This concert isn’t endless, just 639 years

Once when asked how he thought his music would fare after his death, John Cage replied that he had written so much that it would be a lot of trouble to get rid of it all. But the composer, who died in 1992, could hardly have anticipated that one work, “Organ2/ASLSP,” would go on forever in a small town in Germany.

Well, maybe not forever, but just about. On Feb. 28 at 11 p.m., the first musical pitch will sound in a performance of the 1987 work on an organ in Halberstadt’s St. Burchardi church. The town’s mayor and other dignitaries will be on hand. But they won’t likely stay to the end, which will be in the year 2640.

“ASLSP” is a rough abbreviation for “as slow as possible.” A typical performance lasts about 20 minutes, if you do not choose to be unreasonably literal. The piece in Halberstadt actually began on Sept. 5, 2001, Cage’s 89th birthday, when the organ motor and bellows were switched on, but the first note was silent -- an 18-month rest. Other notes will follow in coming years. The time span of 639 years was arrived at because that was the age of the organ in 2001.

Germans take art seriously and can be rude to latecomers; for this performance, however, they promise to make an exception.

-- Mark Swed