performance practice, and musical realization in several indeterminate compositions by John Cage and Earle Brown. While both Cage and Brown emphasized the multiplicity of possible outcomes in these works, the distinct configurations of fixed and unfixed elements in each ensure particular kinds of musical results to the exclusion of others. In tracing the musical limits and possibilities of each work, this research project also seeks to correct a longstanding belief that indeterminate music is not meaningfully responsive to the tools of music theory. Chapter one historicizes the emergence, presentation, and reception of indeterminate compositions within the European and American avant-garde, framing Cage’s 1958 lecture at Darmstadt as only the most visible manifestation of aesthetic trends already underway in both Europe and the United States. I subsequently address indeterminate music in the context of contemporaneous improvised music, following the critique laid out by George E. Lewis, and consider how it has been extended by artists and musicians working across disciplines. Chapter two is an analysis of Cage’s composition Four2 for mixed chorus, composed in 1990. I begin by conducting a virtual Monte Carlo simulation of possible performances of the work, which is then analyzed as a corpus to obtain the most prevalent musical results, and a comprehensive accounting of all possible pitch combinations, sonorities and textures. This is followed by the presentation of four “imagined” performances that are intended to reveal some of the most extreme variations in musical outcome possible in a given performance of the piece. The chapter concludes with a comparison between the musical results obtained in the simulations, real-world performances, and the imagined performances through the lens of performance practice. Chapter three focuses on Earle Brown’s open form composition Novara, composed in 1962 for mixed octet…
abstract: This study elucidates the relationship between notation, performance practice, and musical realization in several indeterminate compositions by John Cage and Earle Brown. While both Cage and Brown emphasized the multiplicity of possible outcomes in these works, the distinct configurations of fixed and unfixed elements in each ensure particular kinds of musical results to the exclusion of others. In tracing the musical limits and possibilities of each work, this research project also seeks to correct a longstanding belief that indeterminate music is not meaningfully responsive to the tools of music theory. Chapter one historicizes the emergence, presentation, and reception of indeterminate compositions within the European and American avant-garde, framing Cage’s 1958 lecture at Darmstadt as only the most visible manifestation of aesthetic trends already underway in both Europe and the United States. I subsequently address indeterminate music in the context of contemporaneous improvised music, following the critique laid out by George E. Lewis, and consider how it has been extended by artists and musicians working across disciplines. Chapter two is an analysis of Cage’s composition Four2 for mixed chorus, composed in 1990. I begin by conducting a virtual Monte Carlo simulation of possible performances of the work, which is then analyzed as a corpus to obtain the most prevalent musical results, and a comprehensive accounting of all possible pitch combinations, sonorities and textures. This is followed by the presentation of four “imagined” performances that are intended to reveal some of the most extreme variations in musical outcome possible in a given performance of the piece. The chapter concludes with a comparison between the musical results obtained in the simulations, real-world performances, and the imagined performances through the lens of performance practice. Chapter three focuses on Earle Brown’s open form composition Novara, composed in 1962 for mixed octet…
author: Andersen, Drake R
keywords: Musicology, Music Theory, indeterminacy, aleatory, experimental, performance analysis
date published: 2020-06-01T07:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:00:35Z
provider: City University of New York - Graduate Center
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York