Yoel Noorali

What were we all doing here? My 600-mile trip to hear an organ play a D natural

A John Cage recital that is set to last 639 years recently witnessed a chord change – 500 people made a pilgrimage to experience it

The crowd in the immediate vicinity of the organ at St Burchardi church, Halberstadt, had paid €200 [DPA Picture Alliance Archive / Alamy Stock Photo] 
issue 17 February 2024

In the year 2000, in a small east German town, work began on the construction of an organ that had one purpose: to perform John Cage’s ORGAN2/ASLSP (1987) for precisely 639 years. The late avant-garde composer’s only instruction for the piece was to play the piece ‘as slowly as possible’. And so in 2001 – the instrument finally ready – the world’s longest organ recital began in St Burchardi church, Halberstadt, with a rest lasting 17 months before the first chord commenced droning in 2003. It consisted of two G sharps and a B. Two weeks ago, I – along with several hundred others – made the pilgrimage to the town to witness the work’s latest chord change.

In theory, a pipe organ can sound indefinitely, so long as it receives adequate power and its pedals are pressed continually. To eliminate the need for an organist, a system of sandbags suspended by strings delivers this pressure in Halberstadt.

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