In a previous post, I presented some new material pertaining to John Cage’s European travels in 1930 and 1931, in the course of which he met his first boyfriend, Donald Sample. Here I examine Cage’s activities in Santa Monica in 1932 and 1933, making use of a source that has been largely overlooked in Cage studies — the archives of the Santa Monica Outlook. This publication furnishes a quite detailed chronicle of a series of lectures on modern music that Cage delivered at his Santa Monica studio in 1933, together with various early performances. The only scholar who appears to have taken the Outlook into account is the late Catherine Parsons Smith, who referred to it in her essay “Athena at the Manuscript Club: John Cage and Mary Carr Moore,” Musical Quarterly 79:2 (1995), pp. 351–67, Smith treats the Outlook only in a footnote, though, and seems to have seen only some of the items I collect below. For the benefit of future researchers, I thought it would be helpful to present an overview of this material, in the form of an annotated chronology.
1931
July 1: Cage and Sample return from Europe, entering the United States in Key West. On reaching Los Angeles, they appear to have settled for a time at 333 Lombard Avenue, in Pacific Palisades, a house that Cage’s parents had recently vacated. Toward the end of the following year, Cage and Sample took up residence at 211 Alta Avenue, in Santa Monica.
November: “An exhibition of oil paintings by John Cage and John [sic] Sample, who spent some months in France, Germany, and Spain, is being shown in room 40 at Scripps College. The young men are disciples of the so-called modern art, altho seeking to appeal to the heart as well as to the head.” — Pomona Progress-Bulletin, Nov. 17
1932
May 10: “John Milton Cage, jr., pianist, will play a group of French songs by modern composers at the next meeting of the Lincoln Study club on Tuesday . . . The lyrics for these charming French melodies will be sung by Phoebe James, one of the club’s talented members.” — Southwest Wave, May 6, 1932.
James was Cage’s aunt — a pioneering and inventive educator who often made use of percussion in her music classes for children. A glance at her texts Accompaniments for Rhythmic Expressions and Songs for Rhythmic Expression suggests how much the young Cage might have learned from her.
Nov. 6: “More than 100 Santa Monicans gathered yesterday afternoon in the gardens and home of Mr. and Mrs. Leland M. Ford, 1306 Georgina avenue, where the Junior Republican Volunteers and the junior division of the Hoover-Curtis club entertained with a tea, honoring the following republican nominees and their wives . . . The program was given by Miss Cornelia Maule, pianist; Ralph Hunter, baritone; Harry Hay, baritone; and John Milton Cage, composer and pianist.” — Santa Monica Outlook, Nov. 7, 1932.
This event may or may not be the same as the one that Hay later recalled taking place at the Santa Monica Bay Woman’s Club. In Mitch Tuchman, interviews with Harry Hay, Oct. 28, 1981, to Jan. 22, 1982, UCLA Center for Oral History Research, Hay says: “In late November or early December of that year—and I can’t remember just when—we did do a concert at the Santa Monica Woman’s Club. The concert consisted of a small group by Poulenc, a small group by Honegger, two songs by Hindemith, and a group by John Cage, and then he did some instrumental things without voice; and it made up quite a concert.”
Nov. 15: “W. F. Way, consulting engineer of the Santa Monica pleasure harbor will speak on ‘Breakwaters and Navigation,’ as a feature to tomorrow’s weekly meeting of the Santa Monica Kiwanis club at the Miramar hotel. Fred Shapleigh has arranged the program which will include Karen Hunter, baritone; John Milton Cage, pianist and composer, and Cornelia Maule, pianist.” — Santa Monica Outlook, Nov. 14, 1932.
Nov. 19: “Promising young artists of Santa Monica were presented to the guests at a benefit bridge tea held Saturday at the home of Mrs. Ethelbert R. Maule, 236 Twenty-first place. Table prizes were signed block prints by Don Sample, the designs of which were made during his residence in Majorca. The attendance prize was an oil painting of the cliffs of Santa Monica bay, by the artist. Following the tea hour a musical program was presented of the compositions of John Cage, played by the composer and by Miss Cornelia Maule, and of songs of Spain sung by Karen Hunter, baritone. A discussion of block prints and modern paintings was made by Don Sample and John Cage in the patio garden, where an informal exhibit of further works of theirs was on display.” — Santa Monica Outlook, Nov. 21, 1932
Confusingly, these early Cage events include performances by baritones named Ralph Hunter and Karen Hunter. I assume they are the same person, but can’t shed any more light.
