I felt each repetition slowly wearing my mind away
It's also quite likely that the single direction, written on the manuscript, was typical of Satie's dry surreal prankster's wit:
"To play this motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities."
Note that he doesn't even stipulate that it should played 840 times, just a conditional if/then-type statement (implying that the number is random). The notation was also written out in unconventional style to make it more difficult to read, learn and repeat.
And so typical of Cage to take it seriously as a Zen Buddhist exercise and go to the bother of "fully" performing it with a relay team of pianists - the very randomness of the number 840 having become a structural necessity, and the otherwise unremarkable short piece music functioning like some kind of anti-music (in the traditional sense of bearer of the composer's and/or performer's emotion) machine.
This from here:
The first Australian performance, organised by David Ahern, took place in Watters Gallery, Darlinghurst, Sydney, on 21-2 February 1970. The performance lasted 22 hours; the pianist was Peter Evans, who attempted the performance solo. After 16 hours, having reached repetition 595, he stopped abruptly, and left the room. He wrote: "I would not play the piece again. I felt each repetition slowly wearing my mind away. I had to stop. ...People who play it do so at their own great peril."
[...]
From the audience point of view, Dick Higgins observed, "the music first becomes so familiar that it seems extremely offensive and objectionable. But after that the mind slowly becomes incapable of taking further offence, and a very strange euphoric acceptance and enjoyment begin to set in...Is it boring? Only at first. After a while the euphoria...begins to intensify. By the time the piece is over, the silence is absolutely numbing, so much of an environment has the piece become."
Rambler said:
It's also quite likely that the single direction, written on the manuscript, was typical of Satie's dry surreal prankster's wit:
"To play this motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities."
Note that he doesn't even stipulate that it should played 840 times, just a conditional if/then-type statement (implying that the number is random). The notation was also written out in unconventional style to make it more difficult to read, learn and repeat.
And so typical of Cage to take it seriously as a Zen Buddhist exercise and go to the bother of "fully" performing it with a relay team of pianists - the very randomness of the number 840 having become a structural necessity, and the otherwise unremarkable short piece music functioning like some kind of anti-music (in the traditional sense of bearer of the composer's and/or performer's emotion) machine.
This from here:
The first Australian performance, organised by David Ahern, took place in Watters Gallery, Darlinghurst, Sydney, on 21-2 February 1970. The performance lasted 22 hours; the pianist was Peter Evans, who attempted the performance solo. After 16 hours, having reached repetition 595, he stopped abruptly, and left the room. He wrote: "I would not play the piece again. I felt each repetition slowly wearing my mind away. I had to stop. ...People who play it do so at their own great peril."
[...]
From the audience point of view, Dick Higgins observed, "the music first becomes so familiar that it seems extremely offensive and objectionable. But after that the mind slowly becomes incapable of taking further offence, and a very strange euphoric acceptance and enjoyment begin to set in...Is it boring? Only at first. After a while the euphoria...begins to intensify. By the time the piece is over, the silence is absolutely numbing, so much of an environment has the piece become."
