David Runnion ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>Mike Leghorn wrote:
>
>>I meant, if I'm watching, oh, let's say "ER", and I mute the sound, am I
>>listening to Cage?
>
>Of course not.  Why do folks ask questions like that about this piece.  It
>seems so uncomplicated to me.  You're listening to Cage when you are at a
>concert and the program includes 4'33".  That is when you are participating
>in his music, sitting respectfully and truly listening to the music of
>silence, or more accurately, the music that fills silence all by
>itself.

Is it worth pointing out (or is there, indeed any, point) at this stage
that Cage did not originally title the work 4:33, but rather (misleadingly)
Four Pieces, the name used at the first performance in 1952.

He composed it as an accumulation of short periods of silence, each of
which is of chance-determined duration.  "I know it sounds absurd," he
sauid years later, "but I may have made a mistake in addition."

A ms.  of the original has the three movements timed at 30", 2'23" and
1'40", which was what was perfoemde at the premiere.  The published score,
however, has 33", 2'40" and 1'20".

For Cage in this period, this timing is actually pretty conservative:
compare it with works such as 57 1/2" for string player, or 23'46.776"
and 31'57.9864" for piano, 26'1.1499" for string player and 27'10.554"
for percussionist, all from the 1950s.

deryk barker
([log in to unmask], http://www.camosun.bc.ca/~dbarker)