The Sonatas and Interludes are Cage's masterwork for prepared piano. It was Cage's first composition inspired by Hindu philosophy, composed in a period of reading the works of the Indian art historian and critic Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. In these compositions, Cage expresses his interpretation of the permanent emotions of Indian tradion: The Heroic, the Erotic, the Wondrous, the Comic, Sorrow, Fear, Anger, the Odious (the four dark moods) and their common tendency toward tranquility.
The Sonatas and Interludes are Cage's masterwork for prepared piano. It was Cage's first composition inspired by Hindu philosophy, composed in a period of reading the works of the Indian art historian and critic Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. In these compositions, Cage expresses his interpretation of the permanent emotions of Indian tradion: The Heroic, the Erotic, the Wondrous, the Comic, Sorrow, Fear, Anger, the Odious (the four dark moods) and their common tendency toward tranquility.