Worst! Concert! Ever!

Second Chord Sounds in World's Longest Lasting Concert

from AFP

HALBERSTADT, Germany - A new chord sounded in the world's slowest and longest lasting concert of a piece of music that is taking a total 639 years to perform in its entirety.

The abandoned Buchardi church in Halberstadt, eastern Germany, is the venue for a mind-boggling 639-year-long performance of a piece of music by US experimental composer John Cage (1912-1992).

Entitled "organ2/ASLSP" (or "As SLow aS Possible"), the performance began on September 5, 2001 and is scheduled to last until 2639.

The first year and half of the performance was total silence, with the first chord - G-sharp, B and G-sharp - not sounding until February 2, 2003.

Then in July 2004, two additional Es, an octave apart, were sounded and are scheduled to be released later this year on May 5.

But on Thursday, the first chord progressed to a second - comprising A, C and F-sharp - and is to be held down over the next few years by weights on an organ being built especially for the project.

Cage originally conceived "ASLSP" in 1985 as a 20-minute work for piano, subsequently transcribing it for organ in 1987.

But organisers of the John Cage Organ Project decided to take the composer at his word and stretch out the performance for 639 years, using Cage's transcription for organ. The enormous running time was chosen to commemorate the creation of Halberstadt's historic Blockwerk organ in 1361 - 639 years before the current project started.

Cage's avant-garde oeuvre includes works such as the notorious "4'33", a piece for orchestra comprising four minutes and 33 seconds of total silence, all meticulously notated.


Aaaaand freeze! Great, now don't move for two years. I'm going to go have a life for awhile.