Tan Dun's Water Passion
Webpasha
Crouching Tiger, doesn't it all sound the same?
XYZ XYZ
Friday night with Tan Dun conducting. I'm not sure if I really "got
it". Interesting orchestration and instruments, and the
percussionists (or drummers) also had to work with illuminated
bowls of water. Cho-Liang Lin was the violinist, but to my untrained
ears, it didn't seem like he was given very much to do. By contrast
the cellist seemed to be given a more dominant role. I forget her
name though.
In any case, the production was certainly innovative. I suppose
this is a bit like an opera, where the full experience involves
watching the actual production in addition to hearing the music.
al...@c2w.com (Webpasha) wrote in message news:<68874cc2.02121...@posting.google.com>...
Jeff Harrington
Don't most artists re-write the same piece their whole life...? Several
people, though have made that observation about Dun's work here.
Jeff Harrington
http://jeffharrington.org - New Music
http://netnewmusic.net - New Music Portal
M.E.A.
> Don't most artists re-write the same piece their whole life...?
Do you mean things like:
Reich's "phase" pieces ?
Lois Vierk's "glissandi" pieces ?
Palestine's "strumming" pieces ?
Sciarrino's "string-harmonics" pieces ?
Cage's "chance-driven" pieces ?
Bach's "fugues" ?
Hey! Wait! Maybe we're mixing up the concept of "usage of preferred
tools" with the concept of "writing the same piece"..... :-)
Well, any time I read comments regarding the fact that an artist
"writes the same piece" I start to be nervous.
Probably also the comments regarding Tan Dun works should be more
careful in judgment....
Regards,
M.E.A.
Jeff Harrington
> je...@parnasse.com (Jeff Harrington) wrote in message
>
> > Don't most artists re-write the same piece their whole life...?
>
> Do you mean things like:
> Reich's "phase" pieces ?
> Lois Vierk's "glissandi" pieces ?
> Palestine's "strumming" pieces ?
> Sciarrino's "string-harmonics" pieces ?
> Cage's "chance-driven" pieces ?
> Bach's "fugues" ?
> Hey! Wait! Maybe we're mixing up the concept of "usage of preferred
> tools" with the concept of "writing the same piece"..... :-)
>
Or maybe we're not... maybe artists write the same piece out of the
fear of losing what little audience they've developed. What little
credibility is achievable now. Risk-taking seems to be something that
the few artists that break through into name-recognition seldom do.
Nono's transition from a serialist to a quietist. Who recently that's
say a 2nd tier or 1st tier composer has done anything like that?
Sciarinno with his noisy piano pieces, perhaps... Lutoslawski with
his return to folk influences... But most artists these days seem to
get recognized and then just write the same piece until they're
boring.
> Well, any time I read comments regarding the fact that an artist
> "writes the same piece" I start to be nervous.
> Probably also the comments regarding Tan Dun works should be more
> careful in judgment....
People can speak their mind, and I've seen this comment several times.
So what! Was he a Grawemeyer winner or something? ;-)
Francois Desnoyers
Jeff Harrington wrote:
> no...@my-deja.com (M.E.A.) wrote in message news:<be51b4fa.02121...@posting.google.com>...
> > je...@parnasse.com (Jeff Harrington) wrote in message
> >
> > > Don't most artists re-write the same piece their whole life...?
> >
> > Do you mean things like:
> > Reich's "phase" pieces ?
> > Lois Vierk's "glissandi" pieces ?
> > Palestine's "strumming" pieces ?
> > Sciarrino's "string-harmonics" pieces ?
> > Cage's "chance-driven" pieces ?
> > Bach's "fugues" ?
> > Hey! Wait! Maybe we're mixing up the concept of "usage of preferred
> > tools" with the concept of "writing the same piece"..... :-)
> >
>
> Or maybe we're not... maybe artists write the same piece out of the
> fear of losing what little audience they've developed.
First, you must establish that they, for a fact, write the same piece over and over again before you
decide to explain why they do it.
> What little
> credibility is achievable now. Risk-taking seems to be something that
> the few artists that break through into name-recognition seldom do.
That reminds me : someone told me a long time ago, speaking about Van Gogh, that once an artist has a
name, he could do any kind of sh#%t and still make money out of it. I hope you also can taste the irony
here...
