18’7489”
— 4’33”
— 4’33”
Na sveučilištu Vassar, u državi New York, John Cage je 1948. prezentirao rad Silent player, kompoziciju neprekinute tišine koja je trebala biti emitirana na radiju.
In 1948. at Vassar university, State of New York, John Cage presented his work Silent player, a composition of a continuous silence, which was supposed to be broadcast on the radio.
Rad nikada nije zapisan, trebao je imati prosječnu duljinu trajanja radijske izvedbe, između 3 i 4,5 minuta. Silent player, preddatira 4’33” za četiri godine i poslužio je Cageu kao osnova u duljini trajanja i osnovnoj ideji, ali za razliku od 4’33” koji je izvođen u živo, Silent player je trebao biti snimka, čija je struktura potpuno drugačija. Činjenica da Silent player nikada nije izveden je objašnjiva Cageovim pojačanim interesom 50ih za izvedbom uživo i performansom, a ne samo reprodukcijom koja se pušta putem zvučnika. Istovremeno, Cagea sve više interesira prostornost zvuka, a ne linearnost. Cage nije bio prvi skladatelj koji je skladao rad koji se sastoji isključivo od tišine.
The work was never written, it was conceived to have an average length of a radio performance, between 3 and 4,5 Minutes. Silent player, predated 4’33” for four years and served Cage as a basis for the duration and the basic idea, but unlike 4’33”, which is performed live, Silent player was supposed to be recorded, with the structure that is completely different from 4’33”. The fact that Silent player was never done is explainable by Cage’s heightened interest for the live performances and happenings in the 50’s, and not just reproduction played through the speakers. At the same time, Cage started to be more interested in the spatiality of sound, rather than linearity of time. Cage was not the first composer who composed a work that consists solely of silence.
Njegovi prethodnici su: • Alphonse Allais koji 1897. sklada Posmrtnu koračnicu za pogreb gluhoga čovjeka, koja se sastoji od devet praznih stavaka. • Erwin Schulhoff 1919. sklada In futurum, komponiranu za klavir, sastavljenu isključivo od pauza. • Harold Acton 1928. objavljuje knjigu Cornelium, u kojoj glazbenik svira skladbe sastavljene skoro isključivo od tišine. • Yves Klein 1949. izvodi Simfoniju monotone tišine, orkestralno djelo koje traje četrdeset minuta, a koje se sastoji od dva dijela od dvadeset minuta tišine.
His predecessors are: • Alphonse Allais in 1897 composed ”Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man”, a musical work consisting entirely of rests. • Erwin Schulhoff in 1919 composed ”Harmony futurum”, for piano, consisting solely of breaks. • Harold Acton in 1928 published a book titled Cornelium, in which a musician plays songs composed almost entirely of silence. • Yves Klein in 1949 composed ”The Monotone-Silence Symphony”, orchestral work that lasts forty minutes and consists of two parts of twenty minutes of silence.