Posted on 07/06/2004 1:32:13 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows
BERLIN, Germany (AP) -- 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Avant-garde my butt. This is just weird.
In this "piece" they have the organ hooting out the same tone(s) for months on end. How would a piano have possibly worked in this? Someone comes in a couple times a year and plinks it?
And what would they do in case of power failure. Restart the whole thing from the beginning?
The piece was originally 20 minutes long - see article.
I did, but I missed that.
636 years, they say they have a special organ which has weights placed on its keys. They could have used duct tape and saved some money.
If it's a mechanically-pumped organ, there won't be a power failure. Of course, other things could go wrong, but I'm guessing they have redundant backups on everything.
If it is electrically-powered, UPS's aren't difficult to make, nor are backup generators.
I have no doubt that it can be done. Whether it should be done...it's their money.
Something has to power it. They have a crew of men pumping it? A gasoline or diesel engine? Water wheel? Too many single points of failure to expect it to go soldiering on for 6 centuries.
A power failure would be an improvement.
He's not much of anything today.
Oh, did he finally die?
Well yes, so the main plenum springs a leak. Or some foreign material or insect gets into a pipe, or a reed just wears out. Or the backup valve goes kaflooey.
Organs were just not meant to perform 6+ century recitals.
Great story! I can almost hear it in my mind's ear.
I have trouble finding value in this enterprise. Given the premise that the purpose of music is to provide a structured order of sounds with the goal being to provide a pleasing aural environment for the express enjoyment of humans and other sentient beings, ( I remember visiting a dairy as a child where the cows were provided with soothing music. It was found to enhance milk production and improve the demeanor of the animals) I would suggest that this no longer fits the definition of music in that when years pass between notes, it becomes a purely philosophical exercise, not a musical one, in that it ceases to have form and order as comprehensible by the human mind and lifespan. Although one could argue that even the segments available to humans during their lifetimes have form and therefore value, would this not be true then for any natural sound, such as water dripping from a wet leaf onto a flat rock? How would this "musical composition" have greater intrinsic value than the sound made by a particularly flatulent buffalo?
If we are to believe that the particular sounds in the form and order as defined by Mr. Cage have such exceptional value as to be worthy of such an endeavor, would it not then be fair to ask what defines Mr. Cage as being so absolutely breathtakingly brilliant in his insights of patterns of form and sound as to be worthy of others embarking on such an expensive and time-consuming endeavor? Has Mr. Cage written or spoken of such absolutely profound things of earthshaking significance in times past so that we should be moved to hang onto his every penstroke on a musical composition? Is he the Einstein of the musical world? Does he have a track record as a great thinker whose ponderings add to the intellectual landscape of humankind?
I have not been led to this understanding.
If this is, then, a philosophical exercise, would it not be valid to ask what great philosophical question or conundrum will be addressed or answered as a result of undertaking this exercise? Neither the composer nor the article provides us with this information, which I would suggest is essential due to the costs and efforts involved.
How do we know that this composition is any more valid than the random scribblings of a two year old?
I would suggest then that this is no more than Mr. Cage laughing at those who would take him seriously and elevate his scribblings to a level of faux deep philosophical significance. This is for teenagers and those embarking on Philo 101, who think that incomprehensible things are, by definition, profound. He knew at an early age that he would never be in the league of Beethoven or Bach, so he produces this tripe in an effort to baffle the gullible into thoughtful adoration and deification. He is no more than a musical P.T. Barnum who knows that a sucker is born every minute, and if you can throw out some random scribblings, call it a "grand opus" and couch it in suitably obscurist language and form then you will have philosopher wannabees scratching their heads over it for generations...or, in this case, six hundred years or so (not that I believe that Mr. Cage's legacy will be such that future generations will be moved to continue funding this silliness)
More than anything I feel sorry for the people involved with this project, as they are merely dupes or, as Lenin would say "useful idiots". I suppose, however, that it is just as well that they involve themselves with something like this which is largely harmless rather than something that has some degree of meaning and consequence, as that sort of thing should be left to those who ask simple questions such as "what value does this have" and "what is to be accomplished here?"
As other posters have suggested, this is "pure garbage".
The organ is more persistent, so it frightens the birds away better.
Bingo. It's Mr. Cage's joke upon all of us.
It would appear so. We cannot rule out, though, the possibility that he is merely performing an extended piece.
This one was designed for exactly that purpose.
Again, I have no doubts that the engineering can be done. The issue is whether it should be done.
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