4'33" is one of the most (in)famous of 20th century compositions. The piece ("for any instrument") is in three movements, each of a specified duration, and the instruction for each movement is "TACET." Thus, the work consists of the performer not performing any intentional sound for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Cage's point in this composition is that true silence is impossible. Cage himself had crawled into an anechoic chamber (a space designed to be as quiet as possible) and discovered that he could hear sounds, which he was told were the sounds of his blood in circulation. Thus, it's impossible for a person ever to truly experience silence.
Since Frank was ill at this point, he probably decided to perform this composition on this Cage tribute CD because it was easy. Frank's version is indeed without any intentional sounds, but there are various (indistinct) ones that can be heard in the background of the performance.
You'll note that the piece is banded as five tracks on the CD. The compilers of this set had each performance on the two CD set cut (randomly) into several bands. They suggest that the listener then play the two in "random" play mode. The total number of possible combinations of tracks is greater than One Google (1 followed by 100 zeros).
Site maintained by Román García Albertos