Mondo Knows Facts
John Cage wrote a piece made of silence
4'33" was first performed in Woodstock, New York, in 1952
John Cage's 4'33" premiered on 29 August 1952, performed by pianist David Tudor, who sat at the piano and opened and closed the lid to mark three movements without playing a note. The piece asks listeners to hear the sounds in the room as music.
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John Cage wrote a piece made of silence: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- 4'33" was first performed in Woodstock, New York, in 1952. The figure is taken from Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
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- Yes. It sits on the Music shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
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