78. Gretchen (née Schoeninger) and Alexander Corazzo, Chicago-based artists whose “constructions and mobiles” were noted at the time. Gretchen, a childhood friend of Xenia’s, played in Cage’s percussion ensemble, which premiered Cage’s Ad Lib (1943), In the Name of the Holocaust (1942), and Shimmera (1942), all early piano pieces, at the Arts Club of Chicago on February 14, 1943.
79. Brabazon Lindsey, one of the players in the premiere radio broadcast performance of Cage’s The City Wears a Slouch Hat (see note 91).
80. Hull House, co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr, offering classes to working-class people, many European immigrants, in literature, history, art, music, and domestic activities.
81. The Arts Club of Chicago, founded in 1916 “to encourage higher standards of art, maintain galleries for that purpose, and to promote the mutual acquaintance of art lovers and art workers.”
82. Fully, Mercier (“Merce”) Philip Cunningham (1919–2009), American dancer and choreographer who by the end of his life would be at the forefront of modern dance. He and Cage had first met in 1938 at the Cornish School, Cage later traveling to Chicago with Xenia and Cunningham traveling to New York to dance with Martha Graham. The two would reconnect in Chicago and in New York, soon thereafter launching a collaborative relationship, both professional and personal.
83. Joyce Wike, anthropology student at the University of Washington who took dance classes at the Cornish School, befriended Cunningham, and performed in Cage’s percussion ensemble (1938, 1939). It has been posited that her study of Pacific Northwest Native ceremonial practices inspired Cunningham’s interest in Native American ceremonies, especially “spirit dancing,” a solo form.
84. Kenneth Patchen (1911–1972), largely self-taught American writer whose self-published antiwar novel The Journey of Albion Moonlight (1941) created controversy.
85. CBS Broadcasting Inc., a major commercial broadcasting network with roots in radio.
86. Bunny was Cage’s nickname for Xenia; although seen less frequently, also Xenia’s nickname for her husband.
87. Ruth Hatfield (b. 1914), Minneapolis-born modern dancer, choreographer, and dance educator; an original member of the San Francisco Dance League.
88. Martha Graham (1894–1991), American modern dancer and choreographer. With the formation of the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1926, she would employ stellar dancers over six decades, including Cunningham, who had moved to New York from Seattle specifically to dance for her. He remained until 1945.
89. This work would premiere under this title in San Francisco on May 7, 1942, but would soon be reworked and retitled Imaginary Landscape No. 2 (March No 1). It’s scored for percussion ensemble comprising tin cans, conch shell, ratchet, bass drum, buzzers, water gong, metal wastebaket, and lion’s roar, which are combined with an amplified coil of wire attached to a phonographic tone arm.
90. Cage’s Jazz Study (c.1941) for solo piano, long thought to be of doubtful authorship, in part because of the absence of original manuscripts. However, an envelope found after Cage’s death had written upon it “Doris Denison sent to JC 6/29/89. She says it is JC. He has no memory of it.” The use of jazz elements is somewhat uncharacteristic for Cage but not unprecedented; see other works from the period with jazz inflections such as Ad Lib (1943), Credo in US (1942), and Four Dances (1942–1943).
91. Cage’s The City Wears a Slouch Hat, subtitled Incidental Music for the Radio Play by Kenneth Patchen, composed on commission from the CBS Radio Workshop in Chicago and given its one and only broadcast on May 31, 1942, directed by Les Mitchell. Initially, Cage composed the work entirely for electronic sound effects, but a week before the broadcast, he was told that what he wanted to do was not possible in the allotted time. Cage recomposed the work for percussion ensemble and live sound effects just four days before the scheduled broadcast. The original manuscript is likely lost.
92. This concert took place on March 1, 1942, with Cage conducting an ensemble comprising Xenia Cage, Dorothy Fisher, Ruth Hatfield, Brabazon Lindsey, Stuart Lloyd, Rachel Machatton, Katherine Manning, Claire Oppenheim, and Marjorie Parkin in a program that included First Construction (In Metal) (1939) and the premiere of Imaginary Landscape No. 3 (1942), along with works by Lou Harrison and William Russell. A second, more explosive concert would take place at the Arts Club on February 14, 1943, with Merce Cunningham and Jean Erdman in first performances of Ad Lib (1943), In the Name of the Holocaust (1942), and Shimmera (1943); also performed by Cage and musicians (Xenia Cage, Gretchen Schoeninger, and Stuart Lloyd) were Credo in US (1942), Totem Ancestor (1942), and Forever and Sunsmell (1942).
93. Martha Graham and Dance Company had performed at Chicago’s Civic Opera House on March 14, 1942, in a program that included the premiere of Land Be Bright, with music by Arthur Kreutz and sets and costumes by Charlotte Trowbridge. Featured dancers were Cunningham as the Yankee Orator, Erick Hawkins as the Indian Chingachgook, and Graham as Betsy Ross.
94. Properly, Erick Hawkins (1909–1994), American choreographer and dancer. With Cunningham, he became one of the first male dancers to join the Martha Graham Dance Company (1939). He and Graham were married from 1948 to 1954.
95. Louis Horst (1884–1964), American choreographer, composer, and pianist. He was musical director for the Denishawn company (1916–1925) before serving as musical director and dance composition teacher for Graham’s school and dance company (1926–1948).
96. Jean Erdman (b. 1916), American dancer, choreographer, and teacher. A principal in Martha Graham’s Dance Company, she was often partnered with Cunningham. Erdman formed the Jean Erdman Dance Group in 1944, and for six years presented annual concerts in New York City. Among important works were Daughters of the Lonesome Isle (1945) and Ophelia (1946), both with commissioned scores by Cage. She was married to the American mythologist and writer Joseph Campbell (1844–1987).
97. Rue Winterbotham Shaw, president of the Arts Club of Chicago from 1940 to 1979. She is best remembered for scheduling the March 1, 1942, performance by John Cage (see note 92) as one of the first events of her presidency, for persuading Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to design the club’s interior (gratis), and for commissioning sculptor Alexander Calder to create his standing mobile Red Petals for the Club.
98. Cage’s first letter from his and Xenia’s 550 Hudson St. apartment in New York.
99. Cage likely refers to ongoing work for his father, which occasionally included the translation of complex scientific materials, including medical articles by Spanish physicians. Curiously, Cunningham was not commonly known to be fluent in Spanish.
100. This is likely reference to the Academy of Music movie theater that opened in 1927 and that took the name of an (eponymous) opera house that had been situated across the street at E. 14th St. and Irving Place in New York City before being demolished in 1926. As Cage was married at the time of this letter, it is likely that he and Cunningham were initially clandestine in their correspondence.
101. Cage’s playful reference to his (“his little friend”) and Cunningham’s (“enigma”) penises, seen with some frequency throughout their letters of the 1940s.
102. Cunningham was in residence with the Martha Graham and Dance Company at Bennington College throughout much of 1943.
103. Welland Lathrop (1905–1981), American dancer and choreographer, from 1930 to 1934 resident at the Cornish School in Seattle. In 1946 he established the Welland Lathrop School and Dance Company, then formed, with Ann Halprin, the Halprin-Lathrop Dance Studio Theater (1948–1955).
104. The reference here is to Cage’s “prepared piano,” heard first in his Bacchanale “dance accompaniment” to a work by Syvilla Fort, a faculty member at the Cornish School, first performed in Seattle on April 28, 1940. Per Fort’s request for a work with an African “inflection,” Cage intended to write for percussion ensemble. However, because the performance space was small