Performances and Recordings
4′33″ has been recorded on several occasions: Frank Zappa recorded it as part of A Chance Operation: The John Cage Tribute, on the Koch label, 1993; in 2002, James Tenney performed 4′33″ at Rudolf Schindler's historic Kings Road House in celebration of the work's 50th anniversary.
Several performances of 4′33″ including a "techno remix" by New Waver were broadcast on Australian radio station ABC Classic FM, as part of a program exploring "sonic responses" to Cage's work.
On January 16, 2004, at the Barbican Centre in London, the BBC Symphony Orchestra gave the UK's first orchestral performance of this work. The performance was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, and one of the main challenges was that the station's emergency backup systems are designed to switch on and play music whenever apparent silence (dead air) lasting longer than a preset duration is detected. They had to be switched off for the sole purpose of this performance.
A tongue-in-cheek version was recorded by the staff of the UK Guardian newspaper on January 16, 2004.
In 2004, the work was voted to be number 40 in the ABC radio's Classic 100 piano countdown.
On December 5, 2010 an international simultaneous performance of Cage's 4′33″ took place involving over 200 performers, amateur and professional musicians, and artists. The global orchestra, conducted live by Bob Dickinson, former member of post-punk group Magazine, via video link, performed the piece in support of the Cage Against The Machine campaign to bring 4′33″ to Christmas number 1 in 2010. A second performance took place on December 12, 2010.
Read more about this topic: 4′33″
Famous quotes containing the words performances and, performances and/or recordings:
“This play holds the season’s record [for early closing], thus far, with a run of four evening performances and one matinee. By an odd coincidence it ran just five performances too many.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)
“At one of the later performances you asked why they called it a “miracle,”
Since nothing ever happened. That, of course, was the miracle
But you wanted to know why so much action took on so much life
And still managed to remain itself, aloof, smiling and courteous.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“All radio is dead. Which means that these tape recordings I’m making are for the sake of future history. If any.”
—Barré Lyndon (1896–1972)