>
> Nono's transition from a serialist to a quietist. Who recently that's
> say a 2nd tier or 1st tier composer has done anything like that?
> Sciarinno with his noisy piano pieces, perhaps...
You know of any noiseless piano piece?
> Lutoslawski with
> his return to folk influences... But most artists these days seem to
> get recognized and then just write the same piece until they're
> boring.
"seem" is a key word here. You should stick to it like to a life preserver. It may lead you to some
safe place... or not.
David Sternlicht
Michael Finnissy is always unpredictable. Now that I've said that, I'm
a bit hard pressed to think of another living composer so uninhibited.
Francois Desnoyers <fdesn...@cogniscienceinc.com> wrote in message news:<3E027F1F...@cogniscienceinc.com>...
Jeff Harrington
>
> > no...@my-deja.com (M.E.A.) wrote in message news:<be51b4fa.02121...@posting.google.com>...
> > > je...@parnasse.com (Jeff Harrington) wrote in message
> > >
> > > > Don't most artists re-write the same piece their whole life...?
> > >
> > > Do you mean things like:
> > > Reich's "phase" pieces ?
> > > Lois Vierk's "glissandi" pieces ?
> > > Palestine's "strumming" pieces ?
> > > Sciarrino's "string-harmonics" pieces ?
> > > Cage's "chance-driven" pieces ?
> > > Bach's "fugues" ?
> > > Hey! Wait! Maybe we're mixing up the concept of "usage of preferred
> > > tools" with the concept of "writing the same piece"..... :-)
> > >
> >
> > Or maybe we're not... maybe artists write the same piece out of the
> > fear of losing what little audience they've developed.
>
> First, you must establish that they, for a fact, write the same piece over and over again before you
> decide to explain why they do it.
Sorry, but no. The 'impression' that this occurs itself, as a music
consumer, enough for one to assume a lack of imagination or at least a
'workman or artisanal' approach to composition. It's a frequent
impression and composers such as Vivaldi, Handel, Bach, Haydn, have
been accused of it. The connoisseur, of course can debate this, until
they're blue in the face, but one has to admit that there is also the
impression that some artists excel in the non-duplication of their
efforts. Beethoven for one. Picasso. Stravinsky, Shoenberg, Webern.
I'm talking big picture here, artists that actually shift gears into
new territory. Radical changes because of external or internal
climes. It's risky. The artist risks the patronage they've received
and risks the audience they've built for a personal, developmental
purpose.
>
> > What little
> > credibility is achievable now. Risk-taking seems to be something that
> > the few artists that break through into name-recognition seldom do.
>
> That reminds me : someone told me a long time ago, speaking about Van Gogh, that once an artist has a
> name, he could do any kind of sh#%t and still make money out of it. I hope you also can taste the irony
> here...
>
You mean sell out? ;-) I taste nothing. What money today? Ha...
> >
> > Nono's transition from a serialist to a quietist. Who recently that's
> > say a 2nd tier or 1st tier composer has done anything like that?
> > Sciarinno with his noisy piano pieces, perhaps...
>
> You know of any noiseless piano piece?
>
Maybe you don't know his music? His violent chordal piano pieces, to
me, seem to be a breakthrough from the repetitious delicacies he
usually offers.
> > Lutoslawski with
> > his return to folk influences... But most artists these days seem to
> > get recognized and then just write the same piece until they're
> > boring.
>
> "seem" is a key word here. You should stick to it like to a life preserver. It may lead you to some
> safe place... or not.
>
Or not. Again, I don't think you and I are talking on the same scale
of individual artistic shapes. Repetition, throughout one's career,
of a similar formula or stutters and breakthroughs and spasmatic
careers with horrible mistakes and brilliant breakthroughs are the two
types careers I'm talking about.
Samuel Vriezen
Sternlicht) wrote:
>Penderecki reversed course (aesthetically) in a radical way, for one.
>
>Michael Finnissy is always unpredictable.
Meaning that he bases his massive collage pieces on a different ethnic
music each time? ;-P
>Now that I've said that, I'm
>a bit hard pressed to think of another living composer so uninhibited.
