No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4’33”
Hoodoo
Nonfiction Reviews: 1/25/2010
Publishers Weekly, 1/25/2010
No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage�s 4�33� Kyle Gann Yale Univ., $24
(272p) ISBN 978-0-300-13699-9
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.)
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