Folio and 4 Systems
1952 – 1954

Duration

variable duration

Publisher

AMP/G.Schirmer

Instrumentation Notes

variable instruments

Program Notes

“Time is the actual dimension in which music exists when performed and is by nature an infinitely divisible continuum. No metric system or notation based on metrics is able to indicate all of the possible points in the continuum, yet sound may begin or end anywhere along this dimension.”

Similarly, all of the other characteristics of a sound — frequency, intensity, timbre, modes of attack-continuation-decay — are infinitely divisible continua and unmeasurable. The imposition of approximate scalar-systems is obviously possible and efficacious, but to deal directly with the experience of a continuum on its own unknown terms seems to imply that the unmeasuring eye and ear are their own terms and experiential justification and compatible with unmeasured experience. An ambiguous but implicitly inclusive graphic “notation,” and alert, sympathetic performers, are conceivable catalysts for activating this “process” within continua.

…to produce graphic situations, the implications of which would involve the performer’s response as a factor leading to multiple “characteristic” realizations of the piece as an audible event;…to extend and intensify the ambiguity inherent in any graphic representation and possible composer, performer, and audience response to it; a work, and any one performance of it, as “process” rather than as static and conclusive.

Two basic approaches:

• a “mobile” score subject to physical manipulation of its components, resulting in an unknown number of different, integral, and “valid” realizations.
• a conceptually “mobile” approach to basically fixed graphic elements; subject to an infinite number of performance realizations through the involvement of the performer’s immediate responses to the intentionally ambiguous graphic stimuli relative to the conditions of performance involvement.

View the complete prefatory note

More Information

Indeterminate length and instrumentation. Also click the link below, “On December 1952,” to hear Earle Brown speaking about FOLIO in 1970.

Four Systems was also used in Merce Cunningham’s dance “Galaxy.”

Audio Samples

On December 1952: Earle Brown speaking about Folio in 1970

Four Systems

Selected Performances

September 23, 2016 • Frankfurt, Germany

October 28, 2008 • New York City

Ensemble: Ne(x)tworks

April 17, 2007 • Chelsea Art Museum, New York City

Ensemble: Nextworks

February 10, 2001 • Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall

Soloist: Joan La Barbara, voice; Margaret Leng Tan, piano; Flux Quartet

February 9, 2001 • Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall

Soloist: Margaret Leng Tan

April 18, 1999 • Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Percussion Ensemble Stuttgart

August 13, 1991 • Frankfurt

Soloist: NIls Vigeland, Eberhard Blum, Frances-Marie Uitti

March 1, 1991 • Frankfurt

 hr-Ensemble für Neue Musik; Goldstein, Malcolm

April 25, 1990 • The Köln studios of Westdeutscher Rundfunk

Performed by the California EAR Unit and broadcast

November 8, 1989 • San Antonio

conducted by Earle Brown

May 27, 1982 • American Center in Paris

Performed by the California EAR Unit

May 8, 1980 • University of Maryland

The New Music Ensemble directed by Stuart Smith

November 12, 1971 • New York University

The Juilliard Chamber Ensemble conducted by Earle Brown

May 21, 1965 • 2iéme Festival de la Libre Expression

Ensemble: Charlott Moorman, cello Nam June Paik, piano

February 9, 1962 • ONCE Festival, First Unitarian Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Ensemble: Toshi Ichiyanagi and La Monte Young, pianos

December 10, 1959 • Bennett College, Millbrook, NY

4 Systems performed by John Cage and David Tudor, pianos; for "Galaxy" a Merce Cunningham dance

March 15, 1958 • University of North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina

Soloist: David Tudor

December 15, 1957 • Paine Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts

Soloist: David Tudor

April 30, 1957 • Carl Fischer Concert Hall; New York, NY

4 Systems for four pianos; Ensemble: John Cage, Wiliams Masselos, Grete Sultan, David Tudor, pianos

June 19, 1956 • Washington Hall, The University of Notre Dame, Indiana

Ensemble: John Cage and David Tudor, pianosThis was a premiere performance of the Merce Cunningham dance "Galaxy" which used the music of 4 Systems

April 28, 1954 • Carl Fischer Concert Hall, New York, NY

Soloist: David TudorWorld Premiere of Four Systems