The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs is a song for voice and closed piano by John Cage . It was composed in late 1942 and quickly became a minor classic in Cage's oeuvre. The text was a reworked version of a passage from James Joyce 's Finnegans Wake .
5-418: Eighteen Springs may refer to: The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs , a song for voice and closed piano by John Cage, based on James Joyce's Finnegans Wake Half a Lifelong Romance , a 1948 Chinese novel by Eileen Chang, also known as Eighteen Springs Eighteen Springs (film) , a 1997 China-Hong Kong film based on Chang's novel Affair of Half
10-555: A Lifetime , a 2002 adaptation of Chang's novel Eighteen Springs (album) , by Ruby Lin, 2004 Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Eighteen Springs . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eighteen_Springs&oldid=1030153994 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
15-434: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs The song was commissioned by singer Janet Fairbank , who later became known for pioneering contemporary music. Cage chose to set a passage from page 556 of Finnegans Wake , a book he bought soon after its publication in 1939. The composition is based, according to Cage himself, on
20-517: The impressions received from the passage. The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs marks the start of Cage's interest in Joyce and is the first piece among many in which he uses the writer's work. The vocal line only uses three pitches , while the piano remains closed and the pianist produces sounds by hitting the lid or other parts of the instrument in a variety of ways (with his fingers, with his knuckles, etc.). Almost immediately after its composition
25-408: The song became one of Cage's most frequently performed works, and was several times performed by the celebrated duo of Cathy Berberian and Luciano Berio . Cage later composed another piece for voice and closed piano, A Flower , and a companion piece to The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs , called Nowth upon Nacht , also based on Joyce's book. In 1976, Robert Wyatt performed a version on
#881118