Re: different editions of 4'33'' ? Warning, rant ahead

[Sean Malone <spm29386@oregon.uoregon.edu>]

> 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

I think part of the point may be that it was Cage who first thought of it,
not whether or no others *could* have thought of it also.

> 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.

You may be making Cage's point exactly.

>
> 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

This was part of Cage's point as well.

> 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?

These kind of process pieces (or Zen, or aleatoric...) have little to do
with the end result, it's the stimulation one may receive from the concept.
Whether or not you like it is less important than whether or not it may have
had you consider the world around you in a different light. And, based on
your comments, it seems you have, so for that reason alone the piece was
successful.

>
> 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.

Thinking that Cage was hoping on public gullibility is too cynical for my
taste. This piece comes from a time when the participation of an audient,
either musically or otherwise, was rather popular. All kinds of performance
pieces and installations needed the involvement of the viewer for it to
"work". It's simply thought-provoking. Let's face it, it's clever. Cage's
piece may seem very trite to us now, but he's become part of our vocabulary
and will enjoy a lasting legacy, though not for the same reasons, as many
celebrated composers.

Sincerely,
Sean Malone
Music Theory
University of Oregon