1933
Feb. 15: “A series of lectures on contemporary music will be given early in March by John Cage, young composer, who has been living in Santa Monica since his return from Europe. Cage’s work is considered of unusual interest. Because of his study under Lazare-Levy, of the Paris Conservatoire, and his association with writers of modern music in Germany and other countries of the continent, his attitude toward contemporary music has the enthusiastic approval of Charles Wakefield Cadman and other leading composers.” — Santa Monica Outlook, Feb. 15, 1933
Feb. 22: In an article titled “Composers to Be Heard in Series of Musical Talks,” the Outlook gives more details of Cage’s lectures, which are to begin with a talk entitled “Our Natural Inheritance” and then proceed to treat the musical scenes in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and New York. Cadman is again promised to attend.
March 3: “Lecture by John Cage on ‘Modern Music,’ studio at 211 Alta avenue, at 8 o’ clock; public invited.” — Santa Monica Outlook, March 3, 1933.
March 17: “Erik Satie, who, according to Cage, was the instigator of the contemporary school of French music, will be the subject of his address tomorrow night. The following program will be played: ‘Air de l’Ordre,’ from Satie’s ‘Sonneries de la Rose-Croix,’ played on the piano by Cage, who will also play the same composer’s ‘Sarabande No. 1,’ which will be danced by Cornelia Maule. ‘Nuages,’ from ‘Orchestral Nocturnes’ by Debussy, a record by the Philadelphia orchestra; selections by Rameau, played by Mrs. [Evelyn Paddock] Smith; ‘Air a Faire,’ ‘Les Troix Valses Distinguees Du Precioux DeCouté [sic],’ and ‘Veritables Preludes Pour Un Chien,’ by Satie, played by Cage. Miss Maule will play a group of Debussy numbers.” — Santa Monica Outlook, March 16, 1933.
March 24: “Evelyn Paddock Smith, pianist, and Cornelia Maule, dancer, will perform tonight at the third of a series of lectures to be given by John Cage, composer pianist, on modern music in his studio, 211 Alta avenue. His subject tonight will be ‘Three Peaks of the Advanced Parisian School.’ Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc are the composers about whom he will speak.” — Santa Monica Outlook, March 24, 1933.
March 31: “Ernst Toch and other modern German composers will be the subject of the address which John Cage, young Santa Monica composer, will give at 8 o’clock tomorrow night in his studio at 211 Alta avenue. This will be his fourth lecture on the contemporary creators of music. Miss Cornelia Maule, dancer, whose artistic work has attracted much attention recently, will give her interpretation of Tansman’s ‘Danse Suite.’ Cage will play ‘Mama’ and ‘Boston,’ by Schulhoff; ‘Arioso’ and ‘Burleske,’ by Windsperger; ‘Justiques Stuk,’ by Reutter [meaning Hermann Reutter’s Lustiges Stück]; and ‘Tanz und Spiel Music,’ by Toch [meaning Tanz- und Spielstücke].” — Santa Monica Outlook, March 30, 1933.
April 1: At a nautically themed event at Phi Omega Pi, at UCLA, “Miss Cornelia Maule, dancer, accompanied by John Cage, gave a Javanese dance.” — Santa Monica Outlook, April 3, 1933.
April 7: “John Gage [sic], giving the fifth of a series of talks on modern music in his studio, 211 Alta avenue, last night, spoke on the life of Stravinsky and the manner in which the composer sought to revolutionize musical standards. Argument among the guests as to whether these revolutionary methods were justified made the evening one fo the most interesting of the series. Cage included in his program many examples of the types of music with which Stravinsky experimented and described the composer’s problems of writing, which, according to Cage, he solved completely. Raymond McFeeters, well known pianist of Southern California, was the soloist.” — Santa Monica Outlook, April 8, 1933.
April 14: “[Kurt] Reher will play the sonata for cello alone, by Paul Hindemith, said to be the most important composer of postwar Germany. Reher has played the sonata before Hindemith and received the composer’s enthusiastic approval of his interpretation … Cage will discuss the life and work of Hindemith at Friday night’s meeting.” — Santa Monica Outlook, April 12, 1933.
Reher, who was German-born but grew up in the United States, joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic the following year, at the invitation of Otto Klemperer; he long served as principal cellist. Between 1946 and 1958, he played in the Fox studio orchestra, joining the Hollywood Quartet for two of their most famous recordings, of the Schubert Quintet in C and of Verklärte Nacht.
April 21: “John Cage, young Santa Monica composer, will lecture on Arnold Schoenberg at 3 o’clock tomorrow afternoon and at 8 o’clock tomorrow night in his studio, 211 Alta avenue. The afternoon lecture will be given for the convenience of those who will attend the Will Rogers’ benefit tomorrow night.” — Santa Monica Outlook, April 20, 1933.
