ABSTRACT
John Cage's work has been called "strangely beautiful," and itis richly deserving of both terms. He became famous primarily as the 20th century's most radical musician rather than for the poetry, essays, and various objets d'art that he created in a long and productive lifetime. His most famous piece remains the notorious 4'33" for Piano (1952), a composition in three movements that is silent from beginning to end. The first performance was met with the hallmark outrage, but unlike Rites ofSpring, Cage's elliptical opus remains nearly as far off the aesthetic spectrum as it was half a century ago. The same may be said of his output in general, in which it is possible to find scores for amplified pencils, essays that include exacting instructions as to when the speaker must cough, and poetry that may be read in any direction.
