I imagine that, in some scientific virtual reality, true silence exists, but in everyday life there's no such thing. If there was, there would probably be more than one word for it. Even the proverbial pin drop is always accompanied by an ambient noise of some kind or other. Distant traffic, rustling leaves, ticking seconds, singing birds, even at times, one's own breath. Put two thousand people in a concert hall and the possibilities for true silence seem pretty non existent.

One of the things I love about so-called silence in music is that the audience and the players become as one in their contributions to the performance. Whether short or long, silence unites everyone in the hall, suspended in a pregnant limbo in which reflection on what was just heard blends imperceptibly with anticipation of what might come next. Silence is not a moment of emptiness, but a space that encompasses an infinite number of thoughts and emotions.

Composers know this. John Cage's 4'33" is the most obvious example of listening to the sound of nothing, but more interesting to me is Sofia Gubaidulina's Stimmen…Verstummen: an orchestral work whose climax is a completely silent movement that is nevertheless choreographed by the conductor beating imaginary time in front of the silent players. This 'movement' is even repeated at the end of the whole work, raising the interesting question as to when a piece of music is actually finished. At least the conductor's physicality holds in check 'know-it-all' members of the audience who spoil many a concert's moving conclusion by starting to clap as soon as the actual sounds have finished, not realising that the essence of the music is still going on.

It is interesting how often composers put an indeterminate pause over a silence. They appreciate they're not in a position to prescribe its exact length without knowing what the atmosphere is going to be like in the hall. A restless and distracted public results in a completely different experience to that which emanates from an audience rapt with attention. Though the music's needs don't change, the concentration level in the listeners has to have a bearing on how long the silences are held.

There is a theory that silence makes some people nervous because they associate it with death. It's certainly true that if you believe in eternal nothingness, it's going to be pretty quiet when you get there. Maybe that's why both Shostakovich and Mahler composed so much significant emptiness into their final symphonies. Both of these works raise the effect of silence to the highest of intensities. The music exists as much in the holes between the notes as it does in the notes themselves. Though its sounds describe the specific, its silences expresses the infinite. If a silence is truly heard, it wields enormous power. And if a performer engages in its potential it can express more than any audible note. The original proverb sums it up better than I can: 'Speech is silver, Silence is golden.'

www.markwigglesworth.com