4′33″

4′33″ is a modernist composition by American experimental composer John Cage. It was composed in 1952 for any instrument or combination of instruments; the score instructs performers not to play their instruments throughout the three movements. It is divided into three movements, lasting 30 seconds, two minutes and 23 seconds, and one minute and 40 seconds, respectively, although Cage later stated that the movements' durations can be determined by the musician. As indicated by the title, the composition lasts four minutes and 33 seconds and is marked by a period of silence, although ambient sounds contribute to the performance.

4'33" was conceived around 1947–48, while Cage was working on the piano cycle Sonatas and Interludes. Many prior musical pieces were largely composed of silence, and silence played a notable role in his prior work, including Sonatas and Interludes. His studies on Zen Buddhism during the late 1940s about chance music led him to acknowledge the value of silence in providing an opportunity to reflect on one's surroundings and psyche. Recent developments in contemporary art also bolstered Cage's understanding on silence, which he increasingly began to perceive as impossible after Rauschenberg's White Painting was first displayed.

4'33" premiered in 1952 and was met with shock and widespread controversy; many musicologists revisited the very definition of music and questioned whether Cage's work qualified as such. In fact, Cage intended 4'33" to be experimental—to test the audience's attitude to silence and prove that any auditory experience may constitute music, seeing that absolute silence cannot exist. Whilst frequently labelled as four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence, Cage maintains that the ambient noises heard during the performance contribute to the composition. Since this counters the conventional involvement of harmony and melody in music, many musicologists consider 4'33" to be the birth of noise music, and some have likened it to Dadaist art. 4'33" also embodies the idea of musical indeterminacy, as the silence is subject to the individual's interpretation; thereby, one is encouraged to explore their surroundings and themselves, as stipulated by Lacanianism.

4'33" greatly influenced modernist music, furthering the genres of noise music and silent music, which—whilst still controversial to this day—reverberate among many contemporary musicians. Cage re-explored the idea of silent composition in two later renditions: 0'00" (1962) and One³ (1989). In a 1982 interview, and on numerous other occasions, he stated that 4′33″ was his most important work. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes 4′33″ as Cage's "most famous and controversial creation". In 2013, Dale Eisinger of Complex ranked the composition eighth in his list of the greatest performance art works.