Maybe The Right Concert Piece For The Age Of COVID Is Cage’s 4’33”

When Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic learned, on short notice, that their Oct. 31 concert would be the last for some time with a live audience, they chose Cage’s score-without-notes as their encore — and their rendition has racked up more than 50,000 views on YouTube so far. David Patrick Stearns considers the meaning of this notorious musical landmark, both in general and in this particular performance, which (despite Petrenko’s much-too-fast tempos) “seemed to achieve maximum eloquence.” Seriously. – Classical Voice North America