In terms of innovation in music, I think Cage is far ahead of Branca.

But in terms of stuff that I enjoy listening to, I prefer Branca, though I do enjoy Cage as well.

As far as the actual music goes, they are sort of like apples and oranges to me. Now compare Branca to somebody similar, say Chatham, and you have a more fair comparison of music.

and i think the point is missed in 4'33 that he didnt notate silence, but instead he "forced " the audience to become performers and improvisers even if they didnt know that.
im going to listn to his concerto for piano and orchestra

jicccccup

Cage's music does absolutely nothing for me.

Nice ideas though!

I had absolutely no idea that Cage felt like that about Branca but it sort of articulates my own reluctance to embrace Branca's music, which I too think has no place within an avant-garde that, as you say, after the War regarded his kind of enforcement of individual will as 'anathema'. I don't use the word 'fascist' for the sake of it, but in the case of Branca it makes absolute sense, at least within the context of how Cage was using it.

Well, yeah, his whole point was originally to show that there is never complete silence. Even in a recording of 4'33, there are little sounds here and there, like somebody coughs, breathing, or as Cage says, even a heartbeat is there, even if you think you can't hear it.

The problem this has caused (and I guess you can't really blame Cage for this) is that a lot of people didn't get that point, and instead thought the point was that music didn't have to be what everybody thought it had to be, and it spawned a bunch of musicians who just tried to pull things out of the left field and created the "you-didn't-see-that-coming" genre.

Branca and Cage are both great and unique composers but also artists with a personality full of super-ego mixed with a very "special" intellectual irony...so don't surprise me what he said...it's all about "Each Person is In Charge of Himself"