moment form in twentieth century music

8/10/2019 Moment Form in Twentieth Century Music

1/19

Moment Form in Twentieth Century MusicAuthor(s): Jonathan D. KramerSource: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Apr., 1978), pp. 177-194Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/741444.

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2/19

MOMENT

FORM

IN TWENTIETH

CENTURY

MUSIC

By

JONATHAN

D.

KRAMER

D

SCONTINUITY

is

a

profound

musical

experience.

The un-

expected

is

more

striking,

more

meaningful,

han

the ex-

pected

because

it

contains

more information.'

he

high

value

I

place

on

discontinuity

s a

personal

prejudice surely

t is

a

culture-

bound

opinion

-

discontinuity

s

not,

for

example,

what

Indian

music

is

about);

the musical

experiences

hat

are

most

memorable

are

the

magical

momentswhen

expectation

s

subverted,

when

complacencys destroyed,ndwhena newworldopens.The power

of

discontinuity

s

most

potent

n

tonal

music,

which s the

music

par

excellence f motion nd

continuity.

armonically

efined

oals

and

linear

priorities

or

voice-leading

rovide

normsof

continuity

against

which

iscontinuities

ain

their

ower.

Tonal

discontinuities,

when

pushed

to

extremes,

reate

new

experiences

f

time

time

that s not

inear

nd

not one-dimensional.2

The

dissolution f triadic

onality

fter bout

1910

removed

he

a prioriofcontinuity. he earlyposttonal omposerswere forced

to

extreme

engths

n

order

to

create

contextually

sense of

goal-

directed

motion,

ince

ontinuity

as no

longer given

f

the

ystem.

The solutionsof

Schoenberg,

erg,

and

Bart6k,

for

example,

are

often

powerful

nd

convincing,

ut

they

re

nonetheless

onstructs.

Part of

the

research for this article was

done

at

the

School

of Criticism and

Theory,

University

f California

at

Irvine,

1976,

under a

grant

from

the National

Endowment

for the Humanities. This

essay

is extracted

from

a

book-length

study

entitled

Stravinskynd Darmstadt: a StudyofMusical Time.

1

Leonard B.

Meyer, "Meaning

in

Music and

Information

Theory,"

Music,

the

Arts,

nd

Ideas

(Chicago,

1967),pp.

5-21.

2sJonathan

D.

Kramer,

"Multiple

and

Non-Linear

Time in

Beethoven's

Opus

135," Perspectives

f

New

Music,

XI/2 (Spring-Summer,

973),

122-45.

177

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3/19

178 The

Musical

Quarterly

Once

continuity

ecame

an

option,

other

composers

ttempted

o

create music

that

minimized t. Such

a

composer

s

Stravinsky

as

well as Ives); his Symphonies f Wind Instruments,omposed n

1920,

s

an extreme

xpression

f

discontinuity.

The

consequences

of

the

deposing

of musical

continuity

re

enormous.The

entire

difice

f

Western

music had

been built

on

the

assumption

hat

one event eads to

another,

hat there s

impli-

cation

n

music: Western

omposers

ave believed for

centuries

n

the

metaphor

f

musicalmotion.

The

decline

of

tonality

ontained

the

seeds of destruction

f this

myth;

he

temporal

discontinuities

of certain arlytwentieth-centuryorksconfirmed hatmotion s

not

absolute;

by

the

1950s ome

composers

were

able to

write

music

that

n

no

way

assumed

ontinuity

r motion.

Many

composers,

f

course,

have continued to create continuous

anguages

for

their

pieces,

often

with

considerable

effort.

he

struggle

gainst

the

crumbling

f

continuity

ends

great trength

o the

most

uccessful

of

these

pieces.

I

have

in mind

such

composers

s

Sessions,Carter,

Gerhard,

nd

Henze.)

The

crisisfor

he istener s

extreme;

t

is no

surprise hatdiscontinuousontemporary usic s oftennotunder-

stood

by

its audience. To

remove

ontinuity

s

to

question

the

very

meaning

f time

n

our

culture nd hence of human

existence.

his

questioning

s

going

on

all around

us,

and

its

strongest

tatement

s

found

n

contemporary

rt.

