Forever Ephemeral: John Cage's ASLSP

Abstract

Composer John Cage introduced radical concepts such as chance and indeterminacy to the process of musical composition. Earlier pieces employed chance-based systems to determine pitch and duration of notes allowing Cage to write music as if taking dictation. Such scores are played much like traditional music with interpretations by different performers being more or less similar. Later indeterminate works granted so much latitude to performers that each performance of the same score yields wildly different results. Both strategies offered a decentralized method of writing and performing music. Cage's work models a philosophical alternative to Romantic self-expression that has been embraced by many artists. In 2001, a performance of Cage's ASLSP began in a church in Halberstadt, Germany. Using an automated organ, the performance is scheduled to last for 639 years. How does the meaning of a normally ephemeral work change once its scale is adjusted towards the monumental? How does the audience relate to a performance with a multi-generational scope? This paper examines the differences between various interpretations of ASLSP including a firsthand account of the Halberstadt piece.