Re: different editions of 4'33'' =8b Warning, rant ahead

[Tim Conway <timcon@COMSWEST.NET.AU>]

Jim M wrote:

>Yesterday a  little confusion arouse between Bradley and myself concerning
>the score to Cage's 4'33''.  It turns out that according to one Cage expert
>there are at least six different versions of the score.   What follows is an
>excerpt from Solomon's paper on 4'33'', found at
>
>http://www.azstarnet.com/~solo/4min33se.htm
>
>Please forgive the lack of Gould content.

[snip]

I'm a little confused, too. Are you guys taking the Mickey out of the
rest of us, treating this Cage stuff seriously? I hope so, because if
anyone really thinks that there is the slightest merit in what Cage did
in the piece entitled 4' 33" I think a trip to the shrink is called for.
(The rest of what Cage did may be brilliant but I wouldn't know as I
haven't heard any of it, assuming anything actually gets played.)

Cage's so-called score for 4' 33" is akin to monkey painting or a
2-year-old kid's first daub. Anyone can do what he did. It takes no
training or musical knowledge or even any artistic feeling whatsoever to
do that, no matter how hard people try to dress it up with references to
nature and Tarot cards and how "difficult" it was to come up with the
durations of the so-called movements (not much moves, does it, apart from
the piano lid?) and the like.

Similarly, just about anybody can "perform" the work without any training
or musical knowledge. All you need is the ability to raise and lower a
piano lid and to read a stopwatch. The performance has nothing musical in
it whatsoever. Talking about the sounds heard during the first movement
and raindrops in the second is pretentious guff, tosh and piffle. And can
anyone imagine Gould, hunched over the piano and desperate to get to
work, waiting for a second hand to reach its predestined position before
he is allowed to do anything? Bah, humbug.

Finally, what pleasure does Cage's work provide for the listener?

Compare all that with any of Bach's, Mozart's or Beethoven's simplest
piano works: hardly anybody else could write what they wrote, not many
people can play these "easy" works without a fair amount of training and
practice (and natural ability), and the pleasure good performances of
these works give is enormous.

I suppose one can view Cage's approach as interesting psychologically;
that is, in seeing how gullible the public and pundits really are; but
the moment one tries to relate 4' 33" with art or music, small boys all
round the world will say "This Emperor has no clothes". As will I.

Anyway, there's only a tenuous GG connection, now fully explored, so can
we give Cage a rest? BTW, if I'm the only one on this List to feel this
way, please let me know and I'll retire. End of rant. Happy new year to
all. Bah, humbug...again,


Tim Conway
Broome, WA, Oz