IS someone taking the Papa Indigo Sierra Sierra?

[sft42]

An full orchestra is being paid good money to 'preform' John Cage's compostion 4'33......and they have been rehearsing.....Oh this proves it....the world is a sick and twisted place.

http://launch.yahoo.com/read/news.asp?contentID=21
6421

[PaulB]

LOL
I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't read that!

[Cetti]

An exerpt was played on my local radio station this week - I found it very soothing.

[andy hughes]

I am happy to agree that I don't always understand art, or the meaning an artist is trying to convey, but listening to the Radio Three Controller advising loisteners that he had heard a 'piano version' of the work almost made me crash the car laughing! I think Mr Cage was having a laugh, mainly at po faced classical types with no sense of humour.

[gazzawazza]

I seem to remember that in the 70s some jukeboxes had a silent disc on them, could it have been this? Did the Sex Pistols not have something along these lines as well? Is this the musical equivalent of The Emperor's New Clothes or what!!!! And, being our musical correspondents Andy and Sft, can you give us your critiques? Here's mine;

" " don't you agree?

[sft42]

Just checked a while ago on WinMX and.....Yes someone is filesharing John Cage's 4'33 (for piano nonless).....could this be the biggest waste of 4meg of hard drive ever?

In my capacity as muso to the site.....This is the biggest pile of pertentious tosh I have ever had the misfortune not to hear.....the rest of Cage's work is sadly lacking in any real inspriation or originality and according to some he was a bit of a smeghead in his time (don't worry Ed no chance of being sued for Libel...He's shuffled off the mortal coil a few years ago)

[jenstar]

Beats the hell out of Oasis, anyway...

[Chinajan]

" "

[rja211077]

this story makes me laugh every time I hear it. I always have to check it's not the first day of the fourth month. I found it especially amusing that Cage successfully sued someone for copyright (was it Lionel Bart?) for creating another silent piece. If we stood on a stage in silence for 4 minutes 33 seconds would we have to pay Mr Cage performance royalties? Apparently on the radio broadcast you could hear the orchestra turning the pages of the score - like you'd bother! One wonders whether the conductor stood there waving his arms or whatever.

[jenstar]

I think the legal case you're thinking of was the estate of John Cage insisting that Mike Batt pay royalties on a silent track, but Batt had brought it upon himself really - he'd credited the track as "Cage, arr. Batt" in the first place.

[fraserjim]

.