John Cage: A Chronological Collection on Spotify

"What I'm proposing, to myself and other people, is what I often call the tourist attitude - that you act as though you've never been there before. So that you're not supposed to know anything about it. If you really get down to brass tacks, we have never been anywhere before." - John Cage

Even after his death, John Cage remains a controversial figure. Famously challenging the very notion of what music is, Cage remained on the leading edge of both playful and profound experimentalism for the greater part of his career, collaborating with and influencing generations of composers, writers, dancers, and visual artists. One of his best-known and most sonically intriguing innovations, the prepared piano, had become an almost commonplace compositional resource by the end of the twentieth century. Years before the invention of the synthesizer, he was in the forefront in the exploration of electric and electronic sound sources, using oscillators, turntables, and amplification to musical ends. He pioneered the use of graphic notation and, in employing chance operations to determine musical parameters, was the leading light for one cadre of the avant-garde that included Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, Earle Brown, and Pauline Oliveros. Cage produced works of "performance art" years before the term was coined, and his 4'33'' (1952) -- in which the performers are instructed to remain silent for four minutes and thirty-three seconds -- takes a place among the most notorious touchstones of 20th century music.  - AllMusic

This playlist is a chronological collection of John Cage's works on Spotify. I only included one recording for every work, except for the Sonatas and Interludes, which I used recordings from eight artists, including dedicatee of this work, Maro Ajemian. Different versions of the works are also included, like In A Landscape played on harp and guitar, orchestra version of The Seasons, and Lou Harrison's arrangement of the Suite for Toy Piano. Nowth Upon Nacht (1984) is intended to be performed right after The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs (1942) so I included the latter song twice.

Here's the Spotify playlist: John Cage: A Chronological Collection (479 tracks from 100 albums, total time: 53 hours) Press Ctrl (CMD)+G to browse in album view. If you are new to Cage, try the String Quartet, Prelude For Meditation, In A Landscape and Sonatas and Interludes first. Then Four Walls, and the Number Pieces.

Below is a list of works featured in the playlist, all linked to introductory articles on AllMusic, Wikipedia and John Cage Database.

Apprenticeship period (1932–36)

• Three Easy Pieces (1933)
• Sonata For Two Voices (1933)
• Composition for 3 Voices (1934)
• Solo with Obbligato Accompaniment of Two Voices in Canon, and Six Short Inventions on the Subjects of the Solo (1934)
• Quartet (1935)
• Quest, for any four percussion instruments (1935)
• Two pieces, for piano (1935?, revised 1974)
• Trio, for three percussionists (1936)

Modern dance, prepared piano, and the transition to chance (1937–51)

• Metamorphosis, for piano (1938)
• Imaginary Landscape No. 1, for two variable-speed phono turntables, frequency recordings, muted piano and cymbal (1939)
• First Construction (in Metal), for six percussionists with an assistant (1939)
• Second Construction, for four percussionists (1939–40)
• Bacchanale, for prepared piano (1940)
• Living Room Music, for percussion and speech quartet (1940)
• Double Music, for 4 percussionists (collaboration with Lou Harrison, 1941)
• Third Construction, for four percussionists (1941)
• Forever and Sunsmell, for voice & 2 percussion (1942)
• Totem Ancestor, for prepared piano (1942)
• Jazz Study, for piano (1942, spurious work possibly not by Cage)
• Imaginary Landscape No. 3, for six percussionists (1942)
• Imaginary Landscape No. 2 (March) (1942, first title Imaginary Landscape No. 4)
• Credo in Us, for four performers with various objects (1942)
• And The Earth Shall Bear Again, for prepared piano (1942)
• The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs, for voice and closed piano (1942)
• Primitive, for prepared piano (1942)
• In the Name of the Holocaust, for prepared piano (1942)
• Ad lib, for piano (1943)
• Our Spring Will Come, for prepared piano (1943)
• A Room, for piano or prepared piano (1943, originally third part of She is Asleep)
• She Is Asleep: 1. Quartet for percussion, 2. Duet for voice and prepared piano (1943)
• Amores, for percussion and prepared piano (1943)
• Tossed As It Is Untroubled, for prepared piano (1943, first title Meditation)
• Triple-Paced No. 1, for piano (1943)
• Chess Pieces, for piano (1943)
• Four Walls, for piano and voice (in one of the movements) (1944)
• Prelude for Meditation, for prepared piano (1944)
• Root of an Unfocus, for prepared piano (1944)
• Spontaneous Earth, for prepared piano (1944)
• The Unavailable Memory of, for prepared piano (1944)
• Triple-Paced No. 2, for prepared piano (1944)
• The Perilous Night, suite for prepared piano (1944)
• A Valentine Out of Season, for prepared piano (1944)
• A Book of Music, for two prepared pianos (1944)
• Party Pieces: Sonorous and Exquisite Corpses, for any melodic and/or keyboard instruments (1945)
• Mysterious Adventure, for prepared piano (1945)
• Soliloquy, for piano (1945, originally part of Four Walls)
• Three Dances, for two prepared pianos (1945)
• Daughters of the Lonesome Isle, for prepared piano (1945)
• Ophelia, for piano (1945)
• Two Pieces, for piano (1946)
• Music for Marcel Duchamp, for prepared piano (1947)
• Nocturne, for violin and piano (1947)
• The Seasons, Ballet, versions for piano and for orchestra (1947)
• Dream, for piano or viola and ensemble of 4 violas (1948)
• In a Landscape, for piano or harp (1948)
• Sonatas and Interludes, for prepared piano (1946–48)
• Suite for Toy Piano, for toy piano or piano (1948)
• A Flower, for voice and closed piano (1950)
• Works of Calder, film score for prepared piano and tape (1950)
• String Quartet in Four Parts, for string quartet (1949–50)
• Six Melodies, for violin and keyboard instrument (1950)
• Concerto for prepared piano, for prepared piano and chamber orchestra (1950–51)

