Indeterminacy 68

When the depression began, I was in Europe. After a while I came
back and lived with my family in the Pacific Palisades. I had
read somewhere that Richard Buhlig, the pianist, had years
before in Berlin given the first performance of Schoenberg’s
Opus 11. I thought to myself: He probably lives right here in
Los Angeles. So I looked in the phone book and, sure enough,
there was his name. I called him up and said, “I’d like to hear
you play the Schoenberg pieces.” He said he wasn’t contemplating
giving a recital. I said, “Well, surely, you play at home.
Couldn’t I come over one day and hear the Opus 11?” He said,
“Certainly not.” He hung up. ¶ Then, about a year later, the
family had to give up the house in the Palisades. Mother and Dad
went to an apartment in Los Angeles. I found an auto court in
Santa Monica where, in exchange for doing the gardening, I got
an apartment to live in and a large room back of the court over
the garages, which I used as a lecture hall. I was nineteen years
old and enthusiastic about modern music and painting. I went from
house to house in Santa Monica explaining this to the
housewives. I offered ten lectures for $2.50. I said, “I will
learn each week something about the subject that I will then
lecture on.” ¶ Well, the week came for my lecture on Schoenberg.
Except for a minuet, Opus 25, his music was too difficult for
me to play. No recordings were then available. I thought of
Richard Buhlig. I decided not to telephone him but to go directly
to his house and visit him. I hitchhiked into Los Angeles,
arriving at his house at noon. He wasn’t home. I took a pepper
bough off a tree and, pulling off the leaves one by one, recited,
“He’ll come home; he won’t; he’ll come home . . .” It always
turned out He’ll come home. He did. At midnight. I explained I’d
been waiting to see him for twelve hours. He invited me into the
house. When I asked him to illustrate my lecture on Schoenberg,
he said, “Certainly not.” However, he said he’d like to see some
of my compositions, and we made an appointment for the following
week.

- John Cage