Cage, John (1912 - 92)

[Mandryka]

Have you looked at the score? The longest notated rest (on page 41) is four beats in length and almost all the others are much shorter. Towards the end there are quite a few pause marks over bar lines (either marked "court" or unmarked). I see no trace of "silent sections".

I'm not going to argue about how long a pause in the music has to be before it becomes a section.

My point is that in the Barraque' there are periods of no music being played on the piano which are really significant in my experience of hearing the second part. And the point I want to make about 4.33 vis-a-vis this and other works by Cage and others, is that there's a very big difference between a piece with a period in which no music is performed by the instrumentalists on the instruments in the middle/beginning/end, and a piece which consists entirely of nothing being played on the instruments ever. That's what makes 4.33 IMO a case apart.

[RichardB]

there's a very big difference between a a period in which no music is performed by the instrumentalists on the instruments in the middle/beginning/end, and a work which consists entirely of nothing being played on the instruments ever

Your bringing Barraqué into the discussion in #70 seemed to be motivated by making the opposite point, namely that other composers than Cage also wrote silences into their music. Indeed Barraqué's use of silence in his Sonata is all about the music finding it impossible to continue, in a way not entirely dissimilar to much of Beckett's writing, and eventually its sounds are reduced to the bare 12-note series with which it ends. Silence for Barraqué is the death of music; for Cage it's the converse: an opening towards a different kind of hearing - something he began in earnest to explore in the second movement of the Concerto, realising at a certain point (encouraged by his experience of Rauschenberg's paintings) that this idea would be best served by removing all intentional sounds from the music. But the idea resonates through most of the rest of his work in one way or another. 4'33" is a point through which the evolution of Cage's work passed, and it's entirely consistent with what he did beforehand and afterwards.

[NatBalance]

I'll have a go at the difficult question.

Clearly the sounds you hear when you listen to 4.33 don't have the structure of a sonata or a set of variations. Nevertheless, they can be rather evocative and atmospheric, and you can enjoy paying attention to them like you can enjoy paying attention to the sun glinting randomly on the sea, or the stars on a clear night. Cage thought that there's a way of listening which is common, shared, when you pay attention to a set of variations and the sounds of 4.33. The audience can stand in the same relation to both. And that possibility of a common way of listening makes 4.33, if not music like the Diabelli Variations, close enough, similar enough, to be to be subsumed under the same concept.

It looks to me like an empirical claim, just a contingent fact (or not) of the psychology of attention. I don't know if it's true or not.

You may not have read my post (#45). My question whether 4'33" is a piece of music can then be misinterpreted if that post is not read first. You see my question is not actually about the contents of 4'33", I agree that what you hear in 4'33" could be considered music, my question is whether 4'33" can be called a piece of music, or is it not an instruction? I give an example in #45 of being in a restaurant and at some point someone stops us talking to listen to the background live piano music. Has a piece of music been created by that action?

[NatBalance]

I do see 4.33 as a one off idea actually. It is such an extreme example of the composer relinquishing control of the sounds, that I see it as a one off idea.

Some things which I’ve heard said about it, including some of the things Cage may have said, seem to me to be hard to sustain. For example, my own experience with meditation makes me seriously doubt the idea that it can be a form of meditation.

There are countless different forms of meditation.

[RichardB]

my question is whether 4'33" can be called a piece of music, or is it not an instruction?

Many would say that any musical score could be described in terms of instructions. (I prefer "proposals".) Again, though, why does this matter at all?

I give an example in #45 of being in a restaurant and at some point someone stops us talking to listen to the background live piano music. Has a piece of music been created by that action?

One way of defining music is as a mode of listening. One can listen to the rain on a tin roof, or crickets on a summer evening, or the playlists piped into a supermarket, either as music or not. Whether they were intended as such is a different question. 4'33" has a timeframe determined by John Cage, so it's a "piece" of time, purposely separated off from what comes before and after it (unlike in your example), with the implication: if you aren't listening to the sounds around you otherwise, please listen to them - perhaps in a "musical" way, during the next few minutes. You might find that the sounds that surround you are worthy of more attention than you thought. But, as Cage himself says in the letter at the end of the document linked by Mandryka, he isn't going to try and tell you what to hear or how to understand this piece.

