John Cage's Organ Masterpiece

Since I first wrote about John Cage's composition "organ2/ASLSP" in January, there has only been one chord change. A recent article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press addresses this piece of music and the connection Cage had to Minnesota.

Because St. Paul Chamber Orchestra conductor Dennis Russell Davies favored an inventive repertoire in the 1970s, he worked closely with John Cage. Layton James, a keyboardist with the SPCO since 1969, shared with the newspaper his memories of performing Cage's music.

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James recalled the time he was told that a performance of a new piano work by Cage required him to walk out on stage, sit at a grand piano, depress the damper pedal and await further developments.

After a few minutes of silence — another Cage trademark — the stage manager came out carrying a revolver, which he pointed at the piano and fired. The shot was a blank, but the concussion caused the strings on the piano to reverberate loudly.

"You never heard such a clanger," James said. "That was the piece. They never told me about the gun, so I guess my reaction was supposed to be part of the experience."
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Roy Close, a former Twin Cities music critic, says knowledgeable concertgoers also knew what to expect from Cage, whose most famous work was "4'33," " a piece created for orchestra in 1952 that required the musicians to sit silently for four minutes and 33 seconds.

The point, Close said, was the realization that there is no such thing as silence — that the sound of "4'33" " was provided by the environment where the concert was taking place. All sounds, Cage believed, are equally musical.

Some people question whether Cage's compositions qualify as music. Over four minutes of silence? Not in my book. Even "organ2/ASLSP" began with 20 months of rests after the bellows were turned on. How can one count silence as the start of a song? I'd compare that to a movie beginning with 10 minutes of black screen. ("The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" has no dialog for the first 16 minutes, but at least the plot develop in the images.)

Cars

Pixar has outdone itself again with its latest animated film. Clocking in at 2 hours, 5 minutes, every moment is enjoyable from the beginning of the pre-movie short "One Man Band" to the close of the credits. Perhaps it was an even better film because there were a total of seven people at that Thursday night showing--including me and my parents--and no reason to restrain from laughing aloud.

The plot follows a hotshot racecar who gets lost in a podunk town along Route 66 on his way to a big race in LA. Owen Wilson brings the voice of this youngster, Lightning McQueen. Other vocal talents include Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy, Cheech Marin, George Carlin, John Ratzenberger (who has been in every Pixar movie), Michael Keaton, and Richard (the King) Petty. They also present "cameos" from Bob (Cutlass) Costas, Jay (Limo) Leno, and racers Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Michael Schumacher, and Mario Andretti.

I advise that you stay to the very end of the film. The credits are presented on half the screen with continuing animation on the other half. Also, once the credits finish rolling, there is one final brief scene.