Music for Piano 4-19



Category: Musical composition
Dated: New York City, May 1953
Instrumentation: Any number of pianos
Duration: indeterminate
Premiere and performer(s): May 18, 1956 at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana
Other performances: * July 1953 at Water Front Auditorium, Black Mountain College, Black Mountain, MC. Performed by David Tudor
Dedicated to: Eta Harich-Schneider
Choreography: Merce Cunningham: Suite for Five in Space and Time / Suite for Five / Suite for Two / Stillness (1956), Solo Suite in Space and Time (1953) and Minutiae (1954)
Published: Edition Peters 6732 © 1960 by Henmar Press
Manuscript: Score (holograph,sidned, in ink - 16 p.); Realisation (holograph, signed, in pencil - 6 p.), both in New York Public Library.


Tempo and dynamics are left to the performer. Tone production was determined using chance operations, the notes themselves by paper imperfections. "The 16 pages may be performed as seperate pieces or continuously as one piece or ...." (From introductory notes). The pieces may be performed in combination, or together with other pieces from Music for piano 21-84

Sources: New York Public Library online catalog; Paul van Emmerik: Thema's en Variaties; Paul van Emmerik: A Cage Compendium; David Revill: The Roaring Silence; C.F.Peters catalog; Richard Kostelanetz: John Cage: Writer - Previously uncollected pieces