Sometimes people criticise contemporary composition on the grounds that (they think) it isn't going to "last" in the way that the classical canon has. Well, we are still talking about 4'33" after 70 years, and people are still performing it; while most listeners in 1983 had probably come round to the idea that Le sacre du printemps was music after all, Cage's piece hasn't lost its ability to generate arguments as to whether it is or isn't. It's a distillation of everything that makes contemporary art thought-provoking and challenging, and surely therefore some kind of "modern classic". Doesn't that in itself argue for thinking of it as a "piece of music"? Cage describes it as a piece of music. Shouldn't we be at all concerned with what he has to say?

[ahinton]

Many would say that any musical score could be described in terms of instructions. (I prefer "proposals".) Again, though, why does this matter at all?
One way of defining music is as a mode of listening. One can listen to the rain on a tin roof, or crickets on a summer evening, or the playlists piped into a supermarket, either as music or not. Whether they were intended as such is a different question. 4'33" has a timeframe determined by John Cage, so it's a "piece" of time, purposely separated off from what comes before and after it (unlike in your example), with the implication: if you aren't listening to the sounds around you otherwise, please listen to them - perhaps in a "musical" way, during the next few minutes. You might find that the sounds that surround you are worthy of more attention than you thought. But, as Cage himself says in the letter at the end of the document linked by Mandryka, he isn't going to try and tell you what to hear or how to understand this piece.

Sometimes people criticise contemporary composition on the grounds that (they think) it isn't going to "last" in the way that the classical canon has. Well, we are still talking about 4'33" after 70 years, and people are still performing it; while most listeners in 1983 had probably come round to the idea that Le sacre du printemps was music after all, Cage's piece hasn't lost its ability to generate arguments as to whether it is or isn't. It's a distillation of everything that makes contemporary art thought-provoking and challenging, and surely therefore some kind of "modern classic". Doesn't that in itself argue for thinking of it as a "piece of music"? Cage describes it as a piece of music. Shouldn't we be at all concerned with what he has to say?

Interesting thoughts and question. As to Le Sacre, I rather think that the realisation and acceptance that it "was music after all" had dawned on many within a couple of years of its première and that, in any case, more of the "scandal", perceived or actual, seems to have attached itself to the choreography than to the music, so the negative attitudes towards the score appeared somewhat to dissipate in a far shorter peiod of time than did, for example, certain works of Schönberg from that time onwards...

[Bryn]

Interesting thoughts and question. As to Le Sacre, I rather think that the realisation and acceptance that it "was music after all" had dawned on many within a couple of years of its première and that, in any case, more of the "scandal", perceived or actual, seems to have attached itself to the choreography than to the music, so the negative attitudes towards the score appeared somewhat to dissipate in a far shorter pe[r]iod of time than did, for example, certain works of Schönberg from that time onwards...

Indeed, a similar scandal occurred at the premiere of Varèse's Déserts. That kerfuffle was definitely about the music, however, as was that at the Cheltenham premiere of Paragraph 1 of Cardew's The Great Digest (later renamed the Great Learning to avoid problems with the administrators of Ezra Pound's estate).

[Mandryka]

Let's consider something which is prima facie similar to 4.33 -- LaMont Young’s Composition 1960 #6. The performers play no music. Rather they act as the audience, attending to the other people in the hall. Here's the score



Here LaMont Young avoids insisting that the audience is given a cue to listen to the ambient sounds as music (whatever that may be) There is a poster which labels it as "composition", but it is optional; there is no requirement for instruments to be present. There is no requirement for the performers to listen to the audience as music (whatever that may be) -- they just watch and listen (like anthropologists possibly.)