By dealing

with

the

resulting

pparent

chaos

of

this

art,

we

are

forced o understand ur

culture nd

thus

to

grow.3

I

have -written

lsewhere

about

the

correlation

between dis-

continuous

ife

styles

nd

contemporaryrt.4

Since

writing

hat

article

have found t

increasingly

ifficult

o

experience

musical

continuity

omfortably.

here

is

something

rtificial,

omething

otherworldly,

bout the

idea that one musical

event

can

actually

progress

o another.

Even

listening

o the most

innocently

inear

tonal

music

involves ome

sense of contradiction. he

conflict

s

not in

the

music;

the conflict s betweenhow

the

music

uses

time

and how a

contemporary

istener

understands

ime.

Recent

music

that

deals

with

time

n

new

ways

has

sought

to

solve

this

conflict,

and in so doing t has struck nervecenter n our culture. refer

to

antiteleological

music

(e.g.,

some

works of

John Cage),

which

3

Morse

Peckham,

Man's

Rage

for

Chaos

(New

York,

1967),

pp.

25-40.

4

Kramer,

Multiple

and Non-Linear Time in

Beethoven's

Opus

135,"

pp.

132-41.



4/19

MomentForm

179

presents

tatic,

ndless

Nows;

to

processpieces (e.g.,

some

works

of

Steve

Reich),

that

move

inexorably hrough

well-defined

radual

changes Is thisa desperate ttempt o recapture ontinuity?);nd

to moment-form

ieces e.g.,

some works

f

Karlheinz

Stockhausen),

in

which

the music

consists

f

a

succession f

self-contained

ections

that

do

not relate

to

each other n

any

functionally

mplicative

man-

ner.

However,

omposers

f

moment

forms ave

not

given

up

con-

tinuity ntirely;

hatwouldbe

a

fiction,

ecause

implication

s

still

possible,

nd

the

discomfort

f

continuity

an

be used

positively.

ut

implication

s

now ocalized

because t

has becomebut

one

possibility

within a large universe;continuitys no longerpart of musical

syntax,

ut rather t is

an

optional

procedure.

t

must

be

created

or denied anew

in

each

piece,

and thus t

is

the

material

nd

not

the

anguage

f the

music.

The

concept

f moment

orm

was

first

rticulated

y

Stockhausen

in

his 1960

article

Momentform."5

his

article

s

an

explication

f

compositional

rocedures

n

Kontakte,

omposed

n

1959-60,

tock-

hausen's first

elf-conscious oment orm.

His

ideas were

expanded

and slightlymodified year ater n "Erfindungnd Entdeckung."'

The

procedures

hat are

crystallized

n

these

two

articlescan

be

traced back

through

everal

earlier

articles

nd

compositions;

but

they

derive

ultimately

rom

the

practices

f

Debussy,

Stravinsky,

Webern

(particularly

n

his

variation

movements),

Varese,

and,

above

all,

Messiaen.

The

philosophical

asis

of

Stockhausen's

hought

reflects

esthetic

deas

implicit

n

twentieth-century

isual,

iterary,

and

filmic

rts

s well.

Stockhausen

rites:

Every resentmomentounts,s wellas no momentt all; a givenmoments

not

merely egarded

s

the

consequence

f the

previous

ne and the

prelude

o

the

coming

ne,

but

as

something

ndividual,

ndependent

nd

centered

n

itself,

capable

of

existing

n its

own. An

instant

oes not

need to be

just

a

particle

of

measured

duration.This

concentration n

the

present

moment

on

every

present

moment

can make

vertical

ut,

s

it

were,

cross

horizontal

ime

perception,xtending

ut to

a

timelessness

call

eternity.

his is

not

n

eternity

that

begins

at

the

end

of

time,

but

an

eternity

hat

s

present

n

every

moment.

