HALBERSTADT, Germany (AFP) – A new chord was scheduled to sound in the world’s slowest and longest lasting concert that is taking a total 639 years to perform.
The abandoned Buchardi church in Halberstadt, eastern Germany, is the venue for a mind-boggling 639-year-long performance of a piece of music by US experimental composer John Cage (1912-1992).
Entitled “organ2/ASLSP” (or “As SLow aS Possible”), the performance began on September 5, 2001 and is scheduled to last until 2639.
The first year and half of the performance was total silence, with the first chord — G-sharp, B and G-sharp — not sounding until February 2, 2003.
Then in July 2004, two additional Es, an octave apart, were sounded and are scheduled to be released later this year on May 5.
But at 5:00 pm (1600 GMT) on Thursday, the first chord was due to progress 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.
As the public radio personality said, “This transcends commentary.”
I was wondering why 639 years — you really do have to read the full story to appreciate this snippet, and when you do, it makes a *certain* sense — which in no way changes my opinion that John Cage definitely was not playing with a full deck.