Construction (Cage)

Construction is the title of several pieces by American composer John Cage, all scored for unorthodox percussion instruments. The pieces were composed in 1939–42 while Cage was working at the Cornish School of the Arts in Seattle, Washington and touring the West Coast with a percussion ensemble he and Lou Harrison had founded. The series comprises three Constructions. A piece titled Fourth Construction, mentioned in several sources, is apparently either an unfinished work from 1942 or, more likely, an early title of the work we now know as Imaginary Landscape No. 2 (March).

First Construction (in Metal) was composed in 1939; its first title was Construction in Metal. Scored for six percussionists and an assistant. Instruments include, among other things, Japanese and Balinese gongs, Chinese and Turkish cymbals, automobile brake drums, anvils and a water gong (a gong lowered into water while vibrating, or struck while it is in the water, etc.) A piano is also used, with the assistant applying a metal rod to the strings.

In First Construction, Cage introduced the technique of composing using fixed "rhythmic structures". The idea was extremely important for his development as a composer, and during the next 17 years most of his work was done using the same technique or variations of it. In this particular case the basic structure is 4, 3, 2, 3, 4, and a single unit contains 16 bars. So the composition begins with four units of 16 bars each, then the next section has three units, the third has two, and so on. Each unit is also divided the same way: four bars, then three, then two, etc. The first part of the piece (four units of 16 bars each) was termed "exposition" by Cage, and the ending (which is a separate nine-bar section) "coda". The music itself is built around sixteen motives employed in strictly determined sequences. Both the use of ethnic percussion and the rhythmic proportions technique were inspired in part by Henry Cowell's lectures that Cage attended in New York City in 1933.

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