What about, say, James Tenney? Or perhaps Christian Wolff. Rihm is
continuously all over the place, too - though more in terms of sound
style than in terms of form.
--
Samuel
http://concerten.free.fr/home.html
SV plays Schumann - Geistervariationen, Johnson - Chord Catalogue
Wednesday, Jan 8, 22:00 at Zaal 100 (Wittenstraat 100, Amsterdam)
Steve Layton
news:18c8669.02122...@posting.google.com...
> Francois Desnoyers <fdesn...@cogniscienceinc.com> wrote in message
news:<3E027F1F...@cogniscienceinc.com>...
> > First, you must establish that they, for a fact, write the same
> > piece over and over again before you decide to explain why they do it.
>
> Sorry, but no. The 'impression' that this occurs itself, as a music
> consumer, enough for one to assume a lack of imagination or at least a
> 'workman or artisanal' approach to composition. It's a frequent
> impression and composers such as Vivaldi, Handel, Bach, Haydn, have
> been accused of it. The connoisseur, of course can debate this, until
> they're blue in the face, but one has to admit that there is also the
> impression that some artists excel in the non-duplication of their
> efforts. Beethoven for one. Picasso. Stravinsky, Shoenberg, Webern.
> I'm talking big picture here, artists that actually shift gears into
> new territory. Radical changes because of external or internal
> climes. It's risky. The artist risks the patronage they've received
> and risks the audience they've built for a personal, developmental
> purpose.
...........
Though you mention some great artists that went happily through some major
"sea-changes", There's still that element of "writing the same thing over
and over" within each major phase, and there are some characteristics that
can remain more-or-less constant no matter what the rest of their style
turns to.
Obviously, that's how we identify a style in a composer, and to not be able
to do that usually means that we find them utterly derivative and very bad
(or, just barely possible, they could go the other way and be so
"unknowable" as to become very, very good ;-)...)
But the other factor in a good composer is that even within his style he
still surprises us. It's when, because of expectaions either in a particular
composer or within some tradition, we feel like what we hear (or see, in
visual art) is what we expected somehow, that some part in us becomes
disappointed. There are degrees of this, so that we accept some of the
obvious if we get some of the unexpected. The other part of the skill and
magic in a good composer is that the stuff that we "don't see coming" makes
itself "apparent" or "right", either by itself or through what else occurs.
I think more likely what we're complaining about in Dun's work, is just this
problem of becoming too predictive within his own work.
Christ, Jeff; *you're* one to talk!... 90% of your own stuff has been
"writing the same thing over"! ;-) But I listen and like, precisely because
I can't predict the next moment. The ride is still interesting, and what
happens makes a "whole".
--
Steve Layton
http://www.ampcast.com/stevelayton
For the sounds of music being made worldwide *today*
pay a visit to "NetNewMusic": www.netnewmusic.net
Francois Desnoyers
Steve Layton wrote:
Modigliani is a good example of an expected form which keeps us interested. But
his way of thinking is nonetheless narrower than that of Paul Klee, for
example, because of the intellectual shifts and the incessant searches in which
and by which the meaning of art is stretched... I love Modigliani's paintings
dearly and it is an extremely powerful experience to see one, but if I regard
his work from the point of view of the above argument, I must think Modigliani
a lesser artist than Klee.
> There are degrees of this, so that we accept some of the
> obvious if we get some of the unexpected. The other part of the skill and
> magic in a good composer is that the stuff that we "don't see coming" makes
> itself "apparent" or "right", either by itself or through what else occurs.
One may understand the style of a composer and be able to recognise a piece to
belong to him or her, but this does'nt mean the piece is not unique in the
wonders it holds.
jeff harrington
>
> Christ, Jeff; *you're* one to talk!... 90% of your own stuff has been
> "writing the same thing over"! ;-) But I listen and like, precisely because
> I can't predict the next moment. The ride is still interesting, and what
> happens makes a "whole".
;) I was talking big picture here... you only know my work from 1993 to
today. That's about half of my output. Not counting the high school and
college music, I've written static pieces for orchestra 1979-81, neo-classical
pastiche from 1982-1987, improvised electronic music from
1988-1993, and now my neo-classical folk stuff (and simultaneously
static electronic stuff).
