What is "one of the most misunderstood pieces of music ever written and yet, at times, one of the avant-garde's best understood as well"? That's the assessment by composer, music critic, and music professor Kyle Gann of the subject of his book _No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage's 4'33"_ (Yale University Press). It might be that if you know any avant-garde music this is the piece you know, though it cannot be the earworm playing in your head and you cannot dance to its beat. It is Cage's composition of three movements, adding up to four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence. I have never heard it in concert, but I have heard often about it and it seemed to me prankish and funny. It still seems funny, a turning of music on its head, but I now appreciate that there is nothing wrong with taking it seriously, and there is something wrong about being outraged by it, as many people have been over the past six decades. Gann's book does a wonderful job looking at how _4'33"_ can be understood by examining the derivation of the piece and its antecedents, its performance history, and its cultural context. Necessarily Gann has given also a short biography of Cage, who had one of the most interesting of musical careers. This is a delightful book with much to say about how we appreciate music, sounds, and lack thereof.
Gann begins with the very first performance of _4'33"_ at the fittingly named Maverick Concert Hall in Woodstock, New York. What the audience heard was wind in the maples, and a light summer rain, and maybe some dissatisfied muttering. After the concert was a discussion with the composer, at the end of which a local artist exhorted his fellow listeners with, "Good people of Woodstock, let's run these people out of town." Gann explains the piece is no hoax; the audience members were not fooled into thinking they had heard something they hadn't. It certainly was not a trick to gain money; the piece was not commissioned, and the concert at which it premiered had all profits to charity. It could be thought of as a "metamusic" that makes a commentary about music itself. The "most directly fertile suggestion," according to Gann, is that it may be seen as an example of Zen practice. Gann knows that some people scoff at the piece, but he himself has performed it. "I once performed it for a class of new freshmen, and a young woman exclaimed afterward with surprised delight, `I never realized there was so much to listen to!' Perhaps that's exactly the kind of musical satori Cage hoped to bring about." Of musical forebears to this piece, Gann pays the most attention, as did Cage, to the works of Erik Satie, "arguably the most eccentric composer in the history of classical music, Cage included." Cage was prominent in the Satie revival, arranging for his _Vexations_ to be played in full, a short piano piece played 840 times for an eighteen hour performance. Other surprise influences are Muzak and jukeboxes.
That _4'33"_ has been enormously influential may be seen in one particular statistic. There have been two dozen recordings of musicians playing it (even though Cage didn't believe in or listen to recorded music). Frank Zappa covered it, for instance. Gann includes a two page discography. Lest you think this is all too serious, he also includes the press release of a conceptual artist who declared he was making _4'33"_ available as a commercial ringtone. Gann has produced an entertaining history of a curious piece of music, a book that is odd and funny and thoughtful as befits its subject.
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