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John Cage recital set to last 639 years recently witnessed a chord change

(www.spectator.co.uk)
218 points pseudolus | 2 comments | 31 Mar 25 15:10 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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gweinberg ◴[03 Apr 25 16:15 UTC] No.43571891[source]▶
It doesn't make sense to me that the piece should start with a 17 month rest. Surely it doesn't really start until the first note is played?
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1. Isamu ◴[03 Apr 25 16:49 UTC] No.43572369[source]▶
It’s a deliberate provocation, he certainly anticipated exactly this sort of response.

In a sense he is exploiting a lack of rules that would prevent a piece from starting with this long of a rest.

In other words, he is hacking the process.

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2. dahart ◴[03 Apr 25 19:44 UTC] No.43574449[source]▶
To be fair, while the piece is a deliberate provocation, like some of his others, the rest wasn’t imagined by Cage to take 17 months, that’s just an artifact of someone else’s decision to play the piece for 639 years. In typical performances while Cage was alive, the opening rest wasn’t more than a few seconds.