Work: 4'33"
Alt Title: 4:33, Four Thirty Three, Four Minutes Thirty Three Seconds,

Date:	Ensemble Type:	Length:
Composed in 1952. Premiered in Woodstock, N.Y., August 29, 1952.	Indeterminate	four minutes thirty-three seconds.

 

Instrumentation: Tacet, for any instrument or combination of instruments. Original version: EP 6777a

This is Cage's famous silent piece. Although composed in 1952, he had already thought about it as early as 1948, where he mentions it as 'Silent Prayer' in his article “A Composer's Confessions”. In the work, no intentional sounds are made during its duration. The first version of the work contains 3 movements lasting 33", 2'40" and 1'20", each chance determined. Later on Cage reworked the piece, creating a wholly different composition from the original. Much has been written about 4'33" and about Cage's ideas behind its silence. Two of the most prevalent ideas are that 1. Silence does not exist. One simply should listen and open one's ears. 2. Silence is a means to separate tones and chords, in order to avoid melodic interpretations to the relationships between and among sounds. However, according to David Tudor, as quoted in interview materials contained in Peter Dickinson’s Cage Talk (2006) 4’33” was for Cage a simple and quite natural extension of his use of chance operations applied to sounds and silences in composition, with silences, in this case, comprising the entire gamut of materials at his disposal.

Dedicatee(s)	Arranger	Editor
Irwin Kremen

Peters Catalogue Number: Peters Edition EP 6777 EP 6777a (original version)

Recordings Summary for 4'33":

Record Title STUMM433 John Cage: The Works for Organ Happy Birthday John! John Cage: Journeys in Sound John Cage: The Works for Saxophone 3 & 4, The Complete John Cage Edition, Volume 42 Margaret Leng Tan Sorceress of the New Piano … es wehet ein Schatten darin … Susanne Kessel Californian Concert Music of European Immigrants and their American Contemporaries The Classic 100 Piano John Cage - Into Silence nova musicha n.1 John Cage 45'18" [Percussion Ensemble Concert, 1 March 2001, 7:30 p.m.] Boole - Boole Mimetic Mute Negative An Adventure of Inevitable Chance / Body Rock Series #1: Heart Beat Wagner's Rinse Cycle John Cage Lifting the Veil Non Stop Flight Lifting the Veil CM von Hausswolff Plays John Cage 4'33" Music of the 20th Century Kazue Sawai Koto Ensemble- Live at Da Capo in Bremen '93 A Chance Operation - The John Cage Tribute The Cassandra Complex - Sex & Death In honor of Betty Freeman: Music of Thomson and Cage Cage Hand progressions: Music for one piano, zero to eight hands 4'33" 4'33" Da Capo nova musicha n.1 John Cage Nova Musicha Series - John Cage John Cage: Silence Happening

Manuscript Location(s) New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Private Collection