Un americano en Viena, un vienés en América. John Cage y Kurt Schwertsik

Abstract

Kurt Schwertsik (Vienna, 1935), regarded as „one of Austria‟s leading composers‟, started his music education under Joseph Marx and Karl Schiske in the capital of that country, continuing it under Karlheinz Stockhausen in the German cities of Cologne and Darmstadt, where he also had, as teachers (between 1955 and 1962), artists such as Pierre Boulez and John Cage. His interest in the leading figures of Serialism moved towards the mentioned American composer, who “liberated his thinking”, moving him closer to Dadaism. Among the different subjects that we will tackle—under the form of written dialogues—throughout the following pages, we can find the impact of Cage's music on Viennese society, the influence of Cageian thinking on Schwertsik‟s music and the aesthetic elements that both composers shared.