A MOMENTOUS MOMENT- John Cage

[ce nedra]

Just thought I would share this. A friend of mine emailed this to me the other day. Some or other news article.

"A new chord sounded this week inhe abandoned Buchardi
church in Halberstadt, eastern Germany -- the venue for a
mind-boggling 639-year-long performance of a piece of music
by the lage United States experimental composer John Cage
new chord sounded this week in the world's slowest and
longest-lasting concert that is taking a total of 639 years
to perform.
The abandoned Buchardi church in Halberstadt, eastern
Germany, is the venue for a mind-boggling 639-year-long
performance of a piece of music by United States
experimental composer John Cage (1912-1992).
Entitled organ2/ASLSP (or As SLow aS Possible), the
performance began on September 5 2001 and is scheduled to
last until 2639.
The first year-and-a-half of the performance was total
silence, with the first chord -- G-sharp, B and G-sharp --
not sounding until February 2 2003.
Then, in July 2004, two additional Es, an octave apart,
were sounded and are scheduled to be released later this
year on May 5.
But at 5pm local time on Thursday, the first chord was due
to progress to a second -- comprising A, C and F-sharp --
and is to be held down over the next few years by weights
on an organ being built especially for the project.
Cage originally conceived ASLSP in 1985 as a 20-minute work
for piano, subsequently transcribing it for organ in 1987.
But organisers of the John Cage Organ Project decided to
take the composer at his word and stretch out the
performance for 639 years, using Cage's transcription for
organ.
The enormous running time was chosen to commemorate the
creation of Halberstadt's historic Blockwerk organ in 1361
-- 639 years before the current project started.
That original organ, built by Nikolaus Faber for
Halberstadt's cathedral, was the first organ ever to be
used for liturgical purposes, ringing in a new era in which
the organ has played a central role in church music ever
since.
As part of Halberstadt's John Cage Organ Project, a
brand-new organ is being built specially, with new pipes
added in time for when new notes are scheduled to sound.
Cage was a pupil of one of the 20th century's most
influential composers, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951).
Cage's avant-garde oeuvre includes works such as the
notorious 4'33, a piece comprising four minutes and 33
seconds of total silence, all meticulously notated.
The organisers of the John Cage Organ Project say the
record-breaking performance in Halberstadt also has a
philosophical background -- to "rediscover calm and
slowness in today's fast-changing world"."

[mikey6]

How the hell does one get a reputation so huge that they could atually influence someone to "perform" a "piece of music" like this?
I was talking with some of my friends about the danger of this - it'd be great after 400 years if the performer was late, and missed his "performance".  Or if the church got destroyed!

[ce nedra]

Hahaha I dont think it will last. Really, it's just far too long to keep going. It will just be stupid. Well, either way, none of us will ever know... haha maybe we should keep a 639 year thread going just to see if it actually reaches the final note or not I can just imagine the anti-climax after the final note is struck. Like "Hey, ok, thats great, what now?" I mean, 639 years is longer than the time between Bach and today. Strange thought.

[Derek]

"Cage originally conceived ASLSP in 1985 as a 20-minute work
for piano, subsequently transcribing it for organ in 1987."

I don't even understand how people can use the words "conceived" and "transcribed" in the case of Cage's chance "works". The resulting notes, the resulting sound even are not the result of his mind at all! I don't understand why anyone finds this even remotely interesting.  It is the fascination that pointless weirdness produces in people I guess.

I think it would have been more appropriate to bury cage near such an organ, and then consider each note they sound over the years to be like flowers on his grave.  Not that *I* would want to honor him thus, but it would make more sense than actually viewing it as "art" haha.

Yeah, cause you know what is going to happen? One of the weights placed on the organ three hundred years from now will be an artificially intelligent robot which will play actual music.