A piece titled ‘As Slow as Possible’ has been in performance for 21 years — so far

A John Cage piece for organ titled ASLSP — as slow as possible — lives up to its name. It has been in performance for 21 years so far.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Today, in the German town of Halberstadt, an organ performing a piece of music by the late American composer John Cage struck a new chord for the first time in two years. Here it is.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN CAGE’S “ORGAN2/ASLSP”)

KELLY: That’s it. That is the new chord. Here’s NPR’s Berlin correspondent Rob Schmitz with more.

ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: This piece is titled “Organ2/As Slow As Possible,” and one of the only instructions composer John Cage left for those performing it was to, as the title suggests, play it as slowly as possible.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN CAGE’S “ORGAN2/ASLSP”)

SCHMITZ: One might say mission accomplished for the folks with the John Cage Organ Foundation in Halberstadt, or not. When foundation members met to plan this performance well after Cage’s death in 1992, they could not agree on what exactly Cage meant when he said as slow as possible, recalls foundation member Rainer Neugebauer.

RAINER NEUGEBAUER: So they said, oh, the organist must go sometimes to the loo – yes? – or must something to eat, yes? And then one people who said no – he was a theologian. He said, no, the organist must play until he dies from the seat, yes?

SCHMITZ: The theologian’s idea lost traction when the group realized it might be difficult to find an organist willing to die while playing a John Cage composition. So they came up with a simpler solution – small sandbags to hold the keys down. After further debate, the group decided the piece would be played for 639 years to mark the time between the construction of the world’s first 12-tone gothic organ in Halberstadt in 1361 and the new millennium. The city donated an abandoned 11th century convent for the performance. And on September 5, 2001, what would have been Cage’s 89th birthday, the performance began.

(SOUNDBITE OF…