Lipov A.N. 'Water Music'. John Cage's Experimental Music. Article 1

Abstract: The article is devoted to the creative work of one of the most influential and contradictory figures in the history of music, American experimental composer of the XXth century, musical theorist, writer, artist, pioneer of aleatoric (accidental) electro-acoustic music and unusual use of musical instroments and the founder of electronic music that is based on accident and uncertainty as the essential and shape-generating element, John Milton Cage (5 September 1912- 12 August 1992). One of the first instrumental actions using aleatory music and noises of nature was his composition 'Water Music' that was created in 1952 for two 'prepared' pianos with the radio, water containers, card pile, stick, and a stop watch and used the sound of water as the main element of composition. It was one of the compositions that made John Cage popular around the world. Through denying deeply established composition principles, Cage rethought and essentially predetermined the experimental practice of music, thus changing the course of modern music and forming a new concept of the after-war art of the XXth century. The author of the present article views the composer's experimental creativity as one of the most radical attempts in the history of music aimed at extending the borders of music and applying new materials for composing and playing music. In the course of the research the author has used the philosophical aesthetic research method. The research methodology is based on the interdisplinary definition of such concepts as the uncertainy principle, choas theory, stochastic (probable) procedures, 'accidental operations', etc. The given article is one of the first one to provide an in-depth research of one of the most unique experimental compositions of Cage 'Water Music' and cover the theoretical gap in Russian academic literature on musical art concerning the composer's versatile creativity and personality. The author of the research makes a thesis that Cage created his own creative method that is based on the principle of managed accident, unity of life, nature and art, invention of new materials and instruments for creating and performing music. Along with other numerous theoretical and instrumental innovations that led the composer to the radical extension of the sound space and, in fact, changed the subject of the music in general. 

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