REFLECTIONS Robert Silverberg AS SLOW AS POSSIBLE We SF people like to think of ourselves as formers (any number can play) to remain being capable of taking the long view. It is utterly silent for the entire duration of a routine matter for us to contemplate the the piece, four minutes and thirty-three state of things in the year 3914, or 39,914, seconds. The idea, I believe, is that fortu- or even, for those among us who have the itous sounds occurring during the perfor- true Stapledonian outlook about futurity, mance, a cough in the audience or the the year 3,914,914,914. (If you wonder rustling of papers or the passing of an air- what the phrase “Stapledonian outlook” plane overhead, will provide the actual means, check out Olaf Stapledon’s great “music,” and we are expected to interpret novels Last and First Men and Starmak- that pattern of random sounds in any er, which I discussed here a couple of way we wish. Cage, a student of Oriental years ago. You have never read anything philosophy and a considerable philoso- like them.) pher in his own right, believed strongly in Familiar as we are with the grand the role of randomness in the arts, and stretch of futurity, it should be easy was fond of leaving many factors to enough for us to become willing partici- chance in his compositions. pants in a musical concert that’s not ex- “4’33” ” is, as I said, notorious, and for pected to end until the year 2640. You good reason. But I would not want you to will, I have to warn you, reconcile your- think that Cage was a mere thumb-to- self to the fact that you have already the-nose producer of gimmicky high-con- missed almost a dozen years of the per- cept outrageousness. Much twentieth- formance. It began on September 5, 2001. century music strikes the uninitiated But since it will take 639 years to perform listener as mere strident noise, scratchy the whole piece, you still have time to screechy stuff without melodic interest catch quite a bit of the show, although I or discernible pattern; but Cage was con- very much doubt that anybody will last cerned as much with aural beauty as long enough to hear the whole thing. with abstract principles of composition. The place is Halberstadt, Germany, a Such works as his Sonatas and Inter- town a couple of hours’ journey southwest ludes for prepared piano (1946-1948) are of Berlin. The composer is John Cage. The works of great beauty indeed, delicate name of the piece is—well, what did you and lovely to hear, fascinating to the think?—“As Slow As Possible.” It consists mind. (A “prepared” piano is one that of eight movements, of which at least one, has had various odds and ends, bits of according to the composer’s instructions, metal and wooden blocks and such, tied must be repeated. Cage didn’t specify the to its strings, producing a strange but tempo of performance, leaving that up to pleasing twanging sound.) I like to think the performer; in this particular perfor- that Bach and Mozart and Beethoven mance, each movement is to last seventy- would have had no difficulty discerning one years. So—eight plus one, times sev- the beauty in these sonatas and inter- enty-one—a 639-year concert. Be patient. ludes, once they had taken a moment to Be very, very patient. assimilate the idea of a prepared piano John Cage, who lived from 1912 to and another to comprehend Cage’s theo- 1992, was an amiable but very radical retical assumptions. “He’s operating by avant-garde composer whose previously different rules,” they would, most likely, most notorious composition was not near- say, “but what glorious sounds these are! ly as lengthy: “4’33” ” is what it was Play a little more of it for me.” called, and the score instructs the per- He composed “As Slow As Possible” in 6 April/May 2012 Asimov’s 1985, and revised it for organ in 1987. stored. For the Cage performance a new The score is just eight pages long. Cage’s organ, built along the lines of the 1361 preferred tempo for the piece is implicit original, was constructed. And the per- in its title: “As Slow As Possible.” And he formance itself began on September 5, did request that one of the eight move- 2001, which would have been John Cage’s ments be repeated, the choice of move- eighty-ninth birthday. ment being left up to the performing The organ was still under construction artist. Other than that, he placed no lim- that day, but that was no drawback to itations on the individual performer. starting the performance, because Cage’s Since it was composed originally to be score specifies that As Slow As Possible is played during a piano competition, and to open with a lengthy period of silence. the judges would have to hear it over At the tempo chosen for the Halberstadt and over again, he wanted to spare them performance, that opening “rest” had a the monotony of hearing a sequence of duration of seventeen months. So, though identical performances by guaranteeing September 5, 2001 marked the official that no two performances would be alike. start of the playing of the piece, the first It seems to have been his expectation that audible music wasn’t heard until Febru- a typical performance would last from ary 5, 2003: a chord consisting of two G- twenty to seventy minutes, depending sharps with a B between them. on the performer’s choice of tempo. That chord needed to be sustained un- The idea of a 639-year performance til July 5, 2004. (All changes of sound take arose among a group of Cage’s admirers place on the 5th of the month, because a few years after his death. The choice of Cage was born on that day of September duration of the concert may seem to have 1912.) Of course, no organist can be ex- a Cagian randomness about it, but that is pected to hold a chord non-stop from Feb- not so. In his great book Syntagma Mu- ruary of one year to July of the next, so sicum (1614-18), the seventeenth-century little bags of sand were affixed to weigh composer and music theorist Michael the organ pedals down and keep the Praetorius asserted that the first organ chord playing continuously. The church’s using the modern twelve-note keyboard neighbors weren’t so happy about having was built for the cathedral of Halber- a single sustained organ chord coming stadt in 1361. That organ, had it sur- from the building for month after month, vived, would have been 639 years old in either, and after some complaints were the year 2000, and so it seemed appro- registered the organ was enclosed in a priate to the Cage crowd to celebrate the plexiglass case to cut the sound emerging anniversary of its construction by using from the church down to a faint whine. Halberstadt as the site of a 639-year- And so the performance has gone ever long performance of As Slow As Possible. since: a change of note on January 5, The Halberstadt cathedral itself was 2006, another one a mere four months unavailable for the performance, for the later on May 5, 2006, the next one on July practical reason that continuous organ 5, 2008, and so on and on and on (Novem- sounds spanning the next seven cen- ber 5, 2008, February 5, 2009, July 5, turies would probably distract the wor- 2010 . .) until the performance reaches shippers from the regular services. The its triumphant conclusion on September site chosen instead was St. Burchardi 5, 2640. The work of building the organ Church, which was one of the oldest in went on during the early years, pipes be- the city. It had been built about 1050 as ing added as required by the score; the in- a Cistercian convent, was partly de- strument was not completed until 2009. stroyed in war six hundred years later, Devotees of Cage’s music make pilgrim- rebuilt in 1711, and eventually deconse- ages to St. Burchardi to follow the crated and used as a barn and a dis- progress of the event. The biggest crowds tillery before being rediscovered and re- show up for each chord change, of course. Reflections: As Slow As Possible 7 April/May 2012 I imagine that to be a memorable thing, that true Halberstadt acolytes regard sudden tonal alteration after months or such haste as deplorable. even years of unvarying sound—but the Meanwhile, the Halberstadt perfor- church is open six days a week and any- mance zooms merrily along, extending one can visit at any time during the per- its reach farther into the future with formance. (Much as I admire Cage’s mu- every passing month. I’m sure Olaf Sta- sic myself, I doubt that I’m going to get pledon would have been fascinated by there. The performance has 629 years to the vast scope of the concept. run as I write this, but I don’t.) How many organists it will use up as Music-lovers who are too impatient to it proceeds no one can estimate; the or- sit through the entire Halberstadt pro- gan itself, if properly maintained, should duction do get opportunities to experi- easily last it out. Those who are curious ence As Slow As Possible at a faster about this most enduring of all musical pace.