This is a special one: it's the very first Number Piece! And with that in mind, it's... well, fairly inconsequential. 10 minutes long, for piano and flute. Actually, it might as well be One for piano, because at least on my recording, you can barely hear the flute - even when turning the volume up to the point that the piano becomes slightly uncomfortably loud (and this semms to be faithful to Cage's instructions, as he specified that the flute was to be played very quietly). It's a very quite wheeze in the distance, maybe like a soft wind. You might not even realize that it's playing until it stops.
The piano is surprisingly melodic, and unsurprisingly played slowly and softly. It brings to mind some of Cage's Satie-influened work. There's no indication here of the extreme, sustained dissonance that would become characteristic of later Number Pieces. It does however have the same mood of tranquility and stillness.
Nice enough I suppose, though it seems a bit like two instruments playing different pieces. Imagine the piano playing some Satie at a snail's pace tempo, with the flute playing some sort of extreme, minimal ambient.
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