John Cage — HPSCHD

1969

Artists: John Cage, Lejaren Hiller · Year: 1969 · Medium: Multimedia composition — seven live harpsichords, fifty-two computer-generated tapes, 7,000 slides, 40 films · Substrate: ILLIAC II computer (Hiller's MUSICOMP program); Cage's I Ching casting for harpsichord scores; multiple film projectors and slide carousels · Place: Urbana, Illinois, USA · Institution: University of Illinois Assembly Hall HPSCHD — Cage's idiosyncratic spelling of "harpsichord," vowels stripped to fit the 1960s convention of fixed-length file names — is a multimedia composition by John Cage and Lejaren Hiller, premiered at the University of Illinois Assembly Hall on May 16, 1969, in a five-hour continuous performance. Seven harpsichordists played twelve hours' worth of Cage-and-Hiller-generated compositions, accompanied by fifty-two computer-generated tapes, projected films and slides, and colored lights. The audience of 7,000 could move freely through the hall during the performance. Nearly all of them did. The compositional method was generative in a strict sense. Hiller had been working since 1957 on the Illiac Suite (the first computer-generated score for string quartet); HPSCHD applied the same Markov-chain techniques to compose individual harpsichord parts and tapes, and additionally used the I Ching as a randomization source per Cage's established practice. The result was a sound-field dense enough that no single auditor could hear the whole of it. The visual accompaniment — 7,000 slides, 40 films — was equally oversaturated. HPSCHD is not primarily remembered as a work of visual computer art, though it included substantial generative video. It is remembered as the moment computer-generated composition entered the concert hall at a scale and multimedia complexity that had no precedent. It is in this archive because the films and light program were computer-generated, because the performance brought Hiller's Illiac tradition and Cage's chance-operation practice into the same room, and because the resulting event was a proof-of-concept for the entire subsequent multimedia-performance tradition. Lore Cage and Hiller had been colleagues at the University of Illinois since 1967. HPSCHD was commissioned by the university for its Festival of Contemporary Arts. Cage wrote the harpsichord solos by casting the I Ching for every decision about notes, duration, and articulation. Hiller wrote the MUSICOMP program that generated the fifty-two tapes. The premiere lasted from 7:30 PM to 12:30 AM and was recorded; a Nonesuch LP titled HPSCHD (1969) captures an edited excerpt that remains in print. Cage died in 1992, Hiller in 1994. Sources • Cage, John; Hiller, Lejaren — HPSCHD (Nonesuch LP H-71224, 1969, reissued) • Husarik, Stephen — "John Cage and Lejaren Hiller: HPSCHD, 1969" (American Music, 1983) • University of Illinois — Festival of Contemporary Arts archive