Marche Funèbre composée pour les Funérailles d'un grand homme sourd.
A piece consisting of 24 empty bars. See the score in this essay by Larry J Solomon on John Cage http://solomonsmusic.net/4min33se.htm.
Marche Funèbre composée pour les Funérailles d'un grand homme sourd.
“Come! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be sung!”
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young —
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.
"Lenore", st. 1 (1831).
“Let no one pay me honor with tears, nor celebrate my funeral rites with weeping. Why? I fly, living, through the mouths of men.”
Nemo me lacrumis decoret neque funera fletu
faxit. Cur? volito vivos per ora virum.
As quoted by Cicero in Tusculanae Disputationes, Book I, chapter XV, section 34
St. 4.
Cf. Andrew Marvell, Upon the Death of Lord Hastings (1649): "Art indeed is long, but life is short".
A Psalm of Life (1839)
Source: Voices of the Night
“A man's character is formed by the Odes, developed by the Rites and perfected by music.”
Quoted from Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage.
The Analects, Chapter I, Chapter VIII
Reflections on the Guillotine (1957)
Context: When the imagination sleeps, words are emptied of their meaning: a deaf population absent-mindedly registers the condemnation of a man. … there is no other solution but to speak out and show the obscenity hidden under the verbal cloak.