Here's a performance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynKGCh9JDe0&ab_channel=FifthHouseEnsemble

[Mandryka]

Here's Jurg Frey's essay on silence in music, which may or may not be relevant

THE ARCHITECTURE OF SILENCE

There is a music in which the time-space of sound and the time-space of silence appear in their own particular realms. Even when the sounds are often very soft, the music is not about falling into silence. The sounds are clear, direct and precise. Because they have left musical rhetoric behind, there is instead a sensitivity for the presence of sound and for the physicality of silence. There are long time spans for the presence of sound, and long time spans for the absence of sound. The two together form the "time present" of the piece.

In the silence a space is opened which can only be opened with the disappearance of sound. The silence which is then experienced, derives its power from the absence of the sounds we have just heard. Thus the time-space of silence comes into being, and then comes the physicality of silence.

Permeability, which is the physicality of silence itself, consists of the impossibility of saying anything about its content. Sounds can approach this permeability, but cannot achieve it. Sounds always occur as a formation or a shaping. They come into being by crossing a border which divides them from all others. At this border, everything formed becomes particular. Silence does not know this border. There is no silence through production. Silence is just there, where no sound is.

There are pieces in which the absence of sound has become a fundamental feature. The silence is not uninfluenced by the sounds which were previously heard. These sounds make the silence possible by their ceasing and give it a glimmer of content. As the space of silence stretches itself out, the sounds weaken in our memory. Thus is the long breath between the time of sound and the space of silence created. Silence can also be present in the sounds. In order to have silence in sounds, one must let go of everything which gets in the way of this silence. This sound is a sound without the idea of what it can mean or how it should be used. This sound achieves a hint of permeability, which otherwise belongs only to silence. This sound is the Da-sein (being there) of sound. Its presence and charisma make themselves felt in the composition. Silence requires one decision: sound or no sound. Sound requires a great many more decisions. These shape the sound and give it its quality, feeling and its content. Thus silence, in its comprehensive, monolithic presence always stands as one against an infinite number of sounds or sound forms. Both stamp time and space, in that they come into appearance, in an existential sense. Together they comprise the entire complexity of life.


Jürg Frey, 1998
Translation: Michael Pisaro

[Mandryka]

You may not have read my post (#45). My question whether 4'33" is a piece of music can then be misinterpreted if that post is not read first. You see my question is not actually about the contents of 4'33", I agree that what you hear in 4'33" could be considered music, my question is whether 4'33" can be called a piece of music, or is it not an instruction? I give an example in #45 of being in a restaurant and at some point someone stops us talking to listen to the background live piano music. Has a piece of music been created by that action?

OK, l am starting to understand you a little bit better. Can I ask you a question? Suppose someone transcribed the sounds they heard when listening to ambient sounds as music for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, and then performed them on a musical instrument. Would that transcription be a musical work which is subsequently performed?

Peter Ablinger's Piano and Record is the sound of an empty LP transcribed for piano. Example here

https://ablinger.mur.at/i+r_pno+rec.html

That page from Peter Ablinger's website refers you to his production Weiss / Weisslich, which is 7 vinyl records without sound

https://ablinger.mur.at/ww13.html

[Mandryka]

Your bringing Barraqué into the discussion in #70 seemed to be motivated by making the opposite point, namely that other composers than Cage also wrote silences into their music. Indeed Barraqué's use of silence in his Sonata is all about the music finding it impossible to continue, in a way not entirely dissimilar to much of Beckett's writing, and eventually its sounds are reduced to the bare 12-note series with which it ends. Silence for Barraqué is the death of music; for Cage it's the converse: an opening towards a different kind of hearing - something he began in earnest to explore in the second movement of the Concerto, realising at a certain point (encouraged by his experience of Rauschenberg's paintings) that this idea would be best served by removing all intentional sounds from the music. But the idea resonates through most of the rest of his work in one way or another. 4'33" is a point through which the evolution of Cage's work passed, and it's entirely consistent with what he did beforehand and afterwards.

