Comments on: 4′ 3″

By: Sean M. Burke

Sean M. Burke — Sun, 18 Jan 2004 09:45:23 +0000

Greetings Internet friends! I regale you with this 39-byte long MIDI file of the Cage piece. (Click on my name here.) INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE ISN’T ANY.

By: Dedman

Dedman — Sun, 18 Jan 2004 04:12:54 +0000

Does any one remember hearing about a lawsuit over this work? I seem to remember something about another performance artist being sued for silence or something because Cage did it first? Or did I just imagine that?

By: Epacris

Epacris — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 13:17:22 +0000

The current ‘guardian’ of Beckett’s estate – I can’t remember if he is a grandson or nephew or what – was upset at last year’s Sydney Festival interpretation of Waiting for Godot, and nearly banned its being performed that way. I think he objected to a short piece of background music. There was quite a discussion about legitimate interpretation of artistic works & so forth at the time. We are in the middle of this year’s Sydney Festival at the moment, but nothing quite so exciting so far.

By: peter

peter — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 11:45:28 +0000

What are the implications from a copyright perspective of the John Cage piece? Does this mean that any work that incoprporates silence into its presentation risks impinging upon Cage’s primary use of silence in a creative work?

By: msg

msg — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 09:02:15 +0000

13 comments and nobody tangents on the caning. How about a piece in two parts? First a cover of Cage’s piece, with a fresh and as-yet unbeaten and un-threatened classroom of “normal” and restive schoolboys. Fidgets and whispers, coughs and sighs. Then four minutes thirty-three seconds of boys being caned. Or beaten. Whipped. Whatever it’s called. That begging squeal the weaker ones give off, the stiff grunts of the stoic…

By: Peter Murphy

Peter Murphy — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 07:23:18 +0000

4’ 3” is ok, but I prefer the 12-inch remix: 7’ 24”.

By: John isbell

John isbell — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:57:23 +0000

Is the piece scored for piano or piano and audience? If the former, he doesn’t seem to have a leg to stand on, and he is (or was) a dick anyway, though it’s a cute musical lesson to tell the audience what you thought of their performance afterward, not how bad it was. Beckett flew to Florida to prevent a performance of Godot starring Bert Lahr (The Cowardly Lion) with Estragon as his straight man. Beckett just didn’t get it. He can have total control over his work by keeping it in his desk drawer. Nobody will mess with it. Plus, it’s vaudeville for God’s sake. There, I’ve just set Beckett straight about his most famous play. What else have we got?

By: Dan Simon

Dan Simon — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 20:30:05 +0000

Perhaps the pianist’s tirade was a cadenza?

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 20:22:49 +0000

‘Caned for rowdyness’… Ah, this sceptred isle..

By: zizka

zizka — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 20:08:28 +0000

I can’t find the link, but the Cage estate sued someone for royalties who inserted a minute of silence into a piece (crediting Cage). I believe that the defendant then wrote silent pieces entitled 4’32” and 4’34” and copyrighted them.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 19:24:24 +0000

Ah, good point. Perhaps if one listened very hard, one could hear the faint background hum of the fear of a beating.

By: Kriston

Kriston — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 17:39:19 +0000

It seems that a room cowed to a creepy silence by situational anxiety, rather than a noisy silence for no reason, seems to contextualize Cage’s piece rather than limit it.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 17:24:34 +0000

Yes this was discussed on Front Row the other day too, with the conductor. Quite amusing. Mark Lawson asked him if he was going to listen to recordings of the piece, the conductor said something like ‘Of course not, let’s not get silly.’ That piano player had a hell of a nerve! The audience didn’t even have a score, am I right? How are they supposed to know where to cough?

By: Rv. Agnos

Rv. Agnos — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 15:51:20 +0000

“the usual fail-safes had to be manually disabled; ordinarily more than a few seconds of silence on the BBC triggers an emergency recording.” But isn’t the emergency recording exactly what you SHOULD be hearing on the radio broadcast? Isn’t not allowing us to hear the emergency recording the same as yelling at kids for being too quiet? If we can’t hear the emergency recording, what’s the advantage of listening over the radio, rather than being there live?

By: J. Ellenberg

J. Ellenberg — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 15:44:28 +0000

There was an interesting comment this morning from a technical person at the BBC who explained that the usual fail-safes had to be manually disabled; ordinarily more than a few seconds of silence on the BBC triggers an emergency recording.