The Selected Letters of John Cage. John Cage
saw the family doctor today, and he tells me spontaneously that he is amazed at my health which he has never known to be better. He means mentally. No frustrations, etc. He says, if it contines, I will get even fatter.
I ran into a lady who has a daughter in much the same condition as Mark. And she claims that although the injections are necessary that they alone will not do the thing, that diet is of supreme importance. She has taken the whole matter very scientifically. Vitamins. Would you like to get in touch with her? Yeast. A vegetable juicer.
To Adolph Weiss
[early summer, 1935] | Location not indicated
Dear Mr. Weiss:
Your letter just arrived; it was very good of you to write. Somehow I am very sad that you are staying in New York. It is rarely that fine things come out of immense cities. Rather, it seems to me, reality is sucked in there and becomes unreal, meaningless.
In our association, although it was a short time, I came to feel very close to you. It is difficult to imagine a future for me which does not concern you.
With Schoenberg I have remained apart. Although in each one of the class sessions I have “gleaned” something extremely valuable, I have felt disturbed fundamentally by the mediocrity induced by the class members. Including myself, for it seems to me that I am dull at present. Last week Schoenberg asked me after the class if I would come to see him. Perhaps this would lead to working with him privately. But I hesitate to think so.
My direction is towards you. You have been so good to me that I cannot forget.
You have probably received another letter I wrote to you recently. I hereby state again that I will soon be married. This will mean a great deal.
Mr. Hoss is always the same, excellent. I just phoned him and he returns, or rather sends you best regards and good wishes from himself and Mrs. Hoss. John Cave,25 a horn player, was visiting him. He is very much amused because of the near-identity of our names.
He says that he is very enthusiastic over my progress with the instrument. I have taken the beginnings slowly and I hope thoroughly. Now I must begin to “leap” forward.
Henry was down recently and said that he had written to you but had had no response.
I have not seen Dorothy and Grant. My friends who know them too, also do not see them. People seem to like Grant and his former wife, who is now dead, but nobody likes Dorothy. They criticize her inability to work with the dance; and, furthermore, criticize her as being a snob. This added to the distance to Redondo has deterred me from visiting them. Although when I met them with you I felt that Dorothy was fine. Generally I trust to first impressions.
My parents love you very much. My father has hopes of becoming wealthy and instituting every sort of thing for you that you would want. You would have only to whisper a wish and it would be amplified materially.
Have I made clear my position? I want to be with you working. You write to me that I should stick to Schoenberg. (I do not, by the way, consider myself a Schoenberg pupil; that designation is so cheap now that I am not interested in it; it is being bandied about by all those whose ears are vacant passageways for his words.) Synchronously, Schoenberg begins to show an interest in me. Whereas I feel that my study with you is unfinished. It obviously is. It is only the consciousness of a personal relationship which I am expressing.
I do feel that I must stay here until I am something of a horn player. That will be sooner, perhaps, than I had imagined. Within the year, Mr. Hoss says, I might be able to play in the Pasadena Orchestra.
I was building up a good discipline in New York, which in this climate has fallen somewhat to pieces. I accomplish a great deal, I think; but not as much as I could accomplish if I concentrated more. So far today I have accomplished my practising of the horn, about 2 hours; my scientific research work about 4 hours; and one undeveloped musical idea. I am often guilty of not thinking through to the end. I wish you would impart to me the secret of thinking completely; mother will then return a recipe for “tremendous vitality.”
A year’s longing, and this has taken time, has resulted in a favorable answer from Xenia. She is a marvelous creature. Her world is almost without limitation: for she includes, from her mother (an Eskimo), an animal, pre-historic, primitiveness; and from her father (a Russian priest), the rich and organic mysticism and instinctiveness of Russians; and of herself she has found our own American insistence upon being contemporary and intensely speculative of the future.
You will excuse my taking the liberty of writing such a long letter.
It will not be luck or hope when I see you again; it will be necessity. And I am looking forward to it!
To Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Weiss
[early August 1935] | 1207 Miramar, Los Angeles
My dear Mr. and Mrs. Weiss:
It was very fine, receiving your card from Chatauqua,26 because I know that you are enjoying the country and the escape from the city. With regard, however, to the program announced on the card:—I had, the day before, been at the Hollywood Bowl and sat through a very uninteresting performance of the Tschaikowsky Sixth Symphony in order to hear Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, Heifetz playing superbly. And these continual complaints that we, if I may include myself among musicians, are making, I was forced to make again. After hearing the Tschaikowsky once, which I believe everyone who has entered a symphony hall has, I see no necessity for hearing it again, since, by virtue of sequence upon sequence and repetition upon repetition, one is forced hearing it once to hear it scores of times. And when it is unenthusiastically given, one can only be, in counting up the number of sequences and multiplying that by the number of times he has been forced to hear the whole thing, arriving at a huge number. And the programs here at the Bowl are generally bad: I shall be startled if there is something I want to hear very much. In place of the Tschaikowsky, which was played, the Sibelius Fifth Symphony had been announced. I have not heard it, and should have enjoyed hearing it. But it was not played. I received your card too late to listen to the radio; but I should have turned it off after the Beethoven. Am I doing something wrong? I find, however, that sometimes my whole attitude changes, and anything that has been written as music brings from me love and respect that a human being was able to have that idea and to express it in music. The attitude of joyful acceptance of everything, drawing no lines, never thinking of comparisons, so that everything has its own stature. The least has a beauty, just as has the most. And then I can forget criticism and listen singly, which is the happiest way of listening. To show you what a muddle I am conscious of getting into:—This “happiest of listening” that I have just mentioned cannot, perhaps, compare with the happiness of critical listening. Not the aesthetic criticism, but the listening to relationships, etc. (no matter what they are, for they necessarily exist in everything, no matter how apparently chaotic), and then making a judgement as to how valuable such relationships are.
I have many things to tell you, and must tell them. My father will soon be in Pittsburgh. He will stay at the William Penn Hotel. It seems a very short distance from there to Chautauqua. He would be very glad to see you and Mrs. Weiss. I hope that if you remain at Chautauqua that all of you will get in touch. I think Dad should have some sort of a vacation and visiting you at Chautauqua would be excellent. He is making some arrangements with Westinghouse with regard to his new inventions. I have been doing extensive research work for his new company; and that is what has given me the financial possibility of being married (which latter, by the way, is marvelous27). I will give Dad your address, before he leaves, which he is doing in an airplane this week. I have given you his. I certainly hope he sees you.
My study with Schoenberg is progressing steadily. We have reached four-part counterpoint, second species. He is very good to us, and takes great pains teaching us. His English has become very good. He is even able to be witty with the use of words, which represents a certain level of mastery. He is moving, I believe, into another house. And I understand that he has been engaged by the University here for the entire year. They promise to present many of his works.
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