4'33''

Sssh! Wanna hear about the quietest piece of music ever composed? It's by John Cage (1912-1992), who was at the center of the US avant-garde scene for several decades, and has probably had a greater influence on world music than any other 20th-century American composer. This three-movement composition, in which a performer sits at a piano for four minutes and thirty three seconds intentionally making no sounds, is possibly his most famous piece. The idea behind the work is that the audience should be driven to appreciate the ambient sounds around them. It was a reflection of the influence of Zen Buddhism, which Cage studied since the late forties.

David Tudor gave the premiere of 4.33 on August 29, 1952, at Woodstock, New York as part of a recital of contemporary piano music. The American pianist sat at the piano and, to mark the beginning of the piece, closed the keyboard lid. Some time later he opened it briefly, to mark the end of the first movement. This process was repeated for the second and third movements. No note was played or any deliberate made at any point during the performance of the piece and Tudor timed the three movements with a stopwatch while turning the pages of the score. Musicians and critics alike initially thought the piece a joke, but Tudor called it his most intense listening experience.

When the BBC Symphony Orchestra played the piece during a concert at the Barbican Centre in London on January 16, 2004, the performance was carried live on BBC Radio 3. One of the main challenges was that the station's emergency backup systems are designed to switch on and play emergency-standby music whenever apparent silence lasting longer than a preset duration is detected. They had to be switched off for the sole purpose of this performance.