RK: So, therefore, the version on that record is not definitive.
JC: I’ve all along spoken against records at the same time that I’ve permitted their being made and have even encouraged it; but I’ve always said that a record is not faithful to the nature of music.
RK: Which can only exist in a live performance situation.
JC: Right. I’ve always been a proper member of the musicians’ union, in favor of live music.
RK: And what is your instrument of virtuosity?
JC: I’m listed in the union as a pianist.
I have eight versions of the Rolling Stones’s “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” on my hard drive. Fans cherish all those versions–electric, acoustic, slower, faster, with choir, without. People really seem to like when a new version contains unique text or even a new verse (remember the scandalous secret verse of “Friends in Low Places”?). But these differences are not at all like when eight different orchestras record their interpretations of Beethoven’s 9th. I can’t imagine anyone changing the instrumentation, keys or rhythmic structures of the Beethoven (or moreover, adding a verse to Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”). Sure, you get different dynamics, tempi, accents, balance among parts, and rate of change, but every recording will generally conform to the definitive, or “authentic,” version–i.e. the score (or is it?).
The Stones don’t use scores, but Cage does. He is able to craft a score that can be performed in countless expectationless ways. The Williams Mix score is a graphic score that shows “staves” that represent the tape and lines and shapes for cut marks. Here’s an excerpt from the unpublished score:
In 2001 composer Larry Austin completed his piece Williams [re]Mix[ed] using Cage’s score. I haven’t heard it, but at 19 minutes, it’s nearly four times longer than Cage’s version. On the [re]Mix[ed] website, Austin writes, “On the last page of the score for Williams Mix, Cage inscribed, ‘(4 min. 15 sec. +) End 1st Part. N.Y.C. Oct. ’52 Splicing finished Jan. 16, 1953.’ Dare I imagine that John’s spirit is slyly laughing now, asking the oracle, ‘Is this the 2nd Part ?’”
