What's it all about, then? - J Cage

[Guest]

4:33" is one of the most important works of the 20th Century IMV

In what way is it? Or is this another assertion without any foundation in logic or reason?

its often performed badly

Removed, and retitled by ff, from the Hear & Now board

[Bryn]

What's it all about, then? - J Cage

If you don't like 4:33", Panjandrum, Cage wrote much other music. Why don't you try some of that? You might enjoy it .

The expression "pearls before swine" springs to mind, JS. It's like Simon was using a pseudonym. The many comments by musical illiterati re. the YouTube item offering Cage's Piano Concerto[sic] (the title on the score reads "Concert for Piano and Orchestra") are on a similar or even lower level.

Basically, those who don't appreciate 4'33" tend not to be very fond of listening in general.

[Panjandrum]

The expression "pearls before swine" springs to mind, JS. It's like Simon was using a pseudonym. The many comments by musical illiterati re. the YouTube item offering Cage's Piano Concerto[sic] (the title on the score reads "Concert for Piano and Orchestra") are on a similar or even lower level.

Basically, those who don't appreciate 4'33" tend not to be very fond of listening in general.

Pompous.

[Bryn]

Pompous.

Precisely what I thought upon reading you 'contributions' to this thread.

Happy New Ears!, reproduced in A Year from Monday, said it all, back in 1963.

Oh, and on the matter of bad performance, the very mention of which elicited a laughter emoticon from you, there is even one on disc. On an otherwise fine CD (it was originally issued on vinyl) there is a version based on three outdoor environmental recordings made in Hungary. To me that is ramming the point home so hard as to miss it. The Frank Zappa version is far better:

http://www.discogs.com/Amadinda-Percussion-Group-433/master/272271

http://globalia.net/donlope/fz/related/A_Chance_Operation.html

[Panjandrum]

Precisely what I thought upon reading you 'contributions' to this thread.

Happy New Ears!, reproduced in A Year from Monday, said it all, back in 1963.

I merely asked for some kind of justification as to the significance of 4'33", rather than the customary obeisance before a holy relic of modernism; you take it too personally.

[Lateralthinking1]

I think it is rather significant because it challenges an individual's relationship with silence.

One can listen to most music attentively or have it on in the background. By contrast, silence is something that we always have on in the background. When we shut up for a minute and say we are going to listen to silence, we are actually listening out for whatever is the sound that breaks it, however slight. As for momentary silence, well, this is understood to be used to good effect in music or drama or conversation. Arguably, it is in essence an alternative sound. Not silence at all.

What Cage does surely is to lure us into listening to a slice of permanent silence as if it were sound. Because this is done over a reasonably lengthy period, we may become bored but in turning away from it, our senses are then attuned to the real silence around us. Not the temporary pause for dramatic effect but the stuff that is always with us even when there are others in the vicinity. In one sense an aura. The closest companion anyone can have and bizarrely the most overlooked.

But who or what is it? That is what he gets us to ask.

[french frank]

Lat

The serious discussion is going on on the Cut & Splice thread (Hear&Now board), so why not copy your contribution over there? This thread is for the knockabout stuff.

[Lateralthinking1]

Oh ok. Thanks french frank. I tend to find that I am at my most serious while veering towards the whimsical. This is a peculiar character fault of mine - one of many - but I will pigeon hole it there. It will still be here so others can make of it what they will.

[Bryn]

Sorry frenchie but this editorial decision of your is a bad one. Not only have you selectively removed messages which you wrongly interpreted as comedic. You have vitiated the continuity of the original thread.

[barber olly]

Sorry frenchie but this editorial decision of your is a bad one. Not only have you selectively removed messages which you wrongly interpreted as comedic. You have vitiated the continuity of the original thread.

Quite so. In discussion of 4'33", how can you decide which are comedic and which are not. Half the time I think those who discuss it in earnest are taking the proverbial anyway. It's all a joke - or is it?

[french frank]

Sorry frenchie but this editorial decision of your is a bad one. Not only have you selectively removed messages which you wrongly interpreted as comedic. You have vitiated the continuity of the original thread.

I opened the Hear & Now board specifically for people who have a genuine interest in and/or knowledge of contemporary music to discuss it, not for people to sling abuse at each other. My use of the the word 'comedy' was ironic.

I left the thread open on a positive and helpful note in the hope that the discussion could restart from there.

[burning dog]

'Ad that John Cage in the back of the cab once...

What did 'ee say?

F%*" All!!!

[Bryn]

'Ad that John Cage in the back of the cab once...

What did 'ee say?

F%*" All!!!

In which case I guess he must have had something to say, though it might not have been poetry to him.

[Panjandrum]

'Ad that John Cage in the back of the cab once...

What did 'ee say?

F%*" All!!!

He was rehearsing 4'33".

[burning dog]

He was rehearsing 4'33".

.