Ian Crisp wrote:

>Walter Meyer:
>
>>If silence w/in a musical work are an acceptable part of music, why can't
>>a relatively brief period of silence of specified duration, admittedly a
>>bit longer than the rests or pauses usually encountered as parts of
>>conventional musical works, be accepted as an integral musical work in
>>its own right?
>
>That's an easy one.  A period of "silence" within a piece of music -
>whether it's just a brief rest or a 5-minute pause between movements -
>is a part of an overall organisation of sound-experience.  A period of
>"silence" by itself is not a part of a larger stucture; it *is* the whole
>thing. ...

I think it's a close call, not one I'd want to go to the barricades over
but I'm not aware of any concert in which 4'33" was the only featured work.
The extended period of silence presented by 4'33" was contemplated, I
believe, as part of a longer concert in which musical instruments were
played and heard.  I think that this arguably puts 4'33" back into the
concepts of rests and pauses between movements.  Mind you, as I wrote
before, I wouldn't have thought this if the work had been 43'3"!

Walter Meyer