Some of these transitions were really painful, like abandoning my ridiculous
dream of reviving classical tonality in the '80's. My wife's paintings and
her whole crowd were a big influence and I finally determined that I
probably had neither the talent nor the will to figure how to make it
fresh. I remember telling her that I was going to write atonal music
again and she got really sad... it was horrible... especially since I
had been coerced into it to get my Master's degree (the teacher had
said, 'No student of mine is going to get a Master's who writes using
19th century harmonies'. And I had just written my first good piece,
the Violin Sonata.
Anyways, I'm more interested in talking about the fits and starts
of other artists. What were the pressures that drove them to
abandon one walk and back up and go forward down that dark
alley?
--
Jeff Harrington - Scores, MP3's, Info - http://parnasse.com/jeff.htm
Visit NetNewMusic - The New Music Portal - http://netnewmusic.net
Irae for Violin, Viola and Contrabass - http://parnasse.com/irae.mp3
jeff harrington
>
> Modigliani is a good example of an expected form which keeps us interested. But
> his way of thinking is nonetheless narrower than that of Paul Klee, for
> example, because of the intellectual shifts and the incessant searches in which
> and by which the meaning of art is stretched... I love Modigliani's paintings
> dearly and it is an extremely powerful experience to see one, but if I regard
> his work from the point of view of the above argument, I must think Modigliani
> a lesser artist than Klee.
>
My thinking is that the activity of the artistic mind itself is evidenced by the
sudden shifts, the stylistic convulsions. If a mind is satisfied with tiny changes
within a previously explored space, perhaps it's not as involved in exploration.
Given artists like Bach, Vivaldi, et al, their approach to art was more of an
artisanal approach. They had artistic jobs and produced masterpieces as
a result of that effort. The romantic ideal we've been obsessed with since the
1730's or so is the artist as self-explorer. And if that exploration produces
no discoveries... Perhaps, today's bourgeois cozy grant/job composer career
(I'm talking 1st tier, 2nd tier successful composer promotes the artists that
have little interest in exploring and more interest in the maintenance of the
contract between commissioning groups and themselves.)
Perhaps institutional involvement with an artist dissuades exploration.
Perhaps we're entering the historical space proposed by Leonard Meyer
where he suggested we would begin a static art historical period
akin to Egypts 3000+ years of cultural stasis, once the modernist
revolution was over.
Artists such as Gorky or Pollock are amazing examples of tiny incremental
explorations and then sudden spasms of exhaustive revelation. In some of
these cases, the individual art work is perhaps not as interesting as a study
of the scope of the works themselves. Feldman to me, is more interesting
in his scope than in his individual expressions. Xenakis is constantly innovating
and constantly failing and constantly either amazing or boring. This makes
him much more interesting to me.
>
> > There are degrees of this, so that we accept some of the
> > obvious if we get some of the unexpected. The other part of the skill and
> > magic in a good composer is that the stuff that we "don't see coming" makes
> > itself "apparent" or "right", either by itself or through what else occurs.
>
> One may understand the style of a composer and be able to recognise a piece to
> belong to him or her, but this does'nt mean the piece is not unique in the
> wonders it holds.
>
Haydn couldn't recognize his own pieces sometimes. But the tiny explorations
he made in classical form wrought the greatest changes of the century. Within
his exploratory space, (the stylistic change in the last symphonies, the formal
breakthroughs in the op. 70 string quartets) he is a good example of an artist
that even though under contract, found a way to please the patron and explore.
marcel raman
David Sternlicht schreef
>
> Michael Finnissy is always unpredictable.
Speaking of Finnissy: do you know (or does anybody know) if his
pianocyclus "The history of photography in sound" is already available
on CD (or better: CD's as the work longs about 5 hours).
--
marcel raman
http://surf.to/litweb
--
cp: Zemlinsky: Lyrische Symphonie
Tom D
> Speaking of Finnissy: do you know (or does anybody know) if his
> pianocyclus "The history of photography in sound" is already available
> on CD (or better: CD's as the work longs about 5 hours).
recorded the piece for Metier Sound and Vision (see the "Discography"
page). I've never heard it (or any of the work in live performance),
so can't comment.