I am

speaking

bout musical forms n

which

apparently

no less is

being

under-

taken han

he

explosion

yes

even

more,

he

overcoming

f

the

concept

ofduration.7

5

Texte zur

elektronischen

nd

instrumentalen

Musik,

3 Bde.

(Cologne,

1963-71),

I:

Aufsqitze

952-1962

ur

Theorie des

Komponierens

hereafter

exte

1), pp.

189-210.

6

"Invention

nd

Discovery,"

exte

,

pp.

222-58,

ut

especially p.

250

ff.

7

Texte

I,

p.

199,

trans.

Seppo

Heikinheimo

in his

book

The

Electronic

Music

of

Karlheinz

Stockhausen

(Helsinki,

1972),

pp.

120-21.



5/19

180

The Musical

Quarterly

Since

moment forms

verticalize

time,

render

every

moment a

Now,

avoid functional

implications

between

moments,

and avoid

climaxes,

they

are not

beginning-middle-end

forms.

Although

the

piece

must

start

for

simple

practical

reasons,

it

may

not

begin;

it

must

stop,

but

it

may

not end.

I have

made a

strict ifferenceetween he

concepts

f

"beginning"

nd

"starting,"

"ending"

and

"stopping."

When

saying "beginning,"

imply

a

process,

ome-

thing

hat

rises nd

merges;

when

aying ending"

am

thinking

bout

something

that

ends,

ceases

to

sound,

extinguishes.

he

contrary

s true

with the

words

"start"

nd

"stop,"

which

combine

with

the

concept

of

caesurae

whichdelineate

a

duration,

s a

section,

ut of

a

continuum.

hus

"beginning"

nd

"ending"

are

appropriate

o closed

development

ormswhich have

also

referred

o

as dramatic

forms,

nd

"starting"

nd

"stopping"

re suitable

for

open

moment

forms.

his

is

why

can

speak

about

an

infinite orm

ven

though

performance

s

limited

in

its

duration

because of

practical

easons.8

A

proper

moment form

will

give

the

impression

of

starting

n the

midst of

previously

unheard

music,

and it will break off without

reaching any

structural

cadence,

as

if

the music

goes

on,

inaudibly,

in

some

other

space

or

time

after he

close

of the

performance.

These

ideals are difficult o realize compositionally, speciallythe startthat

does

not sound like

a

beginning.

Several

compositions

that

for other

reasons

deserve to be

considered moment

forms

do not

achieve this

ideal of an endless

eternity.

The

compositional

idea of

endlessness

s

richly suggestive.

Stock-

hausen

writes:

For

me,

every

ttempt

o

bring

a

work

to

a

close

after

certain time becomes

more

and

more forced nd

ridiculous.

am

looking

for

ways

of

renouncing

he

composition f singleworks nd - ifpossible ofworking nlyforwards,nd

of

working

o

"openly"

that

everything

an now be included

n

the task

n

hand,

at once

transforming

nd

being

transformed

y

it;

and

the

questing

of

others

for utonomous

works

ust

seems

o

me

so

much lamour

nd

vapour.9

In his

recent book on

Stockhausen,

Robin

Maconie writes

n a more

craft-oriented

vein

about the

implications

of

closing'

off endless

forms:

Ending

a

permutational

orm

s

nearly always

a matter

of

taste,

not

design.

While the istenermaybe satisfied ith sensation f completion, hecomposer

8

Texte

,

p.

207,

trans.

Heikinheimo,

p.

121-22.

eikinheimo

etains

he

original

Anfang,

eginn,

nde,

and

Schluss

or

which

have substituted

espectively

begin-

ning," starting,"ending,"

nd

"stopping."

9

Quoted

in Karl

H.

W6rner,

Stockhausen:

Life

and

Work,

trans.

Bill

Hopkins

(Berkeley,

973),

p.

110-11.



6/19

Moment

Form

181

knows

that

though

a series

of

permutations

may

eventually

be

exhausted,

it

does

not

automatically

resolve.

The

ending's

essential arbitrariness

has

to be

disguised.10

This

description

applies

to Stockhausen's earlier, nonmoment

per-

mutational forms

in

this

case

the reference is to

Kontra-Punkte);

the advent of

moment

form

came

about

through

the

celebration,

rather

than the

disguise,

of

the

arbitrariness

f

closing

a

permutation-

al form.

