As Cage's compositional style developed, he found that, in order to circumvent the listener's wish to find any emotional appeal to music, the composer himself had to detach from his own work and should not have any control on the composition, that is, he had to remove any personal trait that identifies him as a composer. At this time, in 1951, he was also working with his Music of Changes, which was another great step towards chance operations in composition. The first performance of this composition took place at the McMillin Theater at Columbia University, New York, with Cage himself conducting, on May 2, 1951.