David Sternlicht
> On 20 Dec 2002 05:26:03 -0800, davidst...@hotmail.com (David
> Sternlicht) wrote:
>
> >Penderecki reversed course (aesthetically) in a radical way, for one.
> >
> >Michael Finnissy is always unpredictable.
>
> Meaning that he bases his massive collage pieces on a different ethnic
> music each time? ;-P
Actually, his influences are far wider-reaching than this. Check out
his Gershwin Arrangements and Piano Concerto No. 3 for jazz, Verdi
Transcriptions and Rosini for 19th-century opera, Contretanze and Wenn
wir in hochsten Nothen sind for Bach, Two of Us for rock music, Celi
for Hildegard, etc., etc. And the "ethnic" music he draws from ranges
from African-American spirituals (North American Spirituals) to
Romaninan folk song (Catana). But within Finnissy's work, you can hear
anything from a gentle, lyrical, and sideways take on Medieval motets
(Two Motets, with quasi-modal harmony intact) and tonality in My Love
is Like a Red, Red Rose to shattering tumults of violence in, say,
Beat the Drum and Sound the Fife from English Country Tunes. In some
pieces these extremes coexist. So, turning up to hear a new Finnissy
piece could result in a range of possibilities....
> >Now that I've said that, I'm
> >a bit hard pressed to think of another living composer so uninhibited.
>
> What about, say, James Tenney?
Yes, Tenney is also a good candidate, though not as stylisticallly
volitile from work to work.
>Or perhaps Christian Wolff.
Don't know enough of his recent work. Suggestions?
>Rihm is
> continuously all over the place, too - though more in terms of sound
> style than in terms of form.
I hear Rihm as pretty locked into a particular style and aesthetic.
Samuel Vriezen
Sternlicht) wrote:
>> >Now that I've said that, I'm
>> >a bit hard pressed to think of another living composer so uninhibited.
>>
>> What about, say, James Tenney?
>
>Yes, Tenney is also a good candidate, though not as stylisticallly
>volitile from work to work.
Actually, when you listen to Bridge, For Ann (Rising), and Forms you
may think you're hearing three composers...
>>Or perhaps Christian Wolff.
>
>Don't know enough of his recent work. Suggestions?
Wolff has actually become quite consistent, but in a very very weird
way. The oddness of his music, which is usually coherent in extremely
bizarre and enigmatic ways, keeps surprising me. I don't know of any
Big Works from recent years that may serve as focus points, but there
seems to be an abundance of idiosyncratic small works.
On Jan 29, in Amsterdam, we'll have the world premiere of Pianist
Pieces in memoriam Iannis Xenakis. I've heard them already, these five
pieces are highly different from one another.
>>Rihm is
>> continuously all over the place, too - though more in terms of sound
>> style than in terms of form.
>
>I hear Rihm as pretty locked into a particular style and aesthetic.
But you know, it can be 'Gesungene Zeit' one day and more or less
noise music the next (in Etude d'après Seraphin for example).
Al Moritz
> What about, say, James Tenney? Or perhaps Christian Wolff. Rihm is
> continuously all over the place, too - though more in terms of sound
> style than in terms of form.
I agree with you, Samuel, that Rihm is continuously all over the place
(and I am absolutely at loss over David's statement: "I hear Rihm as
pretty locked into a particular style and aesthetic" - which Rihm do
you refer to, David?).
I don't know what you mean, however, when you say that his form
doesn't change that much. I just listened to the extremely static
"Nachstudie" for piano, the fluid multi-sectional "Deus Passus", and
compare those in turn with "Jagden und Formen" which is mostly in
restless motion. Where are the similarities in form? Even large-scale
form?
Samuel Vriezen
wrote:
Well, let's say the 'Faktur' perhaps. The sort of consistency he has.
Al Moritz
> On 28 Dec 2002 11:03:33 -0800, amo...@cellsignal.com (Al Moritz)
> wrote:
>
> >sqv.remo...@xs4all.nl (Samuel Vriezen) wrote in message news:<3e0347bc...@news.xs4all.nl>...
> >
> >> What about, say, James Tenney? Or perhaps Christian Wolff. Rihm is
> >> continuously all over the place, too - though more in terms of sound
> >> style than in terms of form.
