John Cage’s Opus

The LORD blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.

(Exodus 20:11b)

 

A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on the 10^th Sunday after Pentecost, August 5, 2007

Volume 2 Number 6

First United Methodist Church, 605 West 6^th, Mountain Home, Arkansas 72653

 

 

Gladys was a pastor’s wife.  On one particular Sunday, Rev. Dunn’s sermon was, well, a bit boring and way too long, causing some in the congregation to be ill at ease, others drousy.  The dutiful pastor’s wife Gladys was, she remained alert, and determined after the service to introduce herself to one man, a visitor to their church, hoping her kindness might redeem her husband’s less than stellar effort at preaching.  Reaching the man before he made it to the door she said with a smile, “Hello, I’m Gladys Dunn.” 

 

“You’re not the only one, lady,” said the man as he hustled out the door.  “I’m glad it’s done, too.”

 

I suppose we’ve all, on occasion, found ourselves a tad bit listless sitting through a too-long sermon, or a too-long anything, for that matter.   I want to tell you this morning about a too-long concert I read about in the Wall Street Journal.  When I say long, I mean really, really long.  It’s a piece of music written by composer John Cage called “Organ2/ASLSP,” and it’s being played — ever so slowly —  right now, as we speak, in Halberstadt, Germany.  The John Cage Opus will last (I’m not kidding) 639 years!

 

ASLSP, by the way, is John Cage’s notation meaning, “as slow as possible.”  How IS that possible, you might ask?  Mechanical organs, like the ones Europeans have built in churches for centuries, can hold notes indefinitely, making a six century concert entirely possible.  The concert officially started in Halberstadt at the stroke of midnight on September 5, 2001 (which would have been Cage’s 89^th birthday), in a crumbling medieval monastery that had been used as a pig sty from Napoleon’s time until recently.  Since the concert was written to begin with a rest, there was nothing to hear for the first 17 months except the wheezing of the organ’s solar-powered bellows.  In fact, when the concert began, the bellows were the only part of the organ that even existed!  The organ itself was being assembled as the recital progressed.   The first three actual notes of the concert were struck on February 5, 2003, a steady, unvarying chord that was heard in the monastery 24 hours a day.  The next two notes were added on July 5, 2005. 

 

Composer John Cage was born in Los Angeles in 1912, and is known for some fairly bizarre things.  For example, he wrote one piece by laying music paper over astronomical charts and placing notes where stars were located.  Perhaps he was attempting to discover the music of the spheres.   A bit eccentric?  No doubt.  One composition was written, he wrote, “to be sung only by ensembles of twelve American men who had become Canadian citizens.”

 

Why was Halberstadt chosen for John Cage’s Opus?  Halberstadt, Germany gained distinction in the universe of music because the 1^st modern organ was built here in 1361, the first to arrange its keys as they are today, according to musical scales with the black keys raised.  It’s that date, 1361, that prompted the John Cage foundation to use Organ2/ASLSP for the 639 year concert.  Originally a 20 minute piece written and performed in 1987, the foundation simply stretched 20 minutes into 639 years.  Why 639?  It was 639 years from 1361 to 2000.   Matching that magic number and beginning in 2001, the concert is scheduled to end in 2640.  The number is not without significant symbolism.  The 639 years is divided into nine movements lasting 71 years each (each of the nine movements arranged, in a 3-3-3 structure – exactly the sequence for sounding of the Angelus Bells, 3-3-3 at Dawn, Midday, and Dusk; 9 being the number of divine descent).  The shortest note lasts six months and the longest note will last an incredible 35 years. And guess what?  There’s even a planned intermission in 2319. 

 

They found just the place for the performance.  St. Burchardi Church, an old monastery built in the 11^th century, had been turned into a barn during Napoleon’s time.  The Cage Foundation is re-capturing this as a holy, sacred space. 

 

I know what you’re thinking just now.  “How sad it is that none of us will be around at the conclusion of the concert to say, ‘I’m Gladys Dunn!’”

