source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/h...728595.stm


The first notes in the longest and slowest piece of music in history, designed to go on for 639 years, are being played on a German church organ on Wednesday.
The three notes, which will last for a year-and-a-half, are just the start of the piece, called As Slow As Possible.

Composed by late avant-garde composer John Cage, the performance has already been going for 17 months - although all that has been heard so far is the sound of the organ's bellows being inflated.

The music will be played in Halberstadt, a small town renowned for its ancient organs in central Germany.

It was originally a 20-minute piece for piano, but a group of musicians and philosophers decided to take the title literally and work out how long the longest possible piece of music could last.

They settled on 639 years because the Halberstadt organ was 639 years old in the year 2000.

"We started discussing - what is as slow as possible for the organ?" Swedish composer and organist Hans-Ola Ericsson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"We, a group of theologians, musicologists, philosophers, composers and organists, met during a couple of years solely to discuss this question. It was rather wonderful to have one topic to discuss at length."

"We came up with the answer that the piece could last for the duration of the organ - that is the lifetime of an organ."

Cage composed the original piece before his death in 1992, and Mr Ericsson said Cage would have liked what they had done with it.

"It's a sound that we give to the future to take care of, and hopefully the aesthetics and the ideas of John Cage will manage to survive."

The first note is due to be struck at 1800 local time (1700 GMT) on Wednesday.

The performance follows a legal case in which composer Mike Batt was forced to pay a six-figure sum to Cage's publishers, who accused him of plagiarising a silent piece of music.

the song's a year long, they have been playing for months...

yeah they have actually been playing for 17 months already.
FunkyStrange is calling past Germany in a few momths.
he wants 2 jam for a few hours on this thing

I think these r people with entirely 2 much time on their hands...

"U turn on the telly and every other story is tellin' U somebody died" and here we are playing a song on an organ where the first three notes last for months?! We sho'nuff got our priorities straight, don't we?

Jasziah said:

yeah we do actually, there is enough shit in the world, if you wanna go and add to it then feel free,

we'll be here playing music.

Come on now, three notes ain't gonna do any good at all. Most music, yes. It can be used for a lot of things, but three notes??! Nuh uh.

that's fucking stupid

Joshy84au said:

and it's still fucking stupid 15 hours later