Dilettante Music

The title of this suite for piano or organ composed in 1985 refers both to "as slow as possible" and the last paragraph of James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake "Soft morning city! Lsp!". There are 8 pieces any one of which must be omitted and any one of which must be repeated. Neither tempo nor dynamics are indicated, only map-like proportions of the notes placement on the page. The music should "sound as it looks". In many works of this period, Cage was relying on the performer's own internal sense of timing rather than employing the extensive clockings of previous works. Each performance is unique, of course, yet the wide range of pitches and aggregate-combinations (with possible registration / timbre changes on an organ) is often evocative without relying on musical "imagery". ~ All Music Guide