> >
> >I agree with you, Samuel, that Rihm is continuously all over the place
> >(and I am absolutely at loss over David's statement: "I hear Rihm as
> >pretty locked into a particular style and aesthetic" - which Rihm do
> >you refer to, David?).
> >
> >I don't know what you mean, however, when you say that his form
> >doesn't change that much. I just listened to the extremely static
> >"Nachstudie" for piano, the fluid multi-sectional "Deus Passus", and
> >compare those in turn with "Jagden und Formen" which is mostly in
> >restless motion. Where are the similarities in form? Even large-scale
> >form?
>
> Well, let's say the 'Faktur' perhaps. The sort of consistency he has.
I still haven't got a clue. What do you mean by 'Faktur'? And what
does a "sort of consistency" have to do with multiplicity of forms?
Samuel Vriezen
wrote:
>> Well, let's say the 'Faktur' perhaps. The sort of consistency he has.
>
>I still haven't got a clue. What do you mean by 'Faktur'? And what
>does a "sort of consistency" have to do with multiplicity of forms?
It's a way of relating his materials and a certain character to the
sorts of materials he uses. There always seems to be a deliberate
sense of unfinishedness to his gestures, or perhaps 'provisionalness'
which helps giving the pieces a sensation of form inventing itself. So
what the form actually will be may vary greatly from piece to piece,
but this basic sense is always there.
Al Moritz
> On 29 Dec 2002 10:16:37 -0800, amo...@cellsignal.com (Al Moritz)
> wrote:
>
> >> Well, let's say the 'Faktur' perhaps. The sort of consistency he has.
> >
> >I still haven't got a clue. What do you mean by 'Faktur'? And what
> >does a "sort of consistency" have to do with multiplicity of forms?
>
> It's a way of relating his materials and a certain character to the
> sorts of materials he uses. There always seems to be a deliberate
> sense of unfinishedness to his gestures, or perhaps 'provisionalness'
> which helps giving the pieces a sensation of form inventing itself. So
> what the form actually will be may vary greatly from piece to piece,
> but this basic sense is always there.
Hmmm, same could be said about Carter, Ferneyhough, Boulez, Nono,
Furrer etc. I see the sense of unfinishedness to gestures (if you want
to call it that) rather as a characteristic of quite a lot of modern
composition - not as something that particularly distinguishes Rihm.
And: in Rihm's "Deus Passus" the gestures seem well-rounded -
"finished" in a sense. So it doesn't hold here - again speaking for
Rihm really being all over the place.
Happy New Year 2003!
Al
Samuel Vriezen
wrote:
>> It's a way of relating his materials and a certain character to the
>> sorts of materials he uses. There always seems to be a deliberate
>> sense of unfinishedness to his gestures, or perhaps 'provisionalness'
>> which helps giving the pieces a sensation of form inventing itself. So
>> what the form actually will be may vary greatly from piece to piece,
>> but this basic sense is always there.
>
>Hmmm, same could be said about Carter, Ferneyhough, Boulez, Nono,
>Furrer etc. I see the sense of unfinishedness to gestures (if you want
>to call it that) rather as a characteristic of quite a lot of modern
>composition - not as something that particularly distinguishes Rihm.
Perhaps it doesn't, though I was thinking more of a kinship with
Feldman - Carter's gesture strikes me as being out of an erudite
counterpoint book; they do have a fluidity that I believe is mostly
related to a fundamental poverty of the gestural language, which at
the same time makes it possible for him to make so much variation and
make them continuous. Ferneyhough's gestural language is certainly
'finished', highly polished in detail, with every note having quite
its own little expression, but there's a lot of it all at once. Boulez
is crystalline and in that way quite finished. Furrer I still have to
think about - I know only the KAIROS disc with Nuun on it, really nice
piece. Nono seems to me to be more related to Rihm among the composers
you mention.
Rihm's gestures seem to come in chunks. This impression he gives on me
even when he writes fluid lines. The chunks seem often to isolate an
expressive core and keep it in the rough. The core might be a gesture,
or an interval or sonority or chord or a bare pitch. The sequence of
these itself is then often enigmatic, fluid, and seemingly
associative. It may be worked into highly virtuosic counterpoint, or
it may remain bare. It always gives you the impression that it is
finding its own way, which leads to the big variety of forms. This is
a basic mentality I hear in most of his pieces.