Cage often told the story of how this lecture occasioned his meeting with the great American pianist Richard Buhlig, who had lived in Berlin for some years and had given the first performance of Schoenberg’s Opus 11. See Cage, Silence (Wesleyan UP, 1973), p. 273: “I thought to myself: He probably lives right here in Los Angeles. So I looked in the phone book and, sure enough, there was his name. I called him up and said, ‘I’d like to hear you play the Schoenberg pieces.’ He said he wasn’t contemplating giving a recital. I said, ‘Well, surely, you play at home. Couldn’t I come over one day and hear the Opus 11?’ He said, ‘Certainly not.’ He hung up … [a year later] …I decided not to telephone him but to go directly to his house and visit him. I hitchhiked into Los Angeles, arriving at his house at noon. He wasn’t home. I took a pepper bough off a tree and, pulling off the leaves one by one, recited, ‘He’ll come home; he won’t; he’ll come home …’ It always turned out He’ll come home. He did. At midnight. I explained I’d been waiting to see him for twelve hours. He invited me into the house. When I asked him to illustrate my lecture on Schoenberg, be said, ‘Certainly not.’ However, he said he’d like to see some of my compositions, and we made an appointment for the following week.”
April 28: “American music will be discussed Friday night by John Cage, Santa Monica composer, when he will give the eighth of a series of lectures on modern music at his studio, 211 Alta avenue. The following writers will be discussed: Louis Gruenberg, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, Gerald Strang and Carlos Chavez. Cage will illustrate his lecture by playing the following piano numbers: ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Jazzberries’ by Gruenberg; ‘Scherzo Humoristique’ and ‘Sentimental Melody’ by Copeland [sic] ‘Preludes,’ by George Gershwin; ‘Mirrorism’ [Mirrorrorrim], by Gerald Strang, and ‘36,’ by Chavez. The enthusiastic group which has been hearing the series is anticipating the lecture which Cage will give on California composers, and the one on Santa Monica composers on May 12.” — Santa Monica Outlook, April 26, 1933.
Whether these final lectures took place is unclear; I could find no evidence of them in the Outlook. The appearance of Strang on the program is significant; Cage would soon encounter him in Schoenberg’s classes. Much of the programming seems to have been inspired by a three-part anthology titled Das neue Klavierbuch, which Cage picked up after hearing John Kirkpatrick play in Paris. See John Cage and Joan Retallack, MUSICAGE: Cage Muses on Words, Art, Music (Wesleyan UP 1996), p. 84: “[Kirkpatrick] gave a concert that included Scriabin and Stravinsky and this led me to—I was given to sight-reading—to buy a book called Das neue Klavierbuch that had short easy pieces by all the modern composers, including Schoenberg and Satie.” In fact, the anthology contains nothing by Schoenberg or Satie, but a number of its offerings, such as Copland’s Sentimental Melody, Reutter’s Lustiges Stück, and Windsperger’s Arioso and Burleske, appear on Cage’s Santa Monica series. Strang’s Mirrorrorrim and Chávez’s 36 had recently been featured in Henry Cowell’s New Music Edition.
May 16: “Mrs. Ethelbert B. Maule entertained last night in her home, 236 Twenty-first place, with a musicale at which the work of a number of modern composers was enjoyed. Evelyn Paddock Smith, pianist, played Bartok’s “Sonatine’ and ‘Three Perpetual Movements’ by Poulenc. John Cage, young composer, rapidly reviewed the compositions of the moderns in the United States as well as Europe with special emphasis on the work of Paul Hindemith, Germany; Arthur Honegger, England [sic]; Ernest Bloch, United States; and the last work of Stravinsky. A number of records, loaned from the collection of the late Dr. H. Wilson Levengood, were played. Cage played a suite of his own compositions, the numbers of which are ‘Allemand,’ ‘Courante,’ ‘Sarabande,’ ‘Gavotte Musette’ and ‘Gigue.’” — Santa Monica Outlook, May 17, 1933.
Harry Hay and Don Sample are listed among the guests. The Baroque-style suite does not appear in lists of Cage’s works and is presumably lost.
May 25: At a violin recital by Cecelia Giegerich, “Cage will play his own suite of modern dance numbers and ‘Three Dance Forms,’ also composed by him.” — Santa Monica Outlook, May 23, 1933
Three Dance Forms, too, is not otherwise documented.
