Why Do Composers Write Silent Pieces?

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📚 SOURCES/FURTHER READING:
“Seeing the Sound of Silence in the Great War” by Esteban Buch (Musik in Konfrontation und Vermittlung. Beiträge zur Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung 2018 in Osnabrück p.101-13, 2019): halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/h...
“’Unsilencing’ the Silence: Unacknowledged Silent Pieces” by Eder Wilker Borges Pena (Opus 26/3, p. 1-26): dx.doi.org/10.20504/opus2020c2617
0:00 Introduction
1:00 John Cage’s 4'33" (1952)
3:41 Erwin Schulhoff’s “In Futurum” from Fünf Pittoresken (1919)
8:33 Alphonse Allais’ Funeral March (1897)
9:54 “Samuel’s” The Silence (1896)
11:09 Conclusion
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Classical Nerd is a video series covering music history, theoretical concepts, and techniques, hosted by composer, pianist, and music history aficionado Thomas Little.
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Music and Footage:
- Thomas Little: Dance! #2, performed by Rachel Fellows, Michael King, and Bruce Tippette
- John Cage: 4’33”, performed by William Marx [original upload: JTEFKFiXSx4]
- Erwin Schulhoff: “In Futurum” from 5 Pittoresken, performed in two different versions by Gerard Bouwhuis and “Barbaro Mr.” [original uploads: FBfOG0D39eo and 3c5lRRaW4Jw]
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All images and audio in this video are for educational purposes only and are not intended as copyright infringement. If you have a copyright concern, please contact me using the above information.
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This video was sponsored by Polygence.

[@ClassicalNerd]

Use my link bit.ly/3ngznbg to get $250 off of the Polygence program, and get paired with an expert mentor to guide your passion project!

[@Varooooooom]

I’m gonna go ahead and argue that people who still insult these pieces as pointless after watching this video are incapable of appreciating certain minutiae and finer details that make other music performances stellar. Thank you for this video and giving these pieces an honest look. Your channel is amazing.

[@redapplefour6223]

i appreciate the lack of background music

[@MrGrompies]

On point.

[@AtomizedSound]

Gotta be Meta somehow

[@ichbifeuertrunk]

"Lack"?!... The background music is Samuel's "The Silence".

[@Varooooooom]

Great detail that I would’ve missed omg

[@amj.composer]

What? There was 4'33" playing the whole time

[@alexscott1257]

I too once thought that 4'33" was silly and irrelevant and then I realised that it is not enough to simply hear the piece but you must practice it like you would practice anything. I now find it one of the most rewarding pieces to listen to, in various places around the town or countryside.

[@SeadogDriftwood]

Esperanto isn't "fake". It's a conlang. Zamenhof (its creator) intended it to be a democratic lingua franca. Granted, it was Eurocentric in where it took its cues, but he was working with what he knew, and there remain a small but dedicated group of Esperanto writers and speakers.

[@notesrhythms6446]

Was about to note this as well

[@Alonso6390]

Agreed. Esperanto has a grammar and a fairly complete vocabulary, making it a real language, and roughly two million speakers (half a million less than Slovene), making it a living language. A real, living language is most definitely not a fake language.

[@smidlem1117]

also of note was that the socialists contemporary to zamenhof took a HUGE liking to esperanto to the point that it was common enough to hear in unions!! it was explicitly claimed as a potential universal language of the worker, an idea that i am obsessed with sksksksksk

[@AtomizedSound]

Silence (rests) is just as important in music as actual notes being played. I love the experimentation composers like Cage did in the 20th century for music. The boldness of composers taking that step to do something like that and especially for the general public to see it performed is risky but so worth it in the end I feel for the experience alone, which is part of what music is.

[@Electrasound]

Silence is nothing new. Beethoven made use of silences in some of his works over a century before Cage.

[@bryanfuhrman3489]

Esperantist here! I wouldn't neccessarily call Rigolando an esperanto word. The word could theoretically exist, but seeing as it literally means "land of Riga" with Riga being the capital of latvia, it could only ever really be considered a really obscure way of referring to the country of Latvia. As such, the word could really only be called an esperanto word in theory. Just thought I'd add this here in case anyone was curious what the word meant. I am only an amateur esperantist, so I could be wrong here though. Anyways, very interesting video!

[@wilsojtheblue2881]

One of the best, most underrated channels on KZbin. Keep up the good work!

