In the New York Times Magazine's annual "Year in Ideas" which appeared last week, there was the entry Quiet Parties, in which all conversation occurs by handwritten notes, sort of like Beethoven's conversation books. The article begins:
"Fran Lebowitz once said that if she could will any technological inovation into existence, it would be a silence machine: turn it on, and all those cellphones, beeping trucks and -- worst of all -- human voices that pollute our lives would be instantly hushed." Musicians have always used the nonmusical sounds of their environment as raw material. 4'33" plays this idea to its logical conclusion, making it a "concept piece." In a performance of the piece it becomes evident that to whatever extent it is a composition, it is one which leads an audience to focus its attention entirely on things other than the composition. Randomness was an important concept for Cage, and the appreciation of the unfixed aspects of performance (which many musicians agree are what create the vitality and meaning of music) are foremost in 4'33". For those who have inattentive listening habits, or who attend musical performances for non-reasons such as social obligation, this can be a small epiphany which might enhance one's listening skills and enjoyment of the next, more traditional musical performance. Without understanding these idea, there's not much chance of understanding 4'33" as a composition. Another concept piece, if I remember it correctly: a waltz by Chopin, consisting of two eight measure phrases, the first cadencing in C and the second cadencing in F. The piece is marked "repeat without end." An unperformable piece sounding like nonsense, but maybe it deserves further consideration than writing it off as the work of a talentless hack, made for an audience of philistines. I'm also no fan of chopping strings, piano legs or other violence to instruments (it's more effectively done by The Who anyways.) But I'm not sure it's much worse than the vapid performances of standard repertoire for semiconscious listeners, which 4'33" addresses. -----Original Message----- From: Howard Posner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, December 19, 2003 9:06 AM Cc: Lautenliste Subject: Re: John Cage on Lute Roman Turovsky at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Was the piece that requires no playing? I forget the title, something like > "4.32". Just sit for 4 and a half minutes and take your bows. Close. It was 4'33" (as in four minutes, 33 seconds) and involves slightly (but not much) more than just sitting. The first performance (this is an account, mind you, written by someone who thought the piece worth writing about) in 1952 went like this: "Tudor placed the hand-written score, which was in conventional notation with blank measures, on the piano and sat motionless as he used a stopwatch to measure the time of each movement. The score indicated three silent movements, each of a different length, but when added together totalled four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Tudor signaled its commencement by lowering the keyboard lid of the piano. The sound of the wind in the trees entered the first movement. After thirty seconds of no action, he raised the lid to signal the end of the first movement. It was then lowered for the second movement, during which raindrops pattered on the roof. The score was in several pages, so he turned the pages as time passed, yet playing nothing at all. The keyboard lid was raised and lowered again for the final movement, during which the audience whispered and muttered." You can read all about it at www.azstarnet.com/~solo/4min33se.htm. Stravinsky remarked that he hoped we could have similar works of major length from Cage. HP
