In the case of a cathedral, I think it is relatively easy to commit to the project you won't see through, it has a significance to those people making the commitment. What becomes much more challenging is when future generations don't have the same level of commitment, it's a much bigger ask to stop. Maybe there is a better use of the resources that could impact people immediately; if it's a church, I'm thinking feeding the hungry and clothing the naked sorts of things. It's hard to stop something that "we've just been doing." It's also hard to ask "why are we doing this?"

In 200 years, suppose there is some crisis we cannot predict and the recital is to be interrupted or stopped. There will be an incredible amount of pressure on somebody to make a good choice. Pressure that was created by a distant ancestor, of sorts. That might be part of the beauty of it, that might be part of the bond that ties different people together throughout time and it might be wonderful. What if there is a caretaker that is ready to retire and cannot find the next caretaker? That seems like a horrible position to be in.

Japan is or was doing multi-generational mortgages a while back (I assume they might still be.) as it was the only way a family could afford to buy a property. I can see that being a tremendously loving act for your children or grandchildren in providing a property that they will own, but I could just as well see it being a gigantic burden to them, what if they want to live somewhere else? Them following their bliss effectively changes the living and working future of the parents.

It would be analogous to writing a screenplay, adding the note "produce the film using as much money as possible," and then having someone attempt to do that. It's technically impressive to spend $500 million on a film production, sure, but that small note at the end of the screenplay is not cinematically interesting.

I feel like such ideas are of a time, namely the 1950s when things were looking up. Nowadays I feel like everyone is aware that Earth is basically finished but we have no way off of it, so they just try to squeeze as much joy as they can before they die without any thought towards the future at all.

This even comes out in smaller cycles like writing software that works today with no thought about how it will look in a decade. I feel like the stuff they were doing even in 90s was done with the intention of being around for a very long time. Now it's like, yagni, just write any old shit that works.

The Long Now Foundation is attempting to build a clock to last 10,000 years.

Construction began close to a decade ago, and there is no estimated completion date. Construction of the clock may well last 10,000 years.

Just reading that line alone brightened up my morning. You can admire something and still find it a bit silly.

In a sense he is exploiting a lack of rules that would prevent a piece from starting with this long of a rest.

In other words, he is hacking the process.

You could argue that the first bar is actually shorter than all the following ones and only starts on the first note, but… no one thinks like that that I ever heard of

That question itself is built on a radical assumption. Example:

Just skimming, it looks like 38 out of 48 of the fugues from Bach's WTC Books 1 & 2 begin with rests followed by several beats worth of melodies in the first measure[1]. If you think the piece only really starts when the first note of the melody is played, then you've got problems. Either:

1. You hear the first articulation of the melody as the downbeat. But that would mean the first measure is in a disparate (and probably irregular) meter. Radical!

2. You hear the incomplete first measure as an anacrusis, or a kind of unaccented lead-in, to the second measure: OMG even more radical!

You can use accent patterns on a modern piano to play any of these fugues using either of these methods, and it will sound silly to non-silly keyboard players.

What's more, non-silly keyboard players do feel the pulse for the first downbeat of these pieces when they perform. Most of them will even inhale before the downbeat, as if they are somehow singing the melody through their fingers.

Finally, lots of music begins with rests: not just conservative cases like Bach, but progressive cases like the beginning of Beethoven's Fifth, and of course the radical cases like Cage's.

This leads to one of the things I love about Cage's music: it compels criticisms that reveal fundamental misunderstandings about music. E.g., you don't buy the radical case-- perhaps reasonable. But you then speculate there are no cases-- which is at odds with common musical practice.

If Cage's music did nothing but compel these questions it would be worth its weight in pine nuts.

Edit:

1: Bach does this because nearly all the fugues have three or more independent melodies singing at the same time. If they are all singing on every downbeat it can quickly sound really clunky and predictable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3

He gives an up tick indicating the beginning of the music, then the downbeat of the start of the first measure.

No sound is heard.

The conductor continues to mark time. The silence is deep...profound.

The conductor continues to mark the time of the passing measures.

The audience listens.

At some point, positive sound breaks the silence - suddenly, loudly destroying the stillness! Or possibly very nearly silently - at the uncertain threshold of perception, the audible music begins...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv_bXRMTJog

Fair warning, it sounds very jarring and disjointed.

But then the piece would never be completely played, which seems like a requirement for Cage's musical game / art / philosophical statement.

Moreover, your hypothetical piece could still technically be played at a high tempo. It seems like the point of the Cage piece is to play it at the slowest possible tempo, not over the greatest length of time possible (and that's why the fermata idea doesn't fit). (So while you're correct that 639 years doesn't represent the slowest tempo possible (just play it over 640 years instead, right?) it's the idea of extreme slowness that's interesting. Or perhaps "as slow as possible" refers to the tempo that really was as slow as possible (at the time it was set up) because of technological constraints.

Without having deeply researched the piece, I wonder if 639 years was chosen with any relation to Tesla's 3–6–9 idea.

Edit: It looks like the 639 years comes from the "performer(s)" who set up the equipment, not from Cage himself. The composer only gave the instruction to play it as slowly as possible, which plays into the technological-limitations idea above, I think.

As with all things, the contraption is not the hard part. It’s the supporting civilization, society, economic context, and will of generations of people.

Cage’s game here is to question the entire scaffolding of art, not the pigments of the paint.

In what way is it “possible” to play an infinitely long piece of music?

The whole album explored beat, pulse and timings as it relates to how people can actually feel and interact with music. Really interesting!

This post is wild because “what is the point of this” seems to be complexly divorced from the human drive to create and express one’s self.

You play it with an orchestra (or perhaps a quartet is enough). Players may take turns to eat, sleep, and even have work-life balance. They also may retire (or die) and be replaced by new musicians. (How much would it cost?)

Also worth noting the clock's name is from Brian Eno, who has expressed interest in developing chimes for the clock. So Cage's work was kinda presaging the clock.

That piece has already been written. It's called ॐ.

All you need is more than one source of sound and you can maintain each of them while they're not playing.