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I don't recall seeing any such instructions on the score of 4'33'' that I saw in the music shop. It was a blank page with a few random minute ink spots which I presume was Cage's own, not a mistake at the printer.

And in the Proms performance I watched (an entirely serious performance, I should add), I didn't see any gestures from the conductor.

P.S. I can't believe we're discussing this work (or piece) in such detail. Cage must be rolling over in his grave, doubled up with

My copy of the score (honest!) shows 3 movements, each marked simply TACET.

But the idea that we "should" somehow mark each movement, as stated above, is just a view.

Frankly my dear... I can't either!

Silence speaks volumes!

If you're completely unfamiliar with the music, I don't think anything I can say will resonate.

But did you read the article? There's nothing in it to disagree with, no substance meriting debate or argument. All I got was (1) author doesn't like Cage's music, and (2) Cage's music isn't music (or isn't good music) because it doesn't do the things that good music does. The first is totally uninteresting. The second is a tautology, and particularly obtuse since one of Cage's major achievements was to help us expand or re-think our notions about what music can be, and to experience it in different ways. Then there were bits about Cage not being as important as Schoenberg or Stravinsky, and not deserving the airtime he's getting this year, which whatever.

Kyle Gann, a composer, teacher, and writer (he was music critic for the Village Voice for almost two decades), has written a very interesting book about Cage and 4'33", called [i]No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage's 4'33"[/i]. Although the focused on the piece, it is so rich in context that it almost becomes a survey of the arts of the time. I found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable read, not dry at all, and recommend it to anybody even mildly interested. At Amazon.com link I give, you can preview a number of pages, although it's too bad so many of them are of the preface, which seems a bit strange. But there's a good deal of the first chapter, too.

I don't have a problem with Cage's work for prepared piano, but could someone kindly explain what this all means, and why it should matter to me?

Quite the vintage video -recommended for that- and the actual performance commences about 5:39.

Hate to come off as a youngish old fogey, but IMO there's just so much other contemporaneous music which is far more engaging.

There's a part as well that he didn't mention, which is Schoenberg asked Cage to write several solutions to a particular cantus firmus.

It's a lot better with the radios plugged in. Damn unions.

I am not sure, but maybe he wants to evoke emotions and/or memories in the audience. Sounds can evoke memories, and of course they will be personal. Just like smells in Proust.

Well, I probably shouldn't comment without score in hand...maybe I'm misremembering. Mark C may be right in that no sub-durations are given, but David Tudor performed the work as a three-movement work with the keyboard lid closed, then opened, as delineation points for the movements.

Google search says there have been more than one set of time subdivisions to mark off the movements, and they are quite specific. But then again, if there are no definite markings in the score, then they must be optional.

There are definitely no "sub-durations."
But as I said, the score that I have indicates 3 "movements."


.....which was evidently how he chose to observe the indicated movements.

Thanks, Mark.

From the Wikipedia:
4′33″ (pronounced "Four minutes, thirty-three seconds"[1]) is a three-movement composition[2][3] by American experimental composer John Cage (1912–1992). It was composed in 1952 for any instrument (or combination of instruments), and the score instructs the performer not to play the instrument during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements (which, for the first performance, were divided into thirty seconds for the first, two minutes and twenty-three seconds for the second, and one minute and forty seconds for the third).

(I assume that was David Tudor.)

I agree with those durations.

Most 3-movement pieces have the 1st movement relatively longer and the 2nd movement shorter. I agree that for this, those relative lengths are better.

BTW when I did the piece, in fact I also did "actions" marking the movements, as per what RealPlayer said. But IMO it's not indicated or implied that you have to.

Which instrument do you prefer for a performance of this great seminal work?

I know we're all pianists here, but I have a soft spot for the versions for snare drum and ukelele. The piano version, in comparison, sounds rather insipid.

, did you see the Hitler diatribe on YT? For reasons that will be readily apparent, it will NOT be linked here.

Adolf almost said something sensible there.....