November 2, 2008
John Cale – I’ve Got a Secret
John Cale was the guest on this September 16, 1963 episode of I’ve Got a Secret. His secret centered around his participation in an 18 hour 40 minute piano performance, the first full length presentation of Erik Satie’s “Vexations” held at the Pocket Theater.
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I do love this. And what I find double-plus ultra-delightful is that John Cage also appeared on I’ve Got A Secret!
Whoa… i actually hadn’t heard of this show until today, clicking around the links related to the Paris 1919 performance you mentioned.
But so it turns out that John Cage was one of the other pianists that participated in the performance Cale is talking about! The rest of the pianists were David Tudor, Christian Wolff, Philip Corner, Viola Farber, Robert Wood, MacRae Cook, David Del Tredici, James Tenney, Howard Klein (the New York Times reviewer), and Joshua Rifkin.
(Wolff and Tenney appeared together here in Miami a few years ago at a new music festival.)
Thanks, Alesh. I hadn’t made the connection with respect to the “Vexations” performance.
Surely there is a story behind the appearances of both Cage and Cale on “I’ve Got a Secret”. Someone knew someone. Or something.
I loved “I’ve Got a Secret” in the way-back years. I don’t remember seeing this, or the Cage performance. Remember when they had to put on masks when the person with the secret would be identified? The ladies’ masks had lace rimming the perimeter.
A while back, I posted my own memory of a Cage performance on Remembery.
I adored the ladies’ masks, Rick.
Glory days of television indeed. It’s always the simple things.
Actually my favorite moment is about halfway into Cale’s performance of the piece, when the audience “gets it,” and there’s this nervous sort of laugh, like they’ve sort of realized they’ve been had… and then they quiet down again as they realize actually they’re listening to something special and their ears adjust.