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099

Title “Music: Experimenter: Zounds! Sound by John Cage at Town Hall,” New York Times, 20
Maker Ross Parmenter
Date 16 May 1958
Type press clipping
Location Getty Research Institute, David Tudor Papers, 980039, box 62, folder 13

In his review of the Town Hall premiere for the New York Times, Ross Parmenter foregrounds the size of the spectacle (an audience numbering one thousand), and, with respect to Concert for Piano and Orchestra, his Artaudian metaphors for psychosis (“crazy” and “mixed-up”). In line with other reviews, Parmenter summarizes John Cage’s program note, playing the role of Cage’s public pedagogue. Whereas some high modernists like Milton Babbitt defended their avant-garde practice as a bourgeoning research discipline among institutional circles of specialists, Cage paralleled Allan Kaprow’s emergent practice of centering pedagogical gestures: he repeatedly sought to explain the structure and significance of his work to his audiences. And to do so he used a variety of media—lectures, publications, press releases, program notes, television appearances, and, in this case, newspaper reviews.

Cite

Parmenter, Ross. “Music: Experimenter: Zounds! Sound by John Cage at Town Hall,” New York Times, 20, 16 May 1958. Getty Research Institute, David Tudor Papers, 980039, box 62, folder 13. In The Scores Project: Experimental Notation in Music, Art, Poetry, and Dance, 1950–1975, ed. Michael Gallope, Natilee Harren, and John Hicks. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2025. https://www.getty.edu/publications/scores/object-index/099/.