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Branca is Wagernian. Cage is opposed to the Wagnerian narrative. Cage is not an over-rated musician, he's barely rated as a musician at all (he was an above-average musician, but I've never heard or read anyone say he was massively talented). Cage was a composer, and that's what he did.
The idea that Cage is a 'let everything be' sort is strange - his works never aspire to fascism, but he frequently yarks on in his writings about indeterminacy, not absolute freedom.
I expect Cage saw Branca as lazy, and I'd have to agree, to a degree - there's very little that's compositionally new in Branca. It's all about transposing Wagnerian pomp with a smattering of borrowings from other modernists (very little Schoenberg, I'd note).
I don't personally think Branca is bad, but I wouldn't say he was a genius of composition. An innovator of rock, certainly.
These are important distinctions if you care about composition; if you don't, please disregard.
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Originally Posted by Savage Clone
Last time I was in Chicago I spent an hour in a Nazi submarine with a banjo player.
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