JOHN CAGE Four minutes thirty-three seconds

4′ 33″, the silent piece, is easily John Cage’s most famous creation. I would say that anyone who recognizes Cage’s name knows that he wrote a piece of music that consists entirely of silence. It is a piece that has become a sort of icon in post-war culture, like Warhol’s soup cans: a punch line for jokes and cartoons; the springboard for a thousand analyses and arguments; evidence of the extremity of a destructive avant-garde that appeared in the 1950s and 60s.

It is not surprising that this piece would attract the kind of attention that it has. To begin with, it is a compelling dramatic gesture. At its first performance, virtuoso pianist David Tudor sat at the piano, opened the keyboard lid, and sat silently for thirty seconds. He then closed the lid. He reopened it, and then sat silently again for a full two minutes and twenty-three seconds. He then closed and reopened the lid one more time, sitting silently this time for one minute and forty seconds. He then closed the lid and walked off stage. That was all. With the right kind of performer, such an event can be riveting, and Tudor was absolutely the right kind of performer, possessing an understated mastery of the instrument and a seriousness of purpose that was palpable to everyone in attendance.

Part of what makes the drama so compelling is the utter simplicity of the concept. The composer creates nothing at all. The performer goes on stage and does nothing. The audience witnesses this very basic act, the act of sitting still and being quiet. All this takes place in a Western concert hall setting, lending a historical and artistic gravity to the proceedings that begs us to put this act into some kind of weighty context, fraught with importance.

The piece can be difficult for audiences (just as the empty room in the exhibition might have been). Sitting quietly for any length of time is not something to which people are accustomed in Western culture in general, much less in a concert hall setting. That tensions will arise, with controversy and notoriety following, is only natural. Confronted with the silence, in a setting we cannot control, and where we do not expect this kind of event, we might have any of a number of responses: we might desire for it to be over, or desire for more interesting sounds to listen to, or we might feel frightened, insulted, pensive, cultured, baffled, doubtful, bored, agitated, tickled, sleepy, attentive, philosophical, or, because we “get it”, a bit smug. But do we really think of 4′ 33″ as a piece of music? What did Cage mean when he made this piece? How are we supposed to take this music? I believe that the story of4′ 33″, of the circumstances in Cage’s life from which it arose, can help us to answer these questions... (Copyright 2009 by James Pritchett. All rights reserved.)