ALTHOUGH 50 years old, John Cage's piece for silent piano still
reverberates. Lasting four minutes and 33 seconds, it called for
no intentional sounds. At the 1953 premiere of “4'33''”, given
by David Tudor in Woodstock, New York, at the Maverick Concert
Hall—a rough, wooden structure open at one end to the
woods—there were the sounds of a breeze, then the first drops of
a light rain on the roof and finally, the composer said many
years later, “the voices of disturbed listeners, some of whom
may be said to still be walking out”.  For a special concert at
the Maverick on August 24th (five days before the actual
anniversary), Margaret Leng Tan, a remarkable pianist who has
just released a CD with little-known early Cage works of
startlingly beauty and jazziness, chose a toy piano not to play.
She faced it artfully, with eyes closed. It was a cold, damp
night but without the swish of breeze or patter of rain.
Respectful, memorial silence ended at last when someone
accidentally dropped a plastic water bottle and