History
The score consists of eight pages, the tempo of which has been stretched to fit the wanted duration of 639 years.
The piece was commissioned by The Friends of the Maryland Summer Institute for the Creative and Performing Arts as a contemporary requirement for a piano competition. Cage employed an open format mainly to ensure that no two performances would be the same, providing the judges a break from the monotony of most compositions.
Read more about this topic: As Slow As Possible
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