First chance works (1951–59)

• Sixteen Dances, for flute, trumpet, 4 percussionists, piano, violin and cello (1951)
• Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (March No. 2), for 12 radios, 24 performers and a conductor (1951)  
• Music of Changes, for piano (1951)
• Seven Haiku, for piano (1952)
• Waiting, for piano (1952)
• Imaginary Landscape No. 5, for any 42 recordings (1952)
• Two Pastorales, for piano or prepared piano (1952)
• For M.C. and D.T., for piano (1952)
• Music for Carillon No. 1, for carillon (1952)
• 4′33, for any instrument or combination of instruments (1952)
• Music for Piano 1, for piano (1952)
• Williams Mix, for tape (1953)
• Music for Piano 2, for piano (1953)
• Music for Piano 4–19, for any number of pianos (1953)
• Music for Piano 3, for piano (1953)
• Music for Piano 20, for piano (1953)
• Music for Carillon No. 2, for carillon (1954)
• Music for Carillon No. 3, for carillon (1954)
• 26'1.1499" For a String Player, for string instrument (1955)
• Music for Piano 21–36, 37–52, for piano solo or in an ensemble (1955)
• Music for Piano 53–68, for piano solo or in an ensemble (1956)
• Music for Piano 69–84, for piano solo or in an ensemble (1956)
• Radio Music, for 1 to 8 performers using radios (1956)
• Concert for piano and orchestra (1958)
• Solo for Sliding Trombone (1958)
• TV Köln, for piano, optionally with other objects (1958)
• Fontana Mix, for tape (1958)
• Aria, for voice (1958)

Happenings, theater (1959–68)

• Sounds of Venice, for television set (one performer) (1959)
• Cartridge Music, for amplified sounds (1960)
• Music for Amplified Toy Pianos, for any number of toy pianos (1960)
• Indeterminacy, for reader & tapes (collaboration with David Tudor, 1961)
• Atlas Eclipticalis, for an ensemble of 86 instruments (1962)
• Variations II, for any number of performers and any kind and number of instruments (1961)
• Rozart Mix, tape loops (1965)

Return to composition (1969–86)

• HPSCHD, for 1 to 7 amplified harpsichords and 1 to 51 tapes (1969)  
• Cheap Imitation, for piano (1969)
• Song Books (Solos for Voice 3–92), for one or more voices (1970)
• Sixty-Two Mesostics Re Merce Cunningham, for voice solo (1971)
• Etcetera, for orchestra & environmental tape (1973)
• Empty Words, for reciter (1975)
• Etudes Australes, for piano (1975)
• Lecture on the Weather, lecture for 12 voices and tapes (1975)
• Apartment House 1776, for any number of musicians (1976)
• Branches, for percussion made of plants or plants used as percussion (1976)
• Cheap Imitation, for violin (1977)
• Inlets (Improvisation II), for four performers with conch shells and the sound of fire (1977)
• Chorals, for violin solo (1978)
• Etudes Boreales, for cello and/or piano (1978)
• Roaratorio, an Irish circus on Finnegans Wake, tape (1979)
• Freeman Etudes I-XVII, for violin (1980)
• Thirty Pieces for Five Orchestras, for five orchestras (1981)
• Souvenir, for organ (1983)
• Perpetual Tango, for piano (1984)
• Nowth upon Nacht, for voice and piano (1984) 
• Ryoanji, for double bass, trombone, oboe, voice, percussion, small orchestra (1985)
• Eight Whiskus, for low voice (1984)
• ASLSP, for piano or organ (1985)
• But what about the noise of crumpling paper..., for percussion ensemble (1985)
• Thirteen Harmonies, for Violin and Keyboard (1985)
• Hymnkus, for voice and chamber ensemble (1986)

Number Pieces and other late works (1987–92)

• Two, for flute and piano (1987)
• Organ²/ASLSP, for organ (1987)  
• One, for piano (1987)  
• Five, for any five instruments or voices (1988) 
• Seven, for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, viola and cello (1988) 
• Four, for string quartet (1989) 
• One², for 1 to 4 pianos (1989) 
• Sculptures Musicales, for electronics (1989) 
• c Composed Improvisations, for bass guitar, snare drum and one-sided drums with or without jangles (1987–90)
• Fourteen, for piano, flute/piccolo, bass flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, horn, trumpet, 2 percussionists, 2 violins, viola, cello and double bass (1990)
• One⁵, for piano (1990)
• One⁶, for violin (1990)
• One⁷, for any sound-producing object (1990)
• One⁸, for cello (1991)
• 108, for orchestra (1991)
• Eight, for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, tenor trombone and tuba (1991)
• Two⁴, for violin and piano or shō (July 1991)
• Four⁵, for four saxophones (October 1991)
• Five⁴, for soprano saxophone, alto saxophone and 3 percussionists (1991)
• Five³, for trombone and string quartet (1991)
• Five⁵, for flute, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet and percussion (1991)
• Ten, for flute, oboe, clarinet, trombone, percussion, piano, 2 violins, viola and cello (1991)
• Sixty-Eight, for orchestra (February 1992)
• Four⁶, for four performers with any means of producing sounds (March 1992)
• Seventy-Four, for orchestra (March 1992) 

The playlist and post will be updated when more Cage recordings become available on Spotify.