 

Quickly let me tell you about another of John Cage’s works, called 4' 33".  4'33" is performed by a musician who does absolutely nothing but enter the concert hall in his tuxedo, and sit silently in front of the piano keys for a hushed audience – ambient noise only allowed to fill the room -- for exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds.

 

Is it possible that there is a message in all this?  John Cage wants us to feel the re-collecting power of silence.  That’s why twice a year I try to spend couple of days in a private re-treat at Subiaco Abbey with the Benedictine monks — what the Benedictines call, Days of Re-Collection.  There is a gathering at work here, a pulling together of the spiritual and intellectual energies that are naturally dissipated in the process of living.

 

I always think of Elijah’s experience of Re-collection at har ha-elohim, the Mountain of God.  There, Elijah witnesses the fire and the wind and the earthquake, but discovers God in none of these vibrant energies of nature.  Instead, when he hears the qol damammah daqqah, the voice of sheer silence, he recognizes God in this less-than-a-whisper.  For Elijah, the soft sound of silence shimmers with unexpected depth. 

 

So, when John Cage writes 4' 33", and when his Opus begins with a 17 month long silence, holding the same note for months and even years in a 639 year concert, what is the composer telling us?  Obviously, in such a thing, the power is not the music, but in the symbolism.  Cage is out to capture the sound of sheer silence.   The philosophical rationale, writes the Cage Foundation, “to bring people’s attention to the present.” 

 

You see, we live in a universe of Space/Time.  Our four dimensions are the three spatial dimensions plus time.  So we speak of the “Fabric of Space and Time” and, in each of these realms — Space and Time — we’ve marked off sacred areas.  Sanctuaries, for example, are Holy Spaces in our lives, dedicated to the presence of God.  But our religious heritage also marks off Holy Time.  The Sabbath.  Shabbat.  What, in the bible, was the very first thing God called Holy? Not a mountain.  Not a temple.  Not a tree.  Not an animal.  Not a river.  Not a person.  No, the first thing called Holy is a day.  God sanctified the 7^th day, and called it Holy. 

 

Just as this sanctuary is a Cathedral in Space, the Lord’s Day is a Cathedral in Time.   Our respect for a sanctuary in space should be matched by our respect for a sanctuary in Time -- not a respect commanded by law, but a respect commended by nature.

 

I’ve mentioned to you once before a very curious modern custom of Shabbat known as the Shabbat elevator.  We always have fun describing it to our pilgrims to the Holy Land.  Levitical law states that lighting a fire on Shabbat is prohibited.  Well, when you push an elevator button a light comes on, right?  Rabbis teach that pushing an elevator button is considered lighting a fire.  So, one elevator in Jewish hotels never stops running during Shabbat, stopping at every floor up and down without ceasing for twenty-four hours, so that observant Jews don’t have to violate rabbinical law by pushing an elevator button!  The message?  Rest.  Have patience.  The elevator, eventually, will get you where you want to go.   Today is a Holy Time.  And while we may think religious law full of unimportant minutia, the message is wonderful for those busy with life, those whose energies are dissipated by living.  Quit pushing so many buttons.  Enjoy the Present, this very moment.  Hold that note, letting it sound long and full.

 

Perhaps that’s what we do in the Eucharist celebration.  We let the note of God’s suffering for us, of sacrifice prompted by divine love – sound long and full – through the centuries ‘til Christ comes again in glory.  And at this table we enter that lingering note of Divine Redemption, hearing it just as our ancestors, and just as those who will come in the years, in the decades, in the centuries after us.  Let us now gather at the altar, and celebrate our oneness with Christ and the church.

 

 

Notes and sources:

“Here’s a Concert Even Diehard Fans Can’t Sit Through,” by Annick Moes and Neal E. Boudette, in The Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2003.

 

“The Soul of the Community,” an essay by Eliezer Shore in PARABOLA, (Solitude and Community, Spring 1992).

 

www.npr.org has a wonderful news story about Organ2/ASLSP.