ASLAP means "as slow as possible." Born in Los Angeles in 1912, Mr. Cage believed random tones or ambient noise could be music. One of his best known pieces,"4'33", is performed by a musician sitting silently at a piano for four minutes and 33 seconds. Now, in the forlorn eastern German city of Halberstadt, in a crumbling medieval church used as a pig sty until a few years ago, Metzger and a group of supporters have started a performance of "Organ2" so slow that it is supposed to continue for six centuries. It began on September 5, 2001, but fans of John Cage haven't missed much since it begins with a rest, or silence. For the first 17 months there was nothing to hear except the wheezing of the organ's bellows. In fact at that time that was the only part of the organ that existed it is being assembled as the concert goes on. There are plans to turn a building next to the church into a contemporary music center named the John Cage Academy. Each movement lasts 71 years, the shortest notes last 6 or 7 months, the longest about 35 years. There's an intermission in 2319. Since Mr. Cage put no limits on how many of the movements can be repeated, the concert could conceivably last longer than 639 years. "It's really limited by how long the organ holds up, if worms eat into the wood, or the lead pipes begin to decompose." They would like to link the concert to museums around the world. "There could be a room where people could hear a tone from Halberstadt. It would be like an eternal flame."