So perhaps the thing that seems consistent is not something so clear
as a form, or a material; it is a mentality - like in Stravinsky.
But how many really interesting composers - those who do more than
write good pieces - have lots of different mentalities to offer?
My choice for stylistically most variegated composer of the 20th would
be, as anyone who reads what I blather on these groups all the time
should guess, Cage. But his mentality (culminating in the widespread
use of chance) is unmistakable, though it remains enigmatic.
Al Moritz
<<There always seems to be a deliberate sense of unfinishedness to his
gestures, or perhaps 'provisionalness' which helps giving the pieces a
I was more thinking of unfinishedness of gestures in relation to the
sensation of form inventing itself, as expressed in your statement.
What I mean is that there is often relatively litte flow inherent in
the gestures of a lot of modern music, it is rather that the musical
flow is generated by a constant game question - answer between
gestures, or, if you prefer, by a constant game of: tension created by
a gesture - reply by a different gesture due to need for maintaining
tension. It is less like with the themes in older music where there is
considerable musical flow inherent in the thematic material itself
and/or in the way the thematic material is treated. Beethoven's music
for example, in spite of all its great contrasts, "flows like a
river", and even if you don't listen to the thematic development
itself, you are still aware of that constant flow (I actually myself
have never really listened to thematic development in the first mvmt.
of the 4th symphony, but just to that flow!). In contrast, if you do
not listen to how the gestures in Boulez' "Pli selon pli" respond to
each other, you are not aware of musical flow, it just becomes noise.
Pretty noise in this case, yes, but still noise. The gestures
themselves don't create much musical flow; the flow is generated to a
higher extent from their response to each other - and you have to
constantly listen to that response in order to be aware of musical
flow. In that sense the gestures are "unfinished", being so dependent
on each other for a sensation of musical flow. And exactly such a
succession of gestures which are not self-sufficient in flow, but need
to respond to each other, is what also gives in a lot or at least
some Ferneyhough and Boulez (and Nono, Furrer et al.) a sensation that
"form invents itself" - just as what you claim for Rihm.
<<Rihm's gestures seem to come in chunks. This impression he gives on
me even when he writes fluid lines.>>
I tend to agree with regard to "Jadgen & Formen", I cannot at all,
however, agree with regard to "Deus Passus". There the fluidity of
lines seems very much in tune with long-established models of
generating and maintaining melodic flow.
<<So perhaps the thing that seems consistent is not something so clear
as a form, or a material; it is a mentality - like in Stravinsky.>>
Yes, that statement makes a lot of sense to me and is much more
agreeable-sounding than your earlier claim about similarity of form in
Rihm (even if that claim was more implied than explicit).
Samuel Vriezen
wrote:
>I was more thinking of unfinishedness of gestures in relation to the
Good points. I'll ponder them a bit.
><<Rihm's gestures seem to come in chunks. This impression he gives on
>me even when he writes fluid lines.>>
>
>I tend to agree with regard to "Jadgen & Formen", I cannot at all,
>however, agree with regard to "Deus Passus". There the fluidity of
>lines seems very much in tune with long-established models of
>generating and maintaining melodic flow.
Well, I don't know that piece, but other 'fluid lines' pieces seemed,
too, to revolve on very basic things that I would call 'chunks' though
they're not presented chunkily. I think I was thinking of the way Die
Eroberung von Mexico progresses: largely continuously, but based on
many varying instances of 'irreducible' archetypes such as the open
fifth.
><<So perhaps the thing that seems consistent is not something so clear
>as a form, or a material; it is a mentality - like in Stravinsky.>>
>
>Yes, that statement makes a lot of sense to me and is much more
>agreeable-sounding than your earlier claim about similarity of form in
>Rihm (even if that claim was more implied than explicit).
But I would also say that in Rihm especially, this mentality and the
form are extremely heavily entwined. Stravinsky gives you the
impression he could select a model, and thereby select a form, and
work his special way on it. Rihm gives me more of an impression that
all of the forms are generated from the same, though many facetted,
poetical ueber-process running throughout his oeuvre.