*Starred Review* To many music-lovers’ chagrin, the most famous twentieth-century American classical music composition is, very probably, John Cage’s 4’ 33” (1952), consisting of three movements whose timings amount to 4 minutes and 33 seconds of . . . music? The question mark arises because not a note is sounded by its performer. It is completely silent. Or is it? For no matter where or how it is played, even in a recording (23 of which Gann lists in an appendix), there are always sounds to be heard. Said by many to be a work of philosophy rather than music, it is, Gann demonstrates, clearly the latter, though Cage was becoming intrigued with Zen when he composed it. And if one of its points is that all sounds are musical, it is fraught with further music-cultural meaning as the culmination of a musical avant-garde extending from Erik Satie in late-nineteenth-century Paris through 1920s Dada to the association of advanced music with abstract expressionist painting after World War II; as the progenitor of at least two styles of subsequent art music, minimalism and environmental sound; and as an astonishing inspiration to a panoply of rock bands. 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. --Ray Olson
Review
“John Cage opened our ears to the whole world as music. In this engaging book, Kyle Gann opens our minds to the deep reverberations of Cage’s most radical, misunderstood and influential work.”—John Luther Adams, author of The Place Where You Go to Listen
(John Luther Adams )
“With composerly imagination and scholarly intelligence, Kyle Gann proves that 4''33" was not an offhand provocation, but John Cage''s most important piece and the key that unlocks the composer''s entire output.”—Robert Carl, author of Terry Riley’s In C
(Robert Carl )
“Music is sound without meaning and Cage''s 4''33" is no sound without meaning. Gann''s imaginative and thorough scholarship offers us insightful ways to understand Cage''s magnificent meaninglessness."—Larry Polansky, Dartmouth University and Frog Peak Music
(Larry Polansky )
"An outstanding book. Gann not only makes 4''33" come alive, but also makes the writing of it feel important and artistically necessary. All in all, a big achievement"—William Duckworth, Bucknell University
(William Duckworth )
“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
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Booklist )
“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.”--Publishers Weekly
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Publishers Weekly )
“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
Bookforum )
“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
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The New Yorker 20100301)
"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
American Music )
