For the Birds

He’s not a composer, he’s an inventor - of genius.Arnold Schoenberg

The New Grove Dictionary of Music has said of Cage that he ‘had a greater impact on world music than any other American composer in the Twentieth Century’, and his musical thinking forms a whole with his writing.

For The Birds is a book, a dialogue and an event all at the same time. Its origins lay in a wide-ranging series of conversations between Cage and Daniel Charles recorded in France over a 10 year period (1968-1978) which were then reconstructed, re-edited and commented upon by Cage. The final text with footnotes and asides added over the years, is prefaced by a typographical celebration of his ideas compiled by Cage himself becoming a work for many voices and many subjects. Cage's considerable wit and intelligence covers an astonishing range of subjects; his own explanations and ideas on his compositions and the place of music and sounds in our times. Also mushrooms, chess, James Joyce, Mao, Throeau, Satie, electronic music, Duchamp, the prepared piano, Zen, the environment, technology, politics, economics - all discussed here with an originality and a liveliness which belong to Cage alone.