Re: Cage. Ed. Note: In Magellan's Log 25, we presented the Internet world premiere of John Cage's famous piano piece, 4'33". (Click here to experience this unique work live on your own computer). Our brave venture into the 20th century avant-garde was, strangely, met with silence. Except for the following bit of vituperation. Because of Prof. Bernheimer's age (he admits to nine decades) and his incessant activity in the farther reaches of remedial musicology (no fewer than 23 papers published in BBMRS** alone), we felt, in the interest of fairness, that we had to pass on his somewhat negative opinion of our presentation of 4'33".
It is difficult to play this great work badly; it's not Islamey or the Hammerklavier Sonata. And yet, the performance you made available was an absolute dog -- irresolute in tempo, monotonous in phrasing, and far too loud. As if that were not enough, your instrument-of-choice was (there is no polite way to put this) flat. I recognized it immediately as the notorious Karl Haas recording of 1979. For shame! Have you not heard of Glenn Gould? Or even Lara St. John? I'm even willing
to let you use my own 1952 performance on the soprano euphonium, royalty-free, as long as
you lose this loser of an interpretation. Morton Bernheimer is Professor Emeritus of Remedial Musicology, Sears College, Downers Grove, Illinois. END
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It was
an inspired conceit to make a performance of 4'33" available (in its entirety, no
less!) on your website, but good intentions count for naught if not executed properly. The
idea was superb, but the performance was the worst I've ever heard in more than half a
century of virtually daily listening to this piece, first on 78 rpm records, then on LPs,
45's, open-reel tapes, and later 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, RealPlayer, and now the Rio.
Often I would perform it myself on the double-bass, tuba, or the piccolo. It's like Bach
-- almost any properly-tuned instrument is theoretically capable of doing it full justice.
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2001 Texas Chapbook Press
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