One silent piece or four?
Silent prayer, 4? 33?, 0? 00?, One3: are these evolving manifestations of the same work, or are they four distinctly different works? Should we speak of John Cage’s silent piece, or John Cage’s silent pieces?
John Cage’s silent piece(s)
Everyone knows that John Cage wrote a piece of music that is nothing but silence. But in fact there are four different works by Cage that he considered silent. This eight-part series examines the history of both Cage’s conception of silence and of these four pieces: Silent prayer (1948), 4′ 33″ (1952), 0′ 00″ (1962), and One3 (1989). 1. […]
“Silent prayer”, the first silent piece
In 1948, John Cage proposed writing “a piece of uninterrupted silence” to be called “Silent prayer”. While this has been connected as the precursor of 4′ 33″, there is a rather startling gap between John Cage in 1948 and John Cage in 1952. What was the context of Silent prayer, then?