So, without wanting to be annoying, exactly the contrary, I would like again to play just the Sonatas and Interludes and to offer it clearly distinctly from other musical experience.
My most affectionate greetings to both of you.
Feb. 21st, a Monday, would be good for me. Is it good for you or Lester?
To Jack Heliker and Merton Brown142
[November 1948] | Location not indicated
Dear Jack and Merton:
This is thanksgiving day and it is very cool but not cold yet; we have not yet had any snow; now and then it has been Indian summer. We miss you very much, and there is no one to take your place. Once we went to visit Easton Pribble,143 but he never calls either one of us; I suspect that socially he is a bit lethargic. Lou is well but still goes to the Dr. whom he is now trying to educate in return. We hope that Jack has taught the monkeys how to speak English and move with American gestures. We are still making tour arrangements, and we will arrive the first of April in Holland (Rotterdam). I met a very nice music critic who works in Paris, Frederick Goldbeck,144 who edited Contrepoint, and I loaned him Merton’s scores. He leaves here on the 9th of December, and should Merton go back to Paris he should look him up. (He is anti-neoclassical, considers it as we do, an international plague. He is also not 12-tone in admiration. He likes Debussy, Varese, early Schoenberg, early Webern, Ruggles, now you and me.) Are you painting yet, Jack? Maybe we are going to do The Seasons145 in January, and I will have to do the rehearsal piano and the light cues. I am starting to write a piece for piano and orchestra, but I am still only timid in relation to it. Somedays too ecstatic others too timid. Reading Eckhart and have discovered that his tempo is very fast;146 if you read him as though you were a winchell it works magnificently, like fire. Merce has lots of new dances which he will do on tour. He is more and more unbelievable to watch move. Jack’s letter seemed sad to us; but I never really think of him as a traveler, but only painting in the corner of the room (I’ve thought that before going to Europe you should have tried painting in the kitchen just to see how moving a little bit felt). Now Merce wants to write a little bit.
[Merce Cunningham’s portion] the only trouble about john playing for the seasons rehearsals is that he cant play the score as well as you can, Merton, and it is harder to rehearse with him. i don’t know what the dancers will do. on our tour in the united states we have to run from chicago through sleet and snow to eugene oregon in four days. thats so we can make more money faster to get to europe quicker. it is so sad not to be able to go to cornelia street once in a while now, so we will hurry to italy and the via de cornelia. heres a brochure telling how wonderful we are. arthur gold and robert fizdale concert was terrible, slick and slack (nabokoff) chataqua (thomson) facile and mozart sounding like a contemporary work, and not a very good one (cage and cunningham) and a party for the artists afterwards that had a bunch of broadway comedians present to instill life (into the gathering). ruggles is at the chelsea hotel for the winter and he and virgil had tea, and they are great friends, and ruggles confided that virgil is a great man, and everybodys happy. henry cowell looks like a leprechaun in a wheelchair ready to burst forth at any point. john said, as he was taking a shower, that eckhart says that the soul is the gatherer together for the other disparate forces. we had a nice time this afternoon. did you? we miss you so much. lou seems much better, and so bright about so many things again.
To John Cage Sr. and Lucretia Cage
[Sometime prior to March 24] 1949 | Location not indicated
Thank you for all the food and money and love and the tree; I give nothing in return for all I have is yours.
For some reason which I cannot figure out, I have been unable to tell you that I have been planning to follow the tour here in America with one in Europe. Maybe I hoped that the plans would fall through. I really don’t want to go. On the other hand, Virgil T[homson] and others advise it strongly. I will make enough money on the tour here to pay my way there. And so far there are a few engagements: one with the Brussels Radio, the French Nat’l Radio; Bob and Arthur would play my two piano pieces in Paris. This afternoon when Peggy Bate147 called it was to say that a Scandinavian tour can be arranged. Through Albers at Black Mtn. I have a connection in Switzerland, etc. Moreover, Gita Sarabhai148 will be in Paris at the same time.
I am deeply embarrassed that I am writing this news rather than telling you; I would probably have to be psycho-analyzed to find out why I haven’t been able to tell you.
Being away for a fairly long time, I will arrange to sublet the apartment, which I hate to leave.
So that for the time that all this will last, this touring, you will be relieved of the burden that I continually think of myself as being.
The French critic I met here is the most important one over there; he thinks my work the best he has found here. That ensures good reception of my work in Europe. I would rather stay here + compose, but on the other hand, I have a responsibility having made this music to let other people hear it. I don’t think of it as career-business, but only as a kind of duty. Once I am on the trip, I will probably love it. But I hate to leave.
To Mr. Kenneth Klein149
January 18, 1949 | 326 Monroe St., New York
Dear Mr. Klein:
Regarding our recent business connection, I am writing to say that although I have only gratitude and appreciation for the services of yourself and those in your office, I feel obliged, for the reasons listed below, to lodge this formal complaint.
1. Because of the incident familiar to you of my work of the last three years in connection with the Sonatas and Interludes is possibly lost, unless by luck and hard work I am fortunate enough to regain the exact preparation which I had carefully saved, and successfully, until the incident known to both of us. The audience on the second evening heard only an approximation of the sound intended.
2. The box office is supposed to open at 7:30 p.m. but each evening did not open until nearly eight o’clock.
3. Several of my friends told me that although they wished to pay for their admission to the concert they could not find anyone to whom to give their money either at the box office or upstairs. They obtained admission to the concert without challenge and later offered to pay me; how many others, not friends, entered freely, I have no way of knowing.
4. On the second night several people were informed at the box office that the house was sold out and that tickets were unobtainable except in the balcony (my mother was one of these), even though the orchestra was at least half empty.
5. Arrangements were made to have the lighting done between 12:00 noon and 2:00 p.m. As you know this arrangement was not maintained.
6. The tuner from the Steinway Company either did not tune the piano at all or [tuned it] badly, since before preparing the piano I found several notes in the upper register to be actually double tones.
7. What with the conversation of the ushers directly behind the door of the hall, and the passing by of many people in the corridors (no sign given them that silence should be preserved), plus the sound of singing nearby, to say nothing of the orchestra quite audible from next door, it is virtually impossible to hear music properly in the recital hall, even though its acoustics are “excellent.”
This letter is in no sense a demand for reparations, although if, from an objective point of view, you would feel it just to make them, I would in no sense refuse them.
To John Cage Sr. and Lucretia Cage
April, 1949 | Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Dearest Mother and Dad:
Your letter sent to Maggie Nogueira was so marvelous;150 it told absolutely everything and (she insists I call her so) brought the letter to the boat so that I read it even before getting off the boat. It was so marvelous (the only adjective I know now) to meet her;