Cagey

I recently learned from Darryl Ann that there is currently in progress the performance of a musical piece by the composer John Cage that will last 639 years. The performance is taking place in Halberstadt, Germany.

The piece moves slowly. The first year and a half of the piece was silence. A new note is scheduled to be played in the next month or so. Apparently, Cage first wrote the piece to be played in a time span of about twenty minutes on the piano. The piece was then adapted for organ with the tempo slowed down -- WAY down. A new, special, organ is being built to play some notes of the piece scheduled to sound some years from now.

I'm really not making this up.

I am familiar with a few works by John Cage, and have actually performed one of them for an audience on the piano: 4'33". In case you haven't "heard" it or of it, I will tell you that this piece is 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. (The piece has also been successfully performed by orchestras, singers, and chamber groups. As you might imagine, very little rehearsal is needed). The piece is actually pretty affecting -- especially if you don't know what's coming.

As for the piece scheduled to last 639 years, part of me just loves it although I haven't yet had the opportunity to hear a single note. The months of anticipation before each new note is sounded, the intergenerational effort required to complete the performance, the generous pauses between notes permitting contemplation of what has come before and what is to come -- who could demand more from any piece of art?

Of course another part of me thinks: what a load of you know what. But hey.