June 5: “Fern Severance, soprano, and John Cage, composer, will be the featured artists on the program of the Santa Monica sing, to be held at 7:45 o’clock Monday night in the auditorium of the Lincoln junior high school.” — Santa Monica Outlook, June 3, 1933
June 6: “The home of Mr. and Mrs. Ethelbert R. Maule, 236 Twenty-first place, will be the scene of a series of lectures on the structure of music, to be given by John Cage, young Santa Monica composer. The first will be held at 8 o’clock tomorrow night. Two groups of persons will be interested in this series of talks, according to Cage. The first will be those who are interested in composition and in learning the best ways in which to express the music which they believe they have within them. The other class is made up of those persons who wish to intensify their interest in music, to develop a great response to it. Among the composers whose work will be studied particularly from the standpoint of structure are Bach, Couperin, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.” — Santa Monica Outlook, June 5, 1933
Aug. 7: “‘Books by Skyscrapers,’ is the title of a series of five lectures which will be given by John Cage, young composer and litterateur of Santa Monica. The first of these talks, which are to deal with a number of impressive new books, whose authors are concerned with a cosmic view of life, will be given at 10 o’clock on the morning of August 7. All of the meetings will take place in Cage’s studio, 211 Alta avenue. Cage, well known in this community for his enthusiastic attitude toward contemporary music, wishes, he says, ‘to create a synthesis between the arts, science, literature and every day living today.’“ — Santa Monica Outlook, July 25, 1933
“The problem of the ‘will to create’ and examples of it in primitive, Oriental, classical and Gothic art were discussed yesterday morning by John Cage when he gave the first of a series of talks on contemporary literature before an audience of leading Santa Monicans gathered in his studio, 211 Alta avenue. The work of Wilhelm Worringer was discussed by Cage yesterday. Professor Worringer’s antagonism toward a romantic concept of Egyptian art was discussed at length, and the ‘overwhelming significance of American civilization and culture in the light of Egyptian life formed the major part of the lecture.’ Cage prophesied the flowering of the international style of architecture that finds its germs in modern factories and its effect on literature, music and painting as ‘our children will know these arts.’ Cage’s lecture at 10 o’clock next Monday will concern itself with the recent writings of Amedee Ozenfant on art and life today.” — Santa Monica Outlook, Aug. 8, 1933
Sept. 6: “John Cage and Don Sample, whose studio is at 211 Alta avenue, will hold open house for all interested in painting and music, at 8 o’clock tonight. Cage will speak on Henry Cowell and his new book, ‘American Composers and American Music.’“ — Santa Monica Outlook, Sept. 7, 1933
In the fall of 1933, Cage and Sample moved eastward in Los Angeles, dividing time between a small house on Griffith Park Boulevard in Silver Lake and the Schindler house on Kings Road. As a result, their appearances in the Outlook dwindle, although one major breakthrough was noted the following year.
1934
April 11: “His Santa Monica friends received word today that John Cage, young pianist and composer of Santa Monica, has been accepted by Arnold Schoenberg, said by critics to be the greatest living composer, as a pupil. Cage is in Carmel at present, where he was informed of the good news by Adolph Weiss, Schoenberg’s assistant. Cage recently sent some of his compositions to a New York publishing house, hoping, at the best, to receive expert criticism of them. When he was informed that they had been accepted and would soon be published, he hastily wrote to the firm, urging them to forego publication and send them to a representative of Schoenberg. Interested in the young composer, the firm agreed, and soon wrote Cage of the great German’s enthusiasm. The Santa Monican wrote to Schoenberg, who is in Boston, explaining his eagerness to study composition with him and soon was apprised by Adolph Weiss, Schoenberg’s assistant, that the composer would give him lessons in composition. Cage will return to Santa Monica before he leaves for Boston.” — Santa Monica Outlook, April 11, 1934
This document charmingly evokes Cage’s eagerness to study with Schoenberg, but its content is dubious. There is no evidence that Cage wrote directly to Schoenberg, certainly none that Schoenberg replied. Rather, letters of the period suggest that Cage reached out to Weiss at the prompting of Richard Buhlig and Henry Cowell, with the idea that study under Weiss in New York would prepare him for future lessons with Schoenberg. See Cage’s letter to Weiss in the spring of 1934, quoted in William Bernard George, Adolph Weiss (Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1971), pp. 267-68: “The enclosed compositions (Sonata for 1 Voice; Sonata for 2 Voices; Composition 3 Voices) I beg you to consider merely as work which I have finished in the last half-year . . . Richard Buhlig, in Los Angeles, is very much interested in my work, and advised me to get in touch with Henry Cowell. When, recently, I saw Mr. Cowell, I told him of my intention to study with Dr. Schoenberg and asked what method to pursue in order to accomplish that intention, by means of a scholarship. Mr. Cowell was rather vague, but definitely stated that you prepare students for Dr. Schoenberg, and advised me to send my compositions to you. I am writing, then, to ask you if you will teach me.”
June 20: “John Cage and Don Sample, Santa Monica artists, whose paintings were exhibited last year in the library and who lived formerly in Alta avenue, now are in New York city, residing at 1 Patchem [Patchin] place, Greenwich Village. Cage is studying music with Adolph Weiss.” — Santa Monica Outlook, June 20, 1934
In a future post, I will discuss Cage’s Santa Monica percussion concerts of 1937.