There’s a campaign to get John Cage’s 4’33 to be the Xmas number 1 in the UK charts this year, following on from the similar campaign last year with Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name Of.
The fact that the choice of the perhaps one of the most contentious pieces of 20th century classical music has garnered such support makes me really happy, even if the reasoning is along the lines of “I’d rather listen to silence than another bit of x-factor”. But then, I’d be in much the same camp.
Some of the quotes online are absolutely hilarious:
“Might blow your speakers! Cant wait for the Dubstep remixes :D”
“I found the lead violin to be rather exquisite”
“I love the bit where the trumpets don’t come in”
(via the comments on the youtube video linked below, and this yahoo news article)
But, in all seriousness, I’m a big fan of “silence”, and have grown to treasure it more in the last few years, though really I mean the absence of that constance background music that we’re bombarded with, and envelope ourselves in. I guess the more work I do in music, the more I need to be able to switch away from the constant background music that pervades life. I treat music as being more important than just having it on in the background, and I find it hard to not focus on music when it is playing, even semi-consciously.
You might then wonder how I can enjoy a piece of music that has no performed music? I guess it’s the intention of the piece. To force you to listen to all the other sound that happens around you – to take stock of the sound world you live in, and to not just wash it over with music. In a world where we rarely get to experience silence, it’s interesting that a piece that forces the listener into a place where they have to experience silence is one that is so divisive.
This post I came across on the social networking site Thingbox, explains the idea behind the piece quite well:
“cage went into an anechoic chamber and heard 2 sounds one high and one low. he asked the sound engineer about it and was told that the high one was his nervous system and the low one was his blood in circulation. he concluded that as long as you are alive there are sounds to listen to and 4’33’’ was part of his way of explaining this.
he’d been composing for percussion since the 1930s and after finding out about an indian philosophy saying that the purpose of the arts was to quiet the mind and make it susceptible to divine influence he started to include sometimes extended bars of silence partly so the sounds could better exist as themselves and also as a reflection of this particular way of thinking.
schoenberg was one of his teachers but serial music was a harmonic way of organising music but cage was interested in extra musical sounds so developed a form of rhythmic structure as a way of organising his compositions. he started using chance operations as a way of removing his own habits and tastes so that the music produced would be new and unusual to himself as well as other.4’33’’ was composed in 3 movements as 3 parts of empty rhythmic structure. he was perhaps one of the 1st western composers interested in removing his ego from music and was inspired to actually compose this after seeing robert rauschenbergs white paintings. he’d been thinking about doing it for around 3 years.”
(posted by user: ivegoneswimming, 5/10/10)
Here’s the piece being performed in the Barbican Hall which was broadcast on BBC tv also (with some wonderful humour added by the conductor I’ve gotta say.)
