ABSTRACT
David Tudor's importance to the histories of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and of John Cage's music is well known but has never been explained. This is a puzzling omission, for Tudor's contribution as accompanist for the Company, from its inception at Black Mountain College in the summer of 1953 to the present, has been not only indispensable but unique. The paper offers a partial account of both of these qualities as they obtained in Tudor's early work with Cunningham and Cage.
The reputation Tudor eventually acquired as the foremost pianist of the radical wing of the avant garde obscures his deep interest in the little known and rarely performed piano literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries. As accompanist for the new Cunningham Company, Tudor found 46 opportunity to perform some of this literature with such Cunningham dances as Banjo and Dime a Dance.
Furthermore, Tudor was a conduit between the newest music and the Cunningham Dance Company's repertory. Frequently, Cunningham attended Tudor's solo recitals, and a number of the pieces he heard on these occasions found their way into his dance repertory. Long before he turned away from the piano and began to sign his name to his own works of live electronic music, David Tudor in more than one way furnished the Merce Cunningham Dance Company with some of its most characteristic music.
