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| American composer John Cage in 1988. |
It will be the first note change since 5 October 2013. The unusual composition commenced performance on the 5th of September 2001 (on what would have been the composer's 89th birthday) with a 17-month long rest. Then, on the 5th of February, 2003, the organ - since dubbed the "Cage Organ" - emitted its first sound. With a scheduled duration of 639 years, the performance, which ends in 2640, has continued to play by aid of electric bellows which provide a constant supply of air, and with a suspension system of weighted sandbags which rest upon the instruments' three wooden pedals, and which are attached and "released" to open up the instrument's stops at scheduled chord changes, allowing the pipes to remain open and resounding.
During previously scheduled intervals, organ pipes were both added and removed from the instrument to realize note changes and thus give complexity to the instrument's tones. Two additional pipes will be installed this Saturday by past John Cage prize recipients: Colombian soprano Johanna Vargas (winner of the John Cage Singing Competition 2018) and German composer Julian Lembke (winner of the John Cage Prize of the City of Halberstadt 2009), allowing a G sharp and an E to sound for a duration of 2,527 days (until the subsequent note change occurs following Saturday's big event - on February 5, 2022).
The unusual work, written by Cage for organ, is an adaptation of the composer's earlier piece for piano, ASLSP 1985. Although the average duration of the piano version lasts 20 to 70 minutes, the length of the present rendering was designed by Cage himself to be ambiguous. In 1987, at the suggestion of the German organist Gerd Zacher, Cage arranged the piece for organ, purposely omitting from the 8-page score instructions on the work's duration.
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| The "Cage organ," designed and built by Romanus F. Seifert & Son. Three small sandbags can be seen hanging from three wooden lever-like "keys," or, pedals. |
It was at a symposium held in Trossingen some ten years after Cage's arrangement of the piece for organ, that the concept of ASLSP began its deeply philosophical journey as leading musicologists, thinkers, organ builders, theologians and organists alike gathered to discuss the implications of the composer's intentionally indeterminable instructions. They concluded, from a technical standpoint that the piece could be played in perpetuity, or, at the very least, as long as the life of the organ; and from an aesthetic perspective, for as long as there is "peace and creativity in future generations."
Ultimately, it was decided that the present interpretation of Cage's thought provoking piece should last for a whopping 639 years - a nod to the township of Halberstadt and the late renaissance/early baroque composer and music theorist Michael Praetorius, who wrote of an organ which had been built in 1361 by the priest Nikolaus Faber in the community's Halberstadt Cathedral, which presented a claviature of 12 notes - the first modern keyboard arrangement, still in use today.[1]
The year of that instrument's construction was subtracted from the start of the millennial year 2000, when the so-called "Cage organ" was installed at the St. Burchardi church. By the time the present performance of Organ2 / ASLSP is complete in 2640, 639 years will have elapsed since the current interpretation of the piece first commenced at St. Burchardi.
For many who consider the Faber keyboard to have been the embodiment of modern music, it is not unfeasible to consider Cage's provocative, avant-garde excursion into the undefinable as the 'new' progenitor of the term: modern music - squared.
As the staff at the Friend's Association for John Cage Organ Art Project at Halberstadt have so eloquently put it, the present performance is an "attempt at deceleration... a discovery of slowness in a fast-paced world," and the sowing of a "musical apple tree, understood as a symbol of confidence in the future."
According the Friends Association website, a "few" tickets remain for tomorrow's scheduled note change. Those interested may contact staff at cage-ev@aslsp.org.
Footnote:
[1] See Syntagma Musicum II: De Organographia, beginning with chapter VI "Concerning very large organs" to read Praetorius' references to the organ at Halberstadt (link: Praetorius, Michael and Faulkner, Quentin trans. & ed., "Syntagma Musicum II: De Organographia, Parts III – V with Index" (2014). Zea E-Books. Book 24, pp. 97 - )
Learn more (external links)
- Sound change (history and schedule), alternative performances
- Images of Halberstadt (church and organ)
- Official website for the John Cage Organ Project at Halberstadt (auf Deutsch)
- Roughly 29 1/2 minute recording of Organ2 /ASLSP (1985) performed by Gerd Zacher on organ (YouTube)
Miscellaneous (John Cage in the news, other)
- A mushroom-related brush with mortality: how John Cage fell for fungi (the Guardian)
- A new book looks at the artist and composer's love of all things mycological, including his fungi photograph collection and collaboration with illustrator Lois Long (the Art Newspaper)
- John Cage: A Mycological Foray (direct order via publisher)
UPDATE - 5 SEPTEMBER 2020:
Witness Saturday's note change in video from the event posted to YouTube. The process begins with the addition of pipes at 3:31:30 (G#) and at 3:32:11 (E), respectively.
UPDATE - 5 FEBRUARY 2022:
Witness Saturday's latest note change below. The founder and longtime director of the master class and competition for contemporary music in Halberstadt, Ute Schatz-Laurenze, acted as organist, replacing the previous sound with 7 pipes to 6. Read more about this latest note change here.
The last change occurred on 5 September, 2020, as discussed above.
-Rose.
It was reported in today's news that last night, moments after midnight, Cage's organ room was broken into by a young female organist--who could be heard in the village nearby playing Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Flight of the Bumble Bee' in slightly less than 1'45".
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