Seeing as it's modernist month I felt obliged to post about a highly controversial modernist piece of music. John Cage's 4'33'' takes minimalism to a whole new level, and was the 85 year old composer's favourite work. It takes roughly four and a half minutes to perform, as the name suggests.The premiere of the work was given by American pianist David Tudor, in August 1952. Quoting Wikipedia: "The audience saw him sit at the piano and, to mark the beginning of the piece, close the keyboard lid. Some time later he opened it briefly, to mark the end of the first movement. This process was repeated for the second and third movements."
What makes the piece so famous is the controversy surrounding it, its substance challenging the very definition of music. Although not a single note is played for the entire work, the music is "the natural sounds of the players, the audience, the building, and the outside environment." Nothing of what you hear is anything the composer wrote.
4'33'' is unique in that it leaves almost no room for the performers interpretation; as long as he watches the stopwatch, he can't play it too fast or too slow; he can't hit the wrong keys; he can't play it too loud, or too melodramatically, or too subduedly.
But 4'33'' is a joyful embrace of our world and all it has to offer. It empowers us to take charge of ourselves, to trust our own instincts, to make our own judgements, to live our own lives. No other work in the history of music has expressed so much, and yet achieves its meaning with such disarmingly efficient elegance.
I must have listened to Mahler's symphonies dozens of times over, however only a few of the truly catching melodies stay with me. I listened to 4'33'' just once, months back perhaps, and yet I remember it vividly! You might ask "Couldn't a 3 year old have written this piece?" Perhaps. But did he? Did you? I think Cage is telling us that we've arrived at a point where everything should be possible, that it is now up to each of us to select and enjoy whatever elements of our world are the most meaningful to us.
As controversial as it is I have to give this work 10/10. Finishing up with a quote, "Genius, like music, comes in so many varieties."
8 comments:
Nice, very nice.
"Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here!" - Albus Dumbledore
this is an example of how left-wing greenies tried to change our intepretation of art, so that some idiot could waste people's money on this. aaaaaaaaaaaargh.
How dare you suggest that 4'33'' is bad! It paved the way for aleatory music, and many great pieces like Thomas Duffy's "Snakes!" which contains a section at its end which mostly consists of random half-valves on trumpets, a heap of trombone glissandoes on unspecified beats and notes, and random noises from anything available. Yes, I make it seem bad, but it's a really cool section!
Sure, Cage did not "write" the piece; it is completely aleatory, but I really don't think a 3 year old would be intelligent enough to write simple silence. They would write either repetitive consonances or random notes.
The piece does not consist of silence. There can never be true silence. There will always be sound, and 4'33'' merely uses these sounds as a very modern form of music. At first sight, this appears stupid, but I think you'd go out of a performance very satisfied. (So long as you didn't go into the performance with an overly cynical view).
if you call this music, you HAVE to accept rap is music. its your choice. agree with me or agree that rap is music.
Tullio you have to admit that silence is better than rap. Silence is also better than the majority of Shostakovich's symphonies.
I must point out that Mr Braidwood's performance of 4'33' was, although quite emotionally involving, a little too uncharacterised for my liking.
Mr Braidwood included unwanted dissonances in his performances. I wouldn't have thought it was possible to stuff up so a piece but there you go!
*such a piece
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