Score (40 Drawings by Thoreau) and 23 parts: Twelve Haiku followed by a Recording of the Dawn at Stony Point, New York, August 6, 1974.



Category: Musical composition
Dated: Stony Point and New York City, July-August 1974
Instrumentation: Any instruments and/or voices (23 players)
Duration: indeterminate
Premiere and performer(s):
Dedicated to: for Dennis Russell Davies and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Choreography: ---
Published: Edition Peters 6815 © 1974 by Henmar Press
Manuscript: Score and 23 parts (holograph, signed, in ink on transparencies - 2 + 23x2 p.) in New York Public Library


Drawings of Thoreau, superimposed on 12 lines, each divided into 5+7+5 segments, the structure of Japanese Haiku poetry. Cage used a similar procedure in Renga. The recording of the tape was made by David Behrman.
To perform this work, the performance of each individual haiku is to be followed by silence, equal to the length of time of the performance of the Haiku. All twelve haikus should be followed by the tape recording, equal in length of time to the entire set of twelve haiku.

Sources: James Pritchett: The Music of John Cage; Paul van Emmerik: Thema's en Variaties; New York Public Library online catalog; Richard Kostelanetz: John Cage (ex)plain(ed); David W.Bernstein & Christopher Hatch: Writings through John Cage's Music, Poetry + Art