4'33" or the absence of silence

today these music scores fell into my hands by mere chance. Of course I had heard about John Cage and his (in)famous piece before, but actually laying hands on the score and seeing how to write down 'nothing' really impressed me. It is nearly an offence to people to mock them in such way; but at the same time it is an act of a genius. In a handwritten introduction, one finds how to perform this piece:
It can be performed by any instrument or combinations of instruments, and there are different versions of subdividing it into the compulsory three movements. How this is done is up to the performer(s).
Then there is the piece - sketched down on one page three movements, all of them tacets... simply

        I
     tacet
       II
     tacet
      III
     tacet

nothing else...

Now my curiosity was definitely too much so I started searching more information on this piece. The most interesting ones I collected here for you:

first performance by david tudor



The reactions to this first performance were quite strong, from confused to furious. Somehow I can not even imagine how these people must have felt, being confronted with such performance, totally unexpectedly. At no time before this 'nothing', which actually reveiled the absence of total silence, had counted as music or had been performed as such in public. (Actually, the idea was not completely new. Other silences existed already at the time, however written down in another, more verbose way... )

By now, the piece has become very famous and is being performed with all kinds of groups of musicians for quite enthusiastic audiences. For me the most peculiar of those was the following:

performance by the bbc symphony orchestra



Isn't it incredible? To let this whole bunch of world class musicians sit and do nothing, apart from existing? As the presenter states, these performances incur a lot of tension.. I really believe this - actually I wonder if I could even sit out those 4 and a half minutes without bursting into laughter half way through!
But then, it surely must be a very fascinating experience.

If you are interested you might enjoy this short essay on the idea behind the piece, this article "the sounds of silence", and also the following one which raises the question who actually owns 'silence'?

last but not least, I wanted to share with you another one of John Cage's works - a sonata for prepared piano: