Klarinet Archive - Posting 000667.txt from 2001/09

From: Gavin Rebetzke <GRebetzke@-----.au>
Subj: RE: [kl] Jeering about Cage
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:41:45 -0400

Bill,
Whilst I have not attended a performance, let alone perfomed 4'33", I
understand that it is performed by the performers going onto stage as if to
perform any "normal" piece, except that after positioning themselves to
begin, they then make no noise themselves for 4'33". I understand that they
do have sheet music, which presumably gives the instructions for
performance. I say make no noise themselves, because it is the background
noises and the noises made by the audience which make up the performance. I
assume the different audiences would react differently and that each
performance would be unique. It really is the audience's unwitting
participation that makes the performance. The piece is famous because Cage
was the first to think of doing this. There can never be a 17'42 or an
18'01".

I speculate that in any modern performance of 4'33", the performance may be
effected by the audience's knowledge of the piece, just as in any clinical
scientific trial, the results are always effected by the participants'
knowledge that they are being studied. Perhaps one can only image what it
would have been like to be in the audience at the first performance. Has
something gone wrong? Why haven't they started playing? The uneasy coughs
from members of the audience. The increasing restlessness of the audience
members...

I saw something on television once about the Ligeti piece for metronomes. I
think you are right, they are all set to different but constant tempi (is
there any other way of setting a metronome?). The effect isn't just the
drifting in and out of phase, but the way the piece ends - as you will
appreciate, the fast metronomes run out of puff earlier than the slow ones.
It all ends eventually with a last tick from the most wound up/slowed
metronome.

Of course it would take a lot longer for a performance of electronic
metronomes - can you imagine waiting for the batteries to run out on 100
beeping gizmos? Yuck!

GAVIN

-----Original Message-----
From: Bilwright@-----.net]
Subject: Re: [kl] Jeering about Cage

<><> Tony Pay wrote:
[snip] 4'33" [snip]

Being serious for a moment, I'm unaware of what this piece really is.
People appeared to have posted about an extended interval of silence
with no music, and you have described it (if I understand you correctly)
as a mime performance a la Marcel Marceau.

For those of us who don't know, could you describe 4'33"?

I'm also trying to imagine 100 metronomes. I assume that they were set
to different but constant tempi such that they drifted into and out of
phase in an interesting way?

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