The Seasons consists of nine movements: Prelude I – Winter – Prelude II – Spring – Prelude III – Summer – Prelude IV – Fall – Finale (Prelude I).
It is a sweet and lyric composition, very much unlike Cage’s other works. Like in Sonatas and Interludes and String Quartet in Four Parts it is indicative of Cage’s interest in Indian aesthetics. In The Seasons Cage uses the Indian signification as inspiration: Winter as quiescense, Spring as creation, Summer as preservation and Fall as destruction. It is one of the compositions where Cage tried to “imitate nature in her manner of operation”, which is, according to the composer, one of the ideas from Indian philosophy.
The work’s overall rhythmic strusture is 2-2-1-3-2-4-1-3-1. This structure also expresses the relative lengths of each of the nine movements.
Cage first composed the piano version. The orchestration was made with the help of Lou Harrison and Virgil Thomson.
Here you can listen to an excerpt (Prelude I – Winter) in both versions (see links below).

John Cage – The Seasons (1947)

solo piano version – Margaret Leng Tan, pianoforte

orchestral version – BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Foster