My favourite version is the one by the Leningrad Philharmonic conducted
by Yevgeny Mravinsky, released in the days of LP.  Like the Toscanini, it's
a very fast performance, coming in well under 4 minutes, and of typically
Mravinskian intensity which makes cruel demands on the breathing techniques
of the brass.  It wasn't until I finally tracked down a CD version that I
realised that what I'd taken to be Mravinsky scratching his nose at one
poiint was really surface noise.

Big things were expected of a performance by Craig Strzlecki, a kangaroo
sexer at the Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney and part-time viola da gamba player
who'd spent some years completing an arrangement of Cage's masterwork.  His
choice of performing venue, on the dock below the zoo, was unfortunate as,
just as the performance concluded, he, his instrument and the recording (on
his girlfriend's cassette radio) were washed into Sydney Harbour by a rogue
wave.  The water police found no sign of them.

I've tried for some years to acquire a copy of the version by Horatio
Twittering-on-Sea, a little-known British expert on the repertoire for the
ophicleide, who arranged 4' 33" for a quartet of the instruments, and was
able to have a recording made in a building with superb acoustics near a
village on the Suffolk coast.  It was originally a snuff factory, and is
known affectionately as The Snortings.  During the recording, there was a
local power surge which caused a momentary change in pitch.  A second
attempt was made, but the quartet was agreed that the first version was far
superior, and this was released on the Musica Tiritomba label, which went
broke several years ago; its catalogue is, it seems, in limbo.

Richard Pennycuick
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