the first music review magazine for the League of Composers. Its original name, The League of Composers’ Review, was changed in 1925. With wide coverage and esteemed contributors from both sides of the Atlantic, the magazine significantly shaped pre–World War II American music.
70. Properly, Oskar Wilhelm Fischinger (1900–1967), German-American filmmaker and painter, notable for his abstract musical animations. Cage worked briefly with Fischinger in the summer of 1937 and was impressed with Fischinger’s idea that a spirit dwells inside every object. Their working relationship was ill-fated, however. While working on Fischinger’s short film Optical Poem, Cage, noticing that Fischinger had nodded off and that the ash from his lit cigar had ignited some paper and rags on the floor, inadvertently splashed water on Fischinger’s camera. See Cage’s mesostic titled “forgive me,” to Elfriede Fischinger and dated May 8, 1980.
71. Properly, Bennington College, a liberal arts college founded in Bennington, Vermont, in 1932. Its School of Dance summer program was instituted in 1934 by Martha Hill, who brought in stellar teachers including Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Hanya Holm, and Charles Weidman. On August 1, 1942, Merce Cunningham and Jean Erdman would give a joint program of their own works there, which they repeated at the Humphrey-Weidman Studio Theatre in New York City later that year, adding Totem Ancestor (1942), another solo for Cunningham, with music by Cage.
72. Solovox, a monophonic keyboard attachment instrument intended to accompany the piano with organ-type lead voices, manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company.
73. See Edgard Varèse, “Organized Sound for the Sound Film,” Commonweal 33, no. 8 (Dec. 13, 1940).
74. John (Ernst) Steinbeck Jr. (1902–1968), American writer, who likely first met Cage in 1938 through Ed Ricketts (1897–1948), a marine biologist who hosted a casual salon at his laboratory on Cannery Row in Monterey, California.
75. Properly, Doris Denison and Margaret Jansen, two of the three “literate amateur musicians” (with Xenia Cage) who played in Cage’s percussion ensemble at the Cornish School, where both taught. Little is known about Jansen, other than that she was a pianist; Denison was a percussionist in Cage’s ensemble who became closely affiliated with the dance department at Mills College.
76. The Cages moved to Chicago in September 1941 on an invitation from Moholy-Nagy for Cage to teach in his School of Design. While there, Cage taught also at the University of Chicago, accompanying dance classes led by Kay Manning, and gave important performances at both the University of Chicago and at the Arts Club of Chicago.
77. The Humphrey-Weidman Group originated in 1928 when Doris Humphrey (1895–1958) and Charles Weidman (1901–1975) broke away from the Denishawn School and moved to New York City. They pioneered modern dance in the United States, founding a dance school and company to teach and perform their technique.
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
