John Cage
Mozart Mix

Mozart Mix by John Cage is probably the first sound installation as a limited edition. The edition is the result of many years of close collaboration with the composer. Cage began working with chance operations as early as 1951 and first used the word “Mix” in the title of the tape composition Williams Mix in 1952.¹ Mozart Mix is a further development of the work 33 1/3, which was first realized as a sound installation in 1982 in Wiesbaden as part of the exhibition 1962 Wiesbaden Fluxus 1982. In this acoustic environment, the audience could play up to twelve records simultaneously from record players distributed around the room. Compared to the first performance as a composition for an ensemble of musicians at the University of California, Davis, on November 21, 1969, the special feature in Wiesbaden was that Cage designed a neutral label for the records of different genres, so that the audience could not know which records they were playing, resulting in a completely random sound mix that could not be controlled by “taste”. This experience gave rise to the desire for a multiple that could spread Cage’s idea of open chance composition on many levels, including private ones. The Edition Mozart Mix was created for the 200th anniversary of the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, produced in an edition of 35, corresponding to the years of the composer’s life. A flat wooden box contains five by five cassettes and five portable cassette recorders. Five rows of five endless cassettes of different lengths of 12, 9, 6, 3 and 1 minute playing time are arranged in such a way that the Mozart music on the cassettes is separated in the individual columns according to the genres of opera, symphony, chamber music, serenades and concertos. Using the enclosed cassette recorders, five cassettes of any genre are to be played simultaneously. The cassette recorders can be placed anywhere in the room so that the acoustic result of the newly compiled music mix can be experienced spatially. There is no set performance time.
The screen print embedded in the lid of the box bears the signature of the composer and the numbering of the edition. It was also created later in slightly different colors as an independent print. In his preferred verse form of the mesostichon “Music withOut horiZon soundscApe that neveR sTops”, Cage emphasizes Mozart’s name typographically.
Text: Eva Scharrer

¹ See Klaus Ebbeke, John Cage, Mozart Mix, leaflet for the exhibition in the gallery “gelbe MUSIK”, Berlin 1993.