Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Cage and Friends
- Part II Colleagues and Criticism
- Part III Earlier Interviews
- Part IV Extravaganzas
- Appendix I Finnegans Wake
- Appendix II John Cage Uncaged
- Selected Bibliography
- General Index
- Index of Works by John Cage
- Eastman Studies in Music
20 - Introducing Roaratorio, Cage, Cunningham, and Peadar Mercier with Peter Dickinson: BBC Radio 3, July 19, 1987
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Cage and Friends
- Part II Colleagues and Criticism
- Part III Earlier Interviews
- Part IV Extravaganzas
- Appendix I Finnegans Wake
- Appendix II John Cage Uncaged
- Selected Bibliography
- General Index
- Index of Works by John Cage
- Eastman Studies in Music
Summary
Cage's Irish Circus
Radio feature containing interviews with Peter Dickinson, broadcast before the performance at the BBC Promenade Concert in The Royal Albert Hall, London, with John Cage, Irish folk musicians, and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
Producer: Anthony Cheevers.Introduction
Roaratorio was commissioned by Klaus Schöning as a radio play for production at Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne; Suddeutscher Rundfunk, Stuttgart; and Katholieke Radio Omroep, Hilversum. The first transmission was on October 22, 1979.
By permission of the BBC, the John Cage Trust, and Mel Mercier.Peadar Mercier (1914–91) was born in Cork and began to play the bodhran and bones in the late 1950s. He was invited by the composer Sean O’Riada to join Ceoltoiri Chualainn, and during 1966–76 he played with the Chieftains, the most celebrated Irish traditional music group. As the first professional bodhran and bones player, he performed and recorded with the group until 1976, and his playing remained influential after that date. In the 1980s Peadar and his son Mel performed extensively with Cage and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, providing bodhran duets for Roaratorio and Duets. Mercier also wrote poetry throughout his adult life.
Interviews
PD Finnegans Wake is a major document in twentieth-century literature, still perhaps more discussed than widely read. The richness of its linguistic games with sound as well as sense has provided a constant fascination for composers. In Roaratorio, using a punning title from Finnegans Wake, Cage matches the visionary complexity of James Joyce. The technique of simultaneous independent layers of music is developed from Cage’s Variations pieces in the 1960s and mixed-media events such as Musicircus and HPSCHD seen in London during the early 1970s. I asked Cage when he first came across Finnegans Wake.
JC In the 1920s. When we had transition magazine I used to read the sections from Finnegans Wake that appeared, and I loved them and used to read them to my friends to entertain them. Then in 1939 I remember going to a department store in Seattle and buying the first edition. But then I was already very busy composing, so I didn't think I had time to read the book through. I mostly went on reading the excerpts with which I was familiar.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- CageTalkDialogues with and about John Cage, pp. 217 - 226Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2006