[@MilsteinRulez]

Thanks for this, and all your talks, which I enjoy tremendously! As to Schulhoff's "Marschall Pause" (and since I couldn't find anyone else commenting on this): Very illuminating to learn that George Grosz had been nicknamed "Marschall Grosz". As an additional aspect, this is early proof of a game known from "How I met your mother": Whenever there is a word homonymous with a military rank, as in "That's the general idea", Ted and Robin salute and repeat "General Idea!" In the score, the abbreviation G. P. stands for the German term "Generalpause", just meanig "all silent" (as everyone knows, of course, and as is redundant in a solo piece). Schulhoff then replaced the "General" by his friend's nickname -- inexpectedly touching within a Dada environment.

[@MicoAquinoComposer]

Oh nice! I'm fascinated by composers who wrote some silent pieces like Cage, great video as always!

I am angry with KZbin for not showing or even recomending your new videos Thomas... Great video, I'm soon off to the Berio-video! :D

[@Jinkaza1882]

2 sayings I had with my friends when we were going to DCI competitions are a paraphrase of "Make the silence loud!" and "Just when you thought it could not get any louder- they crescendo." A powerful silence will suck the air out of the room and leave everyone on a beautiful cliffhanger waiting for the next down beat. Example: Great Gate of Kiev.

[@MaiWhisper]

Regarding your final comment, from Close to the Edge by Yes: "The time between the notes relates the color to the scenes" That has intrigued me since I was around 13 years old (54 now). I love your channel!

[@MaximilianMKGill]

Brilliant opening man and I love how you don’t play music while you are talking just brilliant.

[@brendaboykin3281]

Thank you, Thomas🌹🌹🌹🌹

[@bazookaman1353]

"I swear there are differences between the songs" The songs:

[@ClassicalNerd]

big "corporate wants you to tell the difference between these two pictures" energy

[@denovaire]

Good work! I would encourage to include thoughts of the Zen tradition, amongst others, contributing to the concept of silence. Cage was definitely inspired by such thoughts. So, using silence is much more a philosophical and existential matter than an "avantgarde" artistic one.

[@northcountycountry4144]

one other person frederico Mompou’s tight-lipped piano solos Musica Callada (quiet music); your scholarship, production, and devotion “hats off”

[@docm27]

April has come early this year

[@Philrc]

My comment is below:

[@cristobalsimioni]

Great video! Nonetheless, i'd like to point out a small error. "In futurum" actually means "in the future", not "to the future". The use of the Acusative case with "in" or "ad" is called Loqus Quo, meaning "place where to". Ad means proximity to the place (the thing doesn't enter the place) and "In" means direction to the place you enter. "In futurum" uses Acuaative, but is not a direct complement, is location circumstantial object that indicates where is the thing (action or noun) is going into. "In futurum" means "Into the future"

[@ClassicalNerd]

Interesting! I don't speak Latin myself, so I was relying on my sources for that (see description).

[@heifetz14]

I once saw a short sighted pianist perform John Cage,s 4 hours and 33 minutes. The audience did not ask for an encore.

[@biomuseum6645]

classical nerd, please do one day a video on books and texts written by classical musicians (such as berlioz treaty on orchestration or liszts life of chopin), because I find none video or Google search about it, only books written ON composers, not by

[@depauleable]

Spectralism video next pls

[@segmentsAndCurves]

I would love if you make a video about the mentioned composer Erwin Schulhoff.

[@ClassicalNerd]

Duly noted.

[@leifericson439]

The actual "performances" of these pieces are more performance art than anything, especially in the case of Schulhoff's piece. Since what is called a performance of such pieces incorporates the knowledge, at very minimum, of a performer waving his or her hands around. It adds nothing to what is a temporal demarcation wherein people are supposed to pay attention to ambient sounds other than the performers breathing or rustling of clothes. Why not just play whatever instrument that one has at hand? Such could be incorporated into the "silence", but I suppose because such things result from volitional acts, even when aleatory, it destroys the idea. Commented this while paused at 6:50. Time to press play. On another note, I love the creativity in the notation.

[@traildoggy]

Little known fact, Cage completely removed the Timpani Solo from the middle of the piece, as audience members just tended to use it for bathroom breaks..

[@vitorpetri1376]

Silence is so beautiful.. I know only one piece that explores the silence in the middle of the notes, the op32 n1 chopin nocturne which is one of my favorites.. The end of the first movment of scriabin 4th sontata has a little silence also that sounds amazing Does anyone have any recommendations of pieces that have pauses like that?? Or pieces in the style of Clairs de Lune from Decaux

[@angkhangnguyen5017]

the best pause i know is in chopin ballade 2, at the a' section

[@gaopinghu7332]

Bach's "Passacaglia and fugue"'s fugue ends with a pretty long silence between the very final notes and what comes before.