Thanks for these thoughts, Richard, especially about your interpretation of the silences in the Barraqué sonata. I used to have a copy of a discussion with Jean Barraqué and Herbert Henk which I have now completely lost! But I made a translation of some of it and I see that Barraqué said this about the silences in the second movement:

The sonata opposes two styles: on the one hand a free style and on the other a rigorous style. In the free style, the greatest part is achieved by dynamics [the word in French was dynamique -- maybe energy is a better translation] and by a rhythmic momentum [élan]which makes for some very striking contrasts. In the rigorous style the writing is very contrapuntal, the cells of the base structure are developed by a process of variation which I call " in closed-open circuit." All the variations on rhythmic schemes are superposed sometimes two at a time, even up to four or five voices, and call above all on the integration of silence which, progressively, impregnates the work and the emptiness of its contrapuntal and structural contents -- it's music which has slipped away and silences which are of the greatest importance.

[ahinton]

Indeed, a similar scandal occurred at the premiere of Varèse's Déserts.

Apparently, a similar outbreak greeted what was almost certainly the sole public performance of Varèse's much earlier symphonic poem Bourgogne; that was in 1910, between those protests that had greeted certain Schönberg premières and those that were responses to the first performance of Le Sacre in the days before it acquired what could be regarded as its better known "second life" as a concert work. Varèse received encouragement from Busoni and Strauss, the former nicknaming him "l'Illustre futuro" but it seems that all but two of his early scores were destroyed in a Berlin warehouse fire so his relocation to USA during WWI effectively meant a fresh start for him. Ironically, the full score of Bourgogne escaped this fate but the composer apparently destroyed it in a fit of depression shortly before his death some half century later; I have long entertained the fond hope that the orchestral parts for it might be discovered somewhere so that its score could be reassembled as happened to Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony the whereabouts of whose manuscript remains unknown but, as more than a century has passed since its première, this seems little more than a pipe-dream...

[Bryn]

Apparently, a similar outbreak greeted what was almost certainly the sole public performance of Varèse's much earlier symphonic poem Bourgogne; that was in 1911, between those protests that had greeted certain Schönberg premières and those that were responses to the first performance of Le Sacre in the days before it acquired what could be regarded as its better known "second life" as a concert work. Varèse received encouragement from Busoni and Strauss, the former nicknaming him "l'Illustre futuro" but it seems that all but two of his early scores were destroyed in a Berlin warehouse fire so his relocation to USA during WWI effectively meant a fresh start for him. Ironically, the full score of Bourgogne escaped this fate but the composer apparently destroyed it in a fit of depression shortly before his death some half century later; I have long entertained the fond hope that the orchestral parts for it might be discovered somewhere so that its score could be reassembled as happened to Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony the whereabouts of whose manuscript remains unknown but, as more than a century has passed since its première, this seems little more than a pipe-dream...

Regarding the Shostakovich, at least those reconstructing from the parts presumably had the composer's 2-piano version as played for friends by Shostakovich and Weinberg in the 1940s and much later recorded by Hayroudinoff and Stone (Chandos) to assist them.

[ahinton]

Regarding the Shostakovich, at least those reconstructing from the parts presumably had the composer's 2-piano version as played for friends by Shostakovich and Weinberg in the 1940s and much later recorded by Hayroudinoff and Stone (Chandos) to assist them.

Yes, indeed so - to which extent there would be no equivalent situation in the sadly most unlikely event that the parts for Bourgogne ever turn up...

[RichardB]

All the variations on rhythmic schemes are superposed sometimes two at a time, even up to four or five voices, and call above all on the integration of silence which, progressively, impregnates the work and the emptiness of its contrapuntal and structural contents -- it's music which has slipped away and silences which are of the greatest importance.

Thanks for digging that one up - I like particularly how he talks about the silence impregnating the work and emptying its contents - he's not just talking (I think) about the silences between the sounds, but also the silence within the sounds, as all of the frenetic counterpoint is stripped down to single notes, a process that's taken to its extreme just before the final passage, where a sequence of 13 sounds consists of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 notes, and is then once more stripped back to 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1, this process being framed at either end by a last gasp of the kind of polyphony that dominates the first movement. All the obscure complexities of the preceding 40 minutes or so are reduced to a banal reductio ad absurdum of seriality. "I can't go on, I'll go on."