James Pritchett: Writings

Welcome. This site contains a selection of my writings. Files are available in HTML, PDF, or both.

The following is a table of contents to the site:

• Music: John Cage
  • Specific pieces
  • General
• Other music
• On writing about music
• Poems & other texts

Music: John Cage

List of works. This is a chronological listing of all the completed musical works of John Cage. HTML

Specific pieces

• The story of "The city wears a slouch hat". This is the text that accompanies the recording available on Mode Records. It is an account of the history of Cage's score for Kenneth Patchen's radio play. HTML PDF
• Six views of the "Sonatas and Interludes". This is the text that accompanies the recording available on Mode Records. As the title says, it presents six different perspectives on Cage's well-known early masterpiece. HTML PDF
• The Ten Thousand Things. This is the chapter from my dissertation (The use of chance techniques in the music of John Cage, 1950-1956) that deals with the "time length" pieces of 1953-1956. It is reproduced here without the figures (for which I would need scans and permissions), but otherwise intact. (I hope to put all of my dissertation online at some point, time permitting). HTML
• Notes on Winter music/Atlas eclipticalis and 103. This is the text that accompanies the recording of these works as conducted by Petr Kotik, available on Asphodel Records. HTML
• Variations II. See under Other music below.
• Imitations/transformations This text concerns Cage's Harmonies and Cheap imitation. It accompanies the recording of these works available from Mode Records. HTML
• Freeman etudes. This combines the two texts that accompany the two volumes of the recording available on Mode Records. The first part is a general discussion of the work; the second part is an account of the completion of this work after a lengthy hiatus. HTML
• "Instead of separation, a sense of space". This text accompanied an installation of Cage's "Essay" in Berlin in 1993. HTML PDF
• On "Europeras 3 & 4". This is the text that accompanies the recording available on Mode Records. It is in two parts, one for each opera. Each part consists of several sections dealing with a different aspect, view, or impression of the work. HTML
• One⁸. This is the text that accompanies the recording available on Mode Records. HTML

General

• "Something like a hidden glimmering": John Cage and recorded sound. This is a study of John Cage's use of recorded sound in his music. It suggests a spiritual perspective on the subject rather than a narrowly technical one. PDF
• Introduction to "The music of John Cage". This is the introduction from my book on Cage's music, available from Cambridge University Press (and which can be ordered from amazon.com). The introduction presents my argument that Cage must be considered first and foremost as a composer, not as a philosopher. HTML
• Choral music: a timeline. This is the text accompanies the recording from Mode Records. It presents views of a collection of Cage choral works in the context of a historical chronology. HTML

Other music

• David Tudor's realization of Cage's Variations II This essay documents the method Tudor used in his version of Variations II for amplified piano. It is based on my work with the Tudor manuscripts at the Getty Research Institute. HTML PDF (hosted at Getty Research Institute)
• Profile of Frances White This is a profile of Frances White that I wrote for "Array", the journal of the International Computer Music Association. HTML
• Walls of sound. This is the text that accompanies Ulrich Krieger's recording available on O.O. Discs. It presents a background of text about unity and constant sound, coupled with short foreground texts about the specific works on the recording. PDF
• On Bach and the curved bow. This is the text that accompanies Michael Bach's recording of J. S. Bach's solo cello suites on Mode Records. The performer uses a curved cello bow which allows him to play the three- and four-note chords without arpeggiation. My text considers the significance and historical implications of the curved bow in the performance of Bach's music. HTML
• Richard Strauss: Melodramas. This text accompanies the recording of two Strauss melodramas ("Enoch Arden" and "The castle by the sea") on Mode Records. The text is primarily concerned with a presentation of the medium of the melodrama in a critical perspective. HTML

On writing about music

• Alternatives to explanation. This is a brief text that suggests ways to avoid the trap in writing about music of explaining what happens. PDF

Poems & other texts

• The Old Rose Reader. Written to accompany Frances White's composition for violin and electronic sound. For the composition, an animated text video was made. HTML
• Birdwing (for Frances). Written to accompany Frances White's composition for shakuhachi and tape HTML
• While listening to the waves (at Island Beach). Written to accompany Frances White's composition for erhu, zheng, xiao, and pipa. HTML