[F_MINOR] OT John Cage still going

[Nessie Russell <nessierussell@YAHOO.CA>]

I have admitted to liking some of John Cage's work.
This is too deep for me.  I have to wonder if
sometimes people look for a meaning which is not
there.

Does this seem like a worthwhile project to anyone?


> Entertainment - AP Music
> World's Longest Concert Adds Two Notes
>
>
> By MATT SURMAN, Associated Press Writer
>
> BERLIN - In an abandoned church in the German town
> of Halberstadt, the
> world's longest concert was coming two notes closer
> to its end Monday:
> Three years down, 636 to go.
>
>
>
> The addition of an E and E-sharp complement the
> G-sharp, B and G-sharp
> that have been playing since February 2003 in
> composer John Cage's
> "Organ2/ASLSP" - or "Organ squared/As slow as
> possible."
>
> The five notes are the initial sounds played on a
> specially built
> organ - one in which keys are held down by weights,
> and new organ
> pipes will be added as needed as the piece is
> stretched out to last
> generations.
>
> The concert is more than just an avant-garde riff on
> Cage's already
> avant-garde oeuvre, which includes a piece
> consisting of 4 minutes and
> 33 seconds of silence and one for a piano rejiggered
> with screws and
> wood stuck between the strings.
>
> "It has a philosophical background: in the hectic
> times in which we
> live, to find calm through this slowness," said
> Georg Bandarau, a
> businessman who helps run the private foundation
> behind the concert.
> "In 639 years, maybe they will only have peace."
>
> The concert began Sept. 5, 2001 - the day Cage would
> have turned 89.
> The composition, originally written to last 20
> minutes, starts with a
> silence, and the only sound for a first 1 1/2 years
> was air. The first
> notes were played in February 2003.
>
> After debates in Germany about what exactly "as slow
> as possible"
> could mean - anywhere from a day to stretching on
> infinitely - the
> group of German music experts and organ builder
> behind the project
> chose the concert's 639-year running time to
> commemorate to the
> creation of the city's historic Blockwerk organ in
> 1361.
>
> Halberstadt's disused Burchardi church, once a
> monastery complex and
> now an appropriately simple and unadorned building,
> was chosen as a
> concert hall.
>
> About 10,000 tourists visited the city, 60 miles
> southeast of Hanover,
> between April and September of last year to hear the
> first three
> notes, Bandarau said.
>
> Cage was born in Los Angeles in 1912, and like his
> teacher, Arnold
> Schoenberg, was influential both as a musician and a
> thinker.
> "Organ2/ASLSP" was composed in 1985 for piano, but
> two years later was
> rearranged for organ. Cage died in 1992.
>
> The next change arrives in March 2006. The music
> then will become even
> simpler: Two notes are being taken away, Bandarau
> said.
>
> The foundation is now seeking sponsors to fund the
> organ's estimated
> $246,000 cost.
>
> "We need to secure the future," Bandarau said.


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