No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage's 4'33

No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage's 4'33"

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No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage's 4'33" (eBook) Pub. Date: 3/23/2010 Publisher: Yale University Press
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No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage's 4'33" Pub. Date: 3/23/2010 Publisher: Yale University Press

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Overview

First performed at the midpoint of the twentieth century, John Cage’s 4'33", a composition conceived of without a single musical note, is among the most celebrated and ballyhooed cultural gestures in the history of modern music. A meditation on the act of listening and the nature of performance, Cage’s controversial piece became the iconic statement of the meaning of silence in art and is a landmark work of American music.

In this book, Kyle Gann, one of the nation’s leading music critics, explains 4'33" as a unique moment in American culture and musical composition. Finding resemblances and resonances of 4'33" in artworks as wide-ranging as the paintings of the Hudson River School and the music of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, he provides much-needed cultural context for this fundamentally challenging and often misunderstood piece. Gann also explores Cage’s craft, describing in illuminating detail the musical, philosophical, and even environmental influences that informed this groundbreaking piece of music. Having performed 4'33" himself and as a composer in his own right, Gann offers the reader both an expert’s analysis and a highly personal interpretation of Cage’s most divisive work.

Editorial Reviews

American Music

"Gann''s book amply demonstrates [that] Cage''s so-called silent piece is as resonant with philosophical, historical, and acoustical complexities as many a noisier composition. . . . Gann''s account so perceptively synthesizes the irreducible disparity about the origin of Cage''s seemingly simple gesture that it will doubtlessly become the (unstable) foundation for many future interpretive engagements with the piece. . . . It is the great merit of Gann''s book to have revealed just how multidimensional even Cage''s most seemingly unidimensional gesture can be."—Brandon Joseph, American Music

— Brandon Joseph

Bookforum

“The former Village Voice new-music critic examines the ways in which Cage's piece was and is boosted and derided, and the result is an easily digestible yet illuminating volume.”—J. Gabriel Boylan, Bookforum

— J. Gabriel Boylan

More Reviews (3) Fewer Reviews

Booklist

“Deftly profiling Cage and his influences in the process, Gann entrancingly communicates his love and fascination with Cage’s musical milestone in a spellbinding chapter of high-cultural history.”--Booklist, starred review

The New Yorker

“4''33", Gann argues, though often suspected of being merely a ‘provocative stunt,’ is actually one of the best understood and most influential works of avant-garde music. . . . In describing the piece’s premières and reception, Gann recaptures its ‘Promethean’ impact, which cost Cage some friends and prompted his mother to ask, ‘Don’t you think that John has gone too far this time?’ ”--The New Yorker

Publishers Weekly

Gann, a composer, considers Cage’s 4’33”—a performance piece in which the pianist never plays a note—from just about every possible angle, explaining how it can be simultaneously “one of the most misunderstood pieces of music ever written and yet, at times, one of the avant-garde’s best-understood as well.” (To illustrate that latter point, Gann rounds up many of the descriptions of the piece included in Cage’s obituaries after his death in 1999.) Following a biographical summary of Cage’s early musical development, Gann considers the various influences that got him thinking about “silence, meditation, and environmental sound,” from 20th-century composer Erik Satie back to the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart, moving on to a sensible reconstruction of the piece’s development—down to telling details like the fact that its length is roughly the same as the temporal space on a 12-inch 78 rpm record. Though Gann clearly respects Cage and 4’33”, he doesn’t worship either blindly, and that critical appreciation makes his argument that this is a radical “act of listening,” not a provocative stunt, all the more compelling. Photos and illus. throughout. (Mar.)

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780300136999
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication date: 3/23/2010
Pages: 255
Sales rank: 786,711
Series: Icons of America Series
Product dimensions: 5.60 (w) x 8.30 (h) x 1.10 (d)

Meet the Author

Kyle Gann is Associate Professor of Music at Bard College, a composer, and former new-music critic for the Village Voice. He lives in Germantown, NY.

Preface ix

1 4'33" at First Listening 1

2 The Man: 1912-1949 32

3 Dramatis Personae (Predecessors and Influences) 71

4 The Path to 4'33": 1946 to 1952 121

5 The Piece and Its Notations 167

6 The Legacy 188

Appendix 4'33" Discography 215

Notes 219

Bibliography 233

Index 241

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