February 1, 2008
4′33″
I watched my music business students talk about John Cage’s 4′33″ today. One of the students (one of my best) had just encountered it in my other class and … well let’s just say she is learning a lot in college. I asked her to explain what she’d seen - she saw the YouTube performance of it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E) earlier today and she was floored - not in a very good way. “If I paid money to see that and there was just silence, I’d be very, very angry” she said in a bit more colorful language than that. The class was hysterical by the time she finished describing it.
I think that John Cage would have loved to have been in the room watching 10 students laugh their asses off at the prospect of a silenced orchestra at a concert. I know I loved it!
I’m sitting in Noodles Anonymous trying to coerce myself to stay at a motel tonight instead of driving 46 blizzarded miles home. I’m just afraid that if I stay overnight here I might accidentally not come back. There has to be a line drawn somewhere and 10pm is going to be that line.
i think he would have loved it too.
he always gets painted as so serious. i’d like to think he was actually very very funny.
thanks for sharing that.
Well, I had only heard a few pieces from Mr. Cage, like Water Walk, but that was definitely interesting. I guess Mr. Cage would also appreciate the fact that my roommate was playing guitar solos in the other room. Anyways, whether they liked it or not, your students probably learned something valuable about music from 4′33.
A friend of mine once said that 4′33″ is the only piece ever composed that will be performed perfectly every time, and yet will sound completely different every time.
The piece still remains an enigma for the initiated and/or Cage fanatics (Brian Eno being one of them), an annoyance for non-musicians, and yet it has probably inspired more essays, articles, blog posts, and discussion than any Mozart symphony. I think that’s probably what Cage set out to do, so on its own terms, it’s an entirely successful piece.
I’d suggest seeking out the Wergo recording of his Town Hall concert in the late 1950’s — you can hear all the cat-calls and outright booing followed by over-enthusiastic applause from Cage’s supporters. Great fun, especially the piece for carillon.