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Re: 639 Year Long Concert - Cage Composition - "ASLSP"



Sounds like "the Whispering Yeast Orchestra, with your host, Dwight Yeast."
~Tim
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: 1/7/2006 10:43:52 PM
Subject: Re: 639 Year Long Concert - Cage Composition - "ASLSP"

Also, this is their interpretation of "As slow as possible"? This could take a lot longer than 639 years if we really consider "the possible".  It could take infinitely long depending on what school of math you subscribe to. :)   Better yet, we could apply Cantor's principle of diagonalization and multiple levels of infinity and say that each beat take an infinite amount of time, adding other beats (sets of infinity). Hence, let's just start that first beat of silence on the first section and call out part done.
 
Kris
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 8:36 PM
Subject: 639 Year Long Concert - Cage Composition - "ASLSP"

Come on....this seems ludicrous. I know Cage was a formiddable figure in experimental music, but this seems like taking it a bit too far.  Reading this, I thought maybe I was reading a script for a new Monty Python movie.  Do they have someone at the
 
Kris
 
 
 
Second chord sounds in world's longest lasting concert  

Thu Jan 5, 11:12 AM ET

HALBERSTADT, Germany (AFP) - A new chord was scheduled to sound in the world's slowest and longest lasting concert that is taking a total 639 years to perform.

The abandoned Buchardi church in Halberstadt, eastern Germany, is the venue for a mind-boggling 639-year-long performance of a piece of music by US experimental composer John Cage (1912-1992).

Entitled "organ2/ASLSP" (or "As SLow aS Possible"), the performance began on September 5, 2001 and is scheduled to last until 2639.

The first year and half of the performance was total silence, with the first chord -- G-sharp, B and G-sharp -- not sounding until February 2, 2003.

Then in July 2004, two additional Es, an octave apart, were sounded and are scheduled to be released later this year on May 5.

But at 5:00 pm (1600 GMT) on Thursday, the first chord was due to progress to a second -- comprising A, C and F-sharp -- and is to be held down over the next few years by weights on an organ being built especially for the project.

Cage originally conceived "ASLSP" in 1985 as a 20-minute work for piano, subsequently transcribing it for organ in 1987.

But organisers of the John Cage Organ Project decided to take the composer at his word and stretch out the performance for 639 years, using Cage's transcription for organ.

The enormous running time was chosen to commemorate the creation of Halberstadt's historic Blockwerk organ in 1361 -- 639 years before the current project started.

That original organ, built by Nikolaus Faber for Halberstadt's cathedral, was the first organ ever to be used for liturgical purposes, ringing in a new era in which the organ has played a central role in church music ever since.

As part of Halberstadt's John Cage Organ Project, a brand-new organ is being built specially, with new pipes added in time for when new notes are scheduled to sound.

Cage was a pupil of one of the 20th century's most influential composers, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951).

Cage's avant-garde oeuvre includes works such as the notorious "4'33", a piece comprising four minutes and 33 seconds of total silence, all meticulously notated.

The organisers of the John Cage Organ Project say the record-breaking performance in Halberstadt also has a philosophical background -- to "rediscover calm and slowness in today's fast-changing world".