John Cage was an inventor’s son, and both his composing and his artistic activity were fuelled by a tireless passion for experiments that took him beyond the limits of music in its traditional sense. Cage’s artistic ideology was formed in close connection with trends in American art; it seemed at a time that he would forever remain a peripheral and typically American phenomenon. Yet already his first appearance in Europe in 1958 had a powerful impact on many composers there, notwithstanding bitter criticism from such opponents as Luigi Nono. Even if one rejects Cage’s philosophical and aesthetic position, even if one denies his achievements, it is a fact that he is one of the few composers who can be said to have changed beyond recognition the image of contemporary music.
After a period of using uncontrolled chance in composition, significantly influenced by his fascination with Asian philosophy, Cage embarked on a voyage through the realm of “indeterminacy”. Variations I were written for an unspecified number or performers and for unspecified instruments. The score, if this is the right term for an entirely free form of notation, consists of six transparent sheets. Points of various size are distributed in one; the other five contain five single lines, crossing at different angles. The lines describe individual parameters, the character and the course of which are determined by changing configurations resulting from superposing the sheets in any way.
Variations I were first performed in the USA in a version for two pianos by the composer and David Tudor; the duo then presented the piece during Cage’s subsequent trip to Europe for a Summer Course of New Music in Darmstadt in September 1958.

Adam Walaciński