[@petob8686]

I thought it would be about similarly quiet music as in the case of Ligeti's Ramifications for string orchestra kzbin.info/www/bejne/fHLYcnl7e6p5idE Although not every part of it is played so quietly. Do you know any similarly quiet songs?

[@Whaijorhujishkomunyk]

Could you do a video about the avant-garde russian composer Arseny Avraamov?

[@ClassicalNerd]

Duly noted.

[@wilh3lmmusic]

Where can I get the sheet music for Samuel’s silent piece?

[@ClassicalNerd]

I re-created it for this video so it would be in higher resolution, but the systems for it maybe found in the Pena article cited in the video (more info in the description).

[@MuzikJunky]

Your videos are fascinating, but you misspelled “inventor”! Peace.

[@ClassicalNerd]

It would help if any of the relevant softwares I use to make these videos had a spell check

[@calembourman2295]

Actually "rigolando" is a french word turned in an italian form to sound more like a musical indication, and has no reason to be esperanto :)

[@leandrusi4533]

Q: why do composers write silent music? A: to troll

[@heatherduthie9609]

I’m guessing you’re not going to find these pieces on Spotify….?

[@resiseven7407]

there is actually a recording of 4'33'' on there lmao

[@heatherduthie9609]

@@resiseven7407 🤣🤣🤣🧐

[@joanalosm]

Would anyone like to listen to my "John Cage 3.44 Variations for full orchestra and lorry engine"?

[@nicholaskeough6999]

oneth

[@nicholaskeough6999]

@Musikbibliothek pardon?

[@IanWaugh]

.

[@davidkent2804]

I have nothing to say about this

[@mikekeenanphd]

I refuse to dignify your comment with a reply

[@ClassicalNerd]

"I have nothing to say, and I am saying it, and that is poetry." -Cage

[@mintonmiller]

I thought, Seinfeld, was the show about nothing.

[@jonathanwoodvincent]

All music is silent music

[@mikekeenanphd]

Seems rather silly, but maybe I need to work on my inner nerd. But, sometimes the emperor has no clothes. Sure it is good for a giggle the first time, but beyond that it seems rather pointless. Not even to the level of a Rothko painting. I might like to see it though. I would be squirming.

[@Mackeson3]

In other words "It's a bloody leg-pull" and sadly so many have fallen for it.

[@rtm8090]

Ok, but if Cage thought that sound = music, then the concept of music becomes irrelevant.

[@abyssssbmusic1370]

if you think of it not as sound necessarily being equivalent to music, but that people can potentially interpret/experience any sound as music, then I think it still makes sense to make the distinction. If someone interprets all sounds as music, I don't think that necessarily makes the concept of music irrelevant, because there's still a reason they are considering all the sounds to be music, it's not the same as just defining sound and music in the same way. Sound and music would both have their own unique definitions, it would just be that, for this person, all instances of sound and all instances of music coincide in the objects they refer to

[@stephenjablonsky1941]

When I listen to Mozart I am always delighted by the musical narrative that he weaves for my enjoyment. I relish following how is musical intellect plays with the various elements of the musical structure. Cage went out of his way to find ways to remove the composer from the musical experience. Philosophically that is a fascinating prospect--music without a composer. However, that for me is like a bus without a driver. As interesting as Cage's contributions to modern music theory are, he is not a great composer. I know of no piece of his that is magical. However, both he and I are big fans of mushrooms.

[@SandWolf_]

A fine line between avant-garde and a big dupe

[@markwrede8878]

I've written volumes of silent music and I'm sitting in your chair.

[@ryanpmcguire]

I have thought very deeply about what music is, and give a good deal of thought to the concept of “silent pieces”. Ultimately, my conclusion is that is not music.

[@brendanward2991]

I can appreciate the concept or philosophy behind these pieces. The composer is saying something about music--possibly something quite profound. But if a virtuoso actually goes out onto the stage and "performs" such a piece in front of an audience, the result is just silly.

[@amichiganblackman3200]

It's disrespectful to audiences.

[@Electrasound]

You were right that Cage's 4'33" was stupid. This pseudo-intellectual nonsense should be seen more as a listening exercise for a beginning composition workshop and not something played in a concert hall. It's not much different than a real estate agent showing a person an empty plot of land and calling it a house or a chef showing an empty plate and calling it a meal.