Nothing
John Cage and 4'33"
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- 10,99 €
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- 10,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
What does nothing sound like? An offbeat history of John Cage’s 4’33”, a musical composition of blank bars, illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka.
One night in 1952, master pianist David Tudor took the stage in a barnlike concert hall called the Maverick. A packed audience waited with bated breath for him to start playing. Little did they know that the performance had already begun.
A rain patters.
A tree rustles.
An audience stirs.
David was performing John Cage’s 4’33”, whose purpose is to amplify the ambient sounds of whatever venue it inhabits. That shocking first performance earned 4’33” plenty of haters; and yet the piece endures, “performed” by the smallest garage bands and the grandest symphonies alike, year after year. Its fans hear what John Cage hoped we would hear: “Nothing” is never silent, and you don’t need a creative genius, a concert hall, or even a piano to hear something worthwhile. All you have to do is stop and listen.
Nicholas Day’s text is reverent with a healthy drop of humor, warm and refined; two-time Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka’s childlike pencil-on-watercolor artwork is uninhibited and electrifying, with all the visionary spirit of the work it chronicles. Guaranteed to spark generative thought and lively debate among readers of all ages, Nothing is not to be missed.
A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
John Cage (1912–1992) composed "like he didn't know what no meant," pushing boundaries with his inventive musical style, but for his "most important" piece, 4'33", Cage composed "nothing."Hoping audience members would "hear how much something there was in nothing,"Cage arranged for a pianist to sit, without playing, in a quiet concert hall for four minutes and 33 seconds, "letting the audience hear what was inside the silence." While the first audience felt tricked, the piece slowly became an oft-performed classic "written by the listener.... And that listener can be you." Repeatedly commenting on the size of Cage's ears while weaving a survey of the figure's life and career into the description of 4'33", Day's text uses a choppy, repetitive sentence structure to drive the book's rhythm. Raschka's broad watercolor strokes create bold shapes, pops of color, and disproportionate figures that add a playful undercurrent to the discussion of Cage's avant-garde work. A biographical note concludes. Ages 4–8.
