{"id":324,"date":"2006-01-10T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2006-01-10T09:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/?p=324"},"modified":"2006-01-10T01:05:00","modified_gmt":"2006-01-10T09:05:00","slug":"slow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2006\/01\/slow\/","title":{"rendered":"Slow"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following story from Agence France Presse has been popping up in newspapers, on television and radio, and everywhere on the internet. It seems to have (ahem) struck a responsive chord. In the unlikely event that you have missed it, Rifftides<\/em> brings it to you as a public service.<\/p>\n

World’s Longest Concert Sounds Second Chord<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A new chord has sounded in the world’s slowest and longest concert, which will take 639 years to perform.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An abandoned church in eastern Germany is the venue for the 639-year-long performance of a piece of music by American experimental composer John Cage. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The performance of “organ2\/ASLSP” (or “As SLow aS Possible”) began in the Buchardi church in Halberstadt on September 5, 2001, and is scheduled to last until 2639.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first year-and-a-half of the performance was total silence, with the first chord, G-sharp, B and G-sharp, not sounding until February 2, 2003. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Two additional Es, an octave apart, were sounded in July 2004 and are scheduled to be released later this year on May 5.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Today, the first chord has progressed to a second, comprising A, C and F-sharp, and is to be held down over the next few years by weights on an organ being built especially for the project. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

New pipes are being added to the organ in time for when new notes are scheduled to sound. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cage originally conceived the piece in 1985 as a 20-minute work for piano, subsequently transcribing it for organ in 1987. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But organisers of the John Cage Organ Project decided to take the composer at his word and stretch out the performance for 639 years, using Cage’s transcription for organ. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The enormous running time was chosen to commemorate the creation of Halberstadt’s historic Blockwerk organ in 1361, 639 years before the current project started. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The organ, built by Nikolaus Faber for Halberstadt’s cathedral, was the first ever to be used for liturgical purposes, ringing in a new era in which the organ has played a central role in church music ever since. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nCage was a pupil of one of the 20th century’s most influential composers, Arnold Schoenberg.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cage’s avant-garde oeuvre includes works such as the notorious “4’33”, a piece for orchestra comprising four minutes and 33 seconds of total silence, all meticulously notated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cage died in New York in 1992.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The organisers of the John Cage Organ Project say the record-breaking performance in Halberstadt also has a philosophical background, to “rediscover calm and slowness in today’s fast-changing world.” (AFP)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In recent years, Shirley Horn<\/a>, RIP, was the leading exponent of that philosophy, although she never took quite that<\/em> long between chords.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following story from Agence France Presse has been popping up in newspapers, on television and radio, and everywhere on the internet. It seems to have (ahem) struck a responsive chord. In the unlikely event that you have missed it, Rifftides brings it to you as a public service. World’s Longest Concert Sounds Second Chord […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}