By

abruptly

stopping

rather

than

artificially nding,

Stock-

hausen makes

overt

his

reference

to

eternities. Maconie's

description

also

applies aptly

to

Stravinsky's

ymphonies

of

Wind

Instruments:

the

C-major

chorale that

tonally

closes this

otherwise

nontonal

work

is the means bywhichStravinsky isguises the arbitrariness f ending

a

piece

that has

dealt

with neither

tonality

nor

foreground

motion,

but

ratherwith

permutation.

Moments are

defined

as

self-contained

ntities,

capable

of

stand-

ing

on

their own

yet

in

some

sense

belonging

to the

context of

the

composition. They

may

comprise

a

static

entity,

uch as

a

harmony,

that

lasts

throughout

the

moment,

or

they

may

contain

a

process

that

completes

itself

within

the moment.

If a

static

state

or

process

definesthe self-containment f the moment, the order of moments

should

not

matter.

That

the

order

actually

be

arbitrary

s

an

extreme

requirement;

in

many

moment-form

ieces

complete mobility"

(or

even

any

partial

mobility)

of

form

s

avoided.

Nonetheless,

the

order

of

moments

must

appear

arbitrary

for

the work

to

conform

to the

spirit

of

moment form.

This

apparent

arbitrarinesseven

applies

to

the

return of

previous

moments.

Stockhausen

forbids return

in

his

articles,

but

it is

to

be

found in

Kontakte12

nd

more

overtly

n

his

other works. There should be no reason why a previous moment

cannot

return,

provided

such a

return

s

not

prepared

by

a

structural

upbeat

(this

would

render

the return

a

recapitulatory

goal

of

the

previous

moment,

thereby

destroying

ts

self-containment).

For,

if

no

moment

ever

returned,

the

requirement

of

constant

newness

would in

itself

imply

a kind

of

progression,

because the

listener

could

predict

that

the

next

moment

would

always

differ

from

all

previous

moments.

And

progression

s

impossible

in a

pure

moment

form.

If

moments

are

defined

by

internal

consistency,

t

follows

that

to

The

Works

of

Karlheinz

Stockhausen

(London,

1976), pp.

143-44.

11

n

a

mobile form

there

are

several

possible

orders

of

succession of

the

sections

from

which

to

choose

for

a

given

performance.

12

Heikinheimo,

p.

208.



7/19

182

The

Musical

Quarterly

they

can be

of

any

length13

(practically speaking,

from

a few seconds

to

several

minutes).

Thus

proportions

are indeed

important

in

moment-form

ieces.

Global coherence cannot come from

progres-

sion

nor

even,

in most

cases,

from order

of succession.

Nor

can

the

statistical

totality

of

moments

necessarily

be

highly

meaningful

in

those

pieces

that

really

do

suggest

themselves

as

fragments

from an

ongoing

eternity.

But

the nature

of moment

form

suggests

propor-

tional

lengths

of

moments

as

the one

remaining

principle

of formal

coherence. It

is no

surprise,

therefore,

hat Stockhausen

at

times laid

out

his

proportional

schemes

prior

to

deciding

with

what music

to

fill

these emptyforms. (Interestingly, is proportional layoutsoftende-

pend

on the Fibonacci

series,

which

approximates

both a

golden

ratio

and a

3:2

ratio.14

Consider,

for

example,

Adieu,15

Telemusik,"6

Klavierstiick

IX,17

Mikrophonie

II,18

or

Hinab-Hinauf.19

Whether

or

not

a moment-form

omposition

is

formally

atisfying

epends

to

a

large

degree

on the

proportional

lengths

of

moments.

Two

questions

thus

arise:

(1)

Can durational

proportions

be

perceived?

It

is

safe

to

say

that,

when

there

is

no

large

internal

activity

within

sections,

the

objectively

measurable

durations

correspond

to the

perceived

pro-

portions.

