The Seasons
Ballet in one act for orchestra (1947)
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SKU: PE.EP6744
Ballet in one act for orchestra (1947). Composed by John Cage. John Cage. Peters Contemporary Library. 20th Century. Score. 80 pages. Duration 00:15:00. Edition Peters #98-EP6744. Published by Edition Peters (PE.EP6744).ISBN 9790300758138. 297 x 420mm inches.
This work was originally used as music for the choreographed piece of the same title by Merce Cunningham, with stage design by Isamu Noguchi. It is also available in its original version for solo piano (for which, please see EP 6744a). The Seasons consists of nine movements (please see Contents, below). It's a sweet and lyric composition, and like Sonatas and Interludes and String Quartet in Four Parts, indicative of Cage's interest in Indian aesthetics. Here, Cage uses the Indian signification as deep inspiration: Winter as quiescence, Spring as creation, Summer as preservation, and Fall as destruction. It is one of the compositions in which Cage tries to "imitate nature in her manner of operation", an idea he also drew from Indian philosophy. The work's overall rhythmic structure is 2-2-1-3-2-4-1-3-1, which also expresses the relative lengths of each of the work's nine movements. Cage first composed the piano version, then the orchestral version, with assistance with its orchestration from Lou Harrison and Virgil Thomson.
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