| Category: | Musical composition |
| Dated: | Piano version: New York City, early 1947; Version for orchestra: New York City, January-April 1947 |
| Instrumentation: | A: Piano B: Orchestra: 2 (+piccolo), 2 (+English horn), 2 (+bass clarinet), 2 - 2, 2, 2, 0 - timpani, percussion, piano-celesta, harp, strings (8-6-4-3-2) |
| Duration: | 15' |
| Premiere and performer(s): | A: ? B: May 18, 1947 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City. Performed with the ballet of Merce Cunningham and scenery and costumes by Isamu Noguchi |
| Dedicated to: | for Lincoln Kirstein |
| Choreography: | Merce Cunningham |
| Published: | Edition Peters 6744-6744a © 1960 by Henmar Press |
| Manuscript: | Score of piano version (holograph in pencil - 17+3 p.); Score of piano version (holograph, signed in ink - 2+14 p.); Score of orchestral version (holograph in pencil - 105 p.); Score of orchestral version (holograph, signed, in ink with annotations in blue and black pencil - 3+75 p.); Instructions for the copyist regarding duplicating for publication (typescript - 1 lf.), all in New York Public Library. |
| The Seasons consists of nine movements: Prelude I - Winter - Prelude II - Spring - Prelude III -
Summer - Prelude IV - Fall - Finale (Prelude I). It is a sweet and lyric composition, very much unlike Cage's other works. Like in Sonatas and Interludes and String Quartet in Four Parts it is indicative of Cage's interest in Indian aesthetics. In The Seasons Cage uses the Indian signification as inspiration: Winter as quiescense, Spring as creation, Summer as preservation and Fall as destruction. It is one of the compositions where Cage tried to "imitate nature in her manner of operation", which is, according to the composer, one of the ideas from Indian philosophy. The work's overall rhythmic strusture is 2-2-1-3-2-4-1-3-1. This structure also expresses the relative lengths of each of the nine movements. Cage first composed the piano version. The orchestration was made with the help of Lou Harrison and Virgil Thomson. |