However,

I

am

reluctant

to

discuss relative

proportional

weight

in

two

sections

of

a

tonal

piece,

because

those

sections

will

undoubtedly

be

filled

with

various

kinds

of

motion

-

middle-

ground

motion of

voices,

rates

of harmonic

change, varying degrees

of harmonic stability,dissonance resolutions,the whole networkof

structural

upbeats

and

downbeats. This

complex

of

kineticism

in-

fluences

(one

might

say

distorts,

though

surely

in a

positive way)

our

perception

of

time

units.

Furthermore,

s

I

have

shown,20

onal

motion

is not

necessarily

temporally

inear

at all.

The whole

ques-

13

Heikifnheimo,.

192.

14

Kramer,

"The

Fibonacci Series

in

Twentieth

Century

Music,"

Journal

of

Music

Theory,XVII/1 (Spring,

1973),

114-18.

15

bid., pp. 125-26.

16

Maconie,

p.

207.

17

Kramer,

The Fibonacci

Series,"

pp.

121-25.

18

Jonathan

Harvey,

The Music

of

Stockhausen:

An

Introduction

(Berkeley,1975),

p.

96.

19

Maconie,

p.

263.

20

Kramer,

Multiple

and Non-Linear

Time in

Beethoven's

Opus

135,"

passim.



8/19

Moment

Form

183

tion of

proportions

n tonal music as

perceived

is too

complex

to

be

dealt

with

by

objective

measurement.

But,

if

there

is no

motion,

the

problem

evaporates.

The measurable lengthof one staticsection

relates

to that

of

another.

(2)

Is musical staticism an

experiential

possibility?

The

arche-

typal

static

moment

-

a

prolonged

unchanged

sound - is

almost

never

really

encountered.

(La

Monte

Young's

Composition

1960

Number

7,

which

prolongs

B

and

F#

"for a

long

time,"

is a some-

what

special

-

though

not

unique

-

reductio

ad

absurdum.)

But

would even

this

sound

be

experienced

as static? How

long

must

it

go on before the listenergives up expectation of change and enters

a

static

mode

of

perception?

The

answer seems to

depend

on

the

richness of

the

unchanging

sound;

experiments

with

students have

suggested

a threshold of static

perception

at

somewhere

between two

and

three

minutes.

But this is a trivial case.

More

common

are non-

differentiated

yet

subtly

changing

sound worlds: lannis

Xenakis'

Boh6r

I

is

a

prime

example.

We soon

understand

the

very

narrow

limitations

of its sound

world

and

we

stop

expecting

change beyond

those limits. There is motion, but it somehow does not matter- it

is not

perceived

as

change.

I

am not

saying

just

that

changes

are

nondirectional

-

there are

pieces

that

involve directional

changes

that do not

really

matter,

o

that the

experience

is

static

(Les

Mou-

tons

de

Panurge

by

Frederic Rzewski

is

a

good

example).

A

large

part

of

the

answer

has to do with

the absence

of

phrases,

of

altera-

tions

of

density,

or

of

rhythmic

vents

that

might

appear

cadential.

But

I

am

also

saying

that

it is

a

question

of

degree.

The

threshold

of staticismdepends on context: if thereare large contrastsbetween

sections,

a

higher degree

of

internal

motion will

not

disturb

the

perceived

staticism

as

it

would in

situations

where

the

contrasts

between sections are small. This threshold

ultimately

depends

on

the

rate of flow of

information. n

a

given

context a

certain

amount of

new

information

per

unit

time creates

a

static

sensation,

while

more

information

produces

motion.21

My

assertion

that

staticism s

relative to context

is

supported by

stylistically

clectic

music,

such

as William

Bolcom's

Frescoes,

some

of

the music

of Peter

Maxwell

Davies,

George

Rochberg's

Third

Quartet,

or,

to

go

back

to the

source,

several works

of

Ives,

such as

21

For a

very

interesting

nd rather

different iscussion of

musical

staticism,

ee

Thomas

Clifton,

"Some

Comparisons

between

Intuitive

and Scientific

Descriptions

of

Music," Journal

of

Music

Theory,

XIX/1

(Spring, 1975),

96-105.



9/19


10/19

Moment

Form

185

ing

their relative staticism.

The

elegance

of the

temporal

form

is

created

by

a

system

of

proportions

that functions

only

because

the

moments are self-contained. This

system

is not exact, and hence

probably

was

not

consciously

derived,

but

within

the

limits of

per-

ception

it

does

operate.23

The

system

has to

do

mainly

with the

ratio

3:2.

This

proportion

pertains

to

many

important

relationships.

To

demonstrate

this,

I

have

tabulated the

durations

of the

moments

and submoments of

the first alf of the

piece.24

(The

bracketed

num-

bers refer

to

rehearsal numbers

in the

printed

score.)

Moments:

[0]

-

[6]

49.58

[6]

-

[8]

12.22

[8]

-

[9]

7.78

[9]-

[11]

14.17

[11]--[26]

80.00

[26]

-

[29]

22.50

[29]

-

[37]

35.28

[37]- [38] 9.58

[38]

-

[39]

7.50

[39]

-

[40]

10.83

[40]

-

[42]

16.10

231

know of no

psychological

data

that

would

determine

what

degree

of

approxi-

mation of

a

given

duration

proportion

of

moments

s

tolerable. There

is, however,

a

perhaps

not

irrelevant

tudy

by

C.

Douglas

Creelman that

demonstrates

xperimentally

that a

10

percent

or

less deviation

of

duration

in

two

compared

sounds

is not

per-

ceived.

Creelman

uses

durations

only

up

to

2

seconds;

the shortest

moment

in

Sym-

phonies

is

3.61 seconds.

Possibly

the 10

percent

imit also

applies

to

greater

durations;

I

have

kept

my

approximations

ll

well

within this imit.

See C.

D.

Creelman,

"Human

Discrimination of

Auditory

Duration,"

Journal

of

the Acoustical

Society

of

America,

XXXIV

(1962),

582-93.

24

Durations,

shown

in

seconds,

are

calculated from the first

ttack

of a

section

to the first ttack of the next section.Stravinsky'smetronomemarkings re the basis

of the

calculations.

The

fermatavalue is

averaged

from

everal

recordings.

he

decision

about

what

constitutes

moment,

or its

subdivision, submoment,

n this music was

made

on

the

basis

of

degree

of

change

in

tempo, harmony,

and

melodic

material,

with

supporting

data from

timbre

and

texture.

Only

the

first

half

of

the

piece

is

analyzed

here;

the

second

half

uses

a

different

roportional system,

ess

economical

and less

elegant,

but

nonetheless

ppropriate

to moment

form.



11/19


12/19

Moment

Form

187

These

proportions

include

all instances of the

opening

fanfare

mo-

ment

except

its final

appearance

in

[39]

-

[40],

which

is

in a

3:2

ratiowithitssurroundingmoments.

[40]

-

[42]

:

[39]

-

[40]

=

1.49

(adjacent

moments)

[39]

-

[40] : [38]

-

[39]

=

1.44

(adjacent

moments)

The

only

moments

in

the

first

half

of the

piece

not

yet

included in

a

3:2

proportion

are

[6]

-

[8]

and

[8]

-

[9].

[6]

-

[8] : [8]

-

[9] = 1.57 (adjacent moments)

Therefore

every

moment

in the

first

alf

of the

piece

is

involved

in

a

meaningful

3:2

approximation

(meaningful

because

of

adja-

cency

or

because of

similarity

of moment

type),

and

almost

every

moment

containing

submoments

is

partitioned according

to

3:2.

I

find

the

pervasiveness

of this

ratio

impressive.

It

accounts for

the

formal

balance of

the first

alf

of

the

piece.

I

do not

of

course

claim

that we

listen and

say,

"Aha A

3:2

piece."

But

we

surely

do

hear

something

consistent and

elegant

in the

way

the

proportions

relate,

and

the

persistence

of

3:2

explains

such

an

impression.

Stravinsky

learly

discovered

something

mportant

nd

it

received

its

purest

statement

n

Symphonies.

The

techniques

of

this

piece

are

both a

culmination

of

Stravinsky's

arlier

methods and an

anticipa-

tion

of

the

radically

nonlinear

procedures

of

a

younger generation,

in

whose music

moments

are

truly

independent

both

of

each

other

and

of

an

underlying

progressive ogic.

Stravinsky

ubsequently

did

not abandon his explorations of proportioned staticism,any more

than

he

abandoned

radicalism

after

Sacre,

as is

often

charged.

The

techniques

achieved in

Symphonies

suggest

the

procedures, though

not

the

materials,

of

neoclassicism.

Stravinsky

was

now

ready

to em-

brace

the

music most

deeply

involved with

kineticism.

He

was

able

to

strip

tonal

sounds

of

their

kinetic

implications

and to

freeze them

in

motionless

nonprogressions.25

till

there

is a

background

motion

25For an obvious demonstrationof the process of neoclassic staticism,compare

Stravinsky's

1956

"orchestration"

of Bach's

Vom

Himmel

hoch

variations with

the

original.

Bach's

version s

contrapuntally

dense,

yet

the

goal-directed

harmonic motion

is

unmistakable.

Stravinsky, onsidering

triadic

tonality

s a

violable

possibility

rather

than

the

entire

universe of

musical

discourse,

was

able

to

add new

melodic

lines,

stylistically

onsistent

n

themselves

yet

obscuring

the

triadic

orientation

of

the

ver-

ticalities.

The

new

lines,

it

would

seem,

should

increase the

polyphonic

density

and



13/19

188

The

Musical

Quarterly

at

work

the

neoclassic

ieces

have

beginnings,

middles,

nd

ends,

although

hese

estures

re

created

by

other han

tonal-triadic eans.

The musicofneoclassicisms likethat fSymphonies ith n added

complexity:

he material

mplies

a

motion that

never

or

at

least

rarely)

occurs

on

its own level.

There is

irony

n

this music:

the

tonal

materials

uggest

movement,

ut

they

do not

move;

in

the

background

he

pieces

do

move,

but

by

nontonalmeans.

Therefore

travinsky's

ove

nto

neoclassicism as

in

no

way

a

retreat

rom

his

temporal

xplorations.

He

may

have

adopted

the

outlines

f forms hat

originally

ealt with

kineticism,

ut

he often

usedthem s assemblages fstatic r at least self-containedections.

In

his

use

of

onata

form,

or

xample,

he transformed

hetraditional

kinetic ections nto

moments. ecause

of the

reference

o

classical

style,

he

resulting

music is less

aggressively

iscontinuous

n the

surface

han

Symphonies.

ut the

sections

o tend

to

be

defined

y

bounded

processes

r

by

staticharmonies. o

takeone of

many

pos-

sible

examples,

onsider he

first

movement f

the

Sonata for

Two

Pianos,

an

unjustlyneglected

work

dating

from

1943-44.

Here we

findStravinsky'sypical erticalizingf tonalfunctions the open-

ing,

for

xample,

uperimposes

ines

simultaneously

utlining

and

V7

chords),

with he

result hat

he

harmony

s

a

static

omplex

such

writing

sed

to be called

pandiatonic).

he texture

emains s con-

stant

s the

harmony,

ntil

the

bridge

ection

begins

bruptly.

his

section

s a new

staticharmonic

rea,

arriving

withminimal

repara-

tion;

its

texture s also new

and

unprepared.Just

s

suddenly,

he

second

theme

rrives,

which

is

static

by

virtue

of

ostinato

figures.

The exposition ection, hen, s reallya series of three pparently

unrelated

nd

unconnectedmoments

there

are

really

half-hidden

relationships,

s there

re

in

Symphonies).

he

development

ection

is also

a

series

of

moments

of

lesser

duration

o

that

the

increased

rate

of

succession

f static

moments unctions

nalogously

o

the

increased

armonic

hythm

f the

classical

onata's

development),

s

is

the

recapitulation.

he

gentle

natureof thismovement

recludes

extreme

iscontinuitiesike

those

of

Symphonies,

ut

it

is nonethe-

less

a

product

f

the

ame

time

onsciousness.

thus

complicate

the

music,

but in fact

they

almost

freeze the harmonies

and

thereby

simplify

the

situation.

With harmonic

direction

no

longer

a

prime

factor,

there is

actually

less information.

imilar additions

are

made

to

the

originals (thought

to be

by

Pergolesi)

in

Pulcinella,

Stravinsky's

irstneoclassic

effort,

omposed just

prior

to

Symphonies.



14/19

Moment

Form

189

The

composers

working

in

Darmstadt

in

the late

1950s

did

not

realize

that

Stravinsky's

neoclassic

music

continued

the

striking

temporal achievementsof his Russian period. The misguided scorn

that

they

heaped

upon

Stravinsky fortunately

had no

impact

on

either his or their

music. The Darmstadt

musicians

did not

even

realize the

importance

of the

overtly

experimental Symphonies

to

their

aesthetic.

Their

writings

praise

Sacre

as the

source

of

permuta-

tional

and

cellular

rhythms,

et they

turn

to

Debussy's

Jeux,

written

in

1912,

as

the

source

of

moment form. This

work,

in

contrast

to

Symphonies,

was

seminal to the Darmstadt

composers.

Stockhausen

pays homage to it in "Von Webern zu Debussy (Bemerkungen zur

statistischen

Form),"26

Herbert Eimert

analyzes

it in

"Debussy's

Jeux,"27 Boulez

conducts

it,

and

references

o

it

are scattered

hrough-

out the

Darmstadt literature.

The often

fragmentary

nature of the

material,

the

frequent

changes

of

tempo,

the

nondevelopmental

form,

the

transformation

of

material,

the

discontinuities

these

were

the

appealing

features

of

Jeux.

But

it is

really

not a

moment-form

iece.

It

is

highly

sec-

tionalized,

to

be

sure,

but

the sections are

as often n motion towards

other

sections

as

they

are static.

Since motion is

usually

to

or

from

some

place

not

immediately

heard,

the

piece

works as a

nonlinear

progression.

The

sections are

not

self-contained,

ecause

they

point

toward

goals

(or

come

from

sources)

not

within

their

boundaries;

that

these

goals

(or

origins)

do

not

appear

in

adjacent

sections,

and

may

not

appear

at

all

in

the

piece,

renders

the

temporal

world

of

Jeux

complex

and

fascinating.

But

to

move

into the

realm

of

moment

forms

was another

huge

step,

one

that

Debussy

never

took.

This

de-

velopment

was taken

up

by

Stravinsky

nd later

by

Messiaen.

Olivier

Messiaen

began

his

compositional

maturity

under the

influence of

Stravinsky

nd

Debussy,

and

he

eventually

wrote music

of

a

sufficiently

rresting

originality

to

become the father

figure

of

the

Darmstadt

school.

His

music,

then,

is

a

link,

perhaps

an all

too

convenient

link,

between

early

Stravinsky

nd

the Stockhausen

circle.

In

his

early years

Messiaen

toyed

with

the

sonata, but,

like the

neoclassic

Stravinsky,

e

approached

the form s a

static

object

rather

than as a self-motivating rocess. As Robert Sherlaw Johnson says

in

his

comprehensive

book

on

Messiaen,

"He

is

thinking

of the

26

Texte

I,

pp.

75-85.

27

Die

Reihe,

V

(1959),

trans.

by

Leo Black

(1961),

3-20.



15/19

190

The Musical

Quarterly

sonata

sectionally

rather than

organically,

nd,

as

a

result,

the forms

he

derives

from

t

have

very

ittle to

do with

its real

spirit."28

ater

on, his sectionalized formsbecame more organicallycoherent.

In his later works he

musical

thought

ften

demands

sectional reatment.

he

stark

uxtaposition

f ideas

in

earlier

works

ventually

ecomes

sophisticated

n

the

40s with

superimposition

s

well

as

juxtaposition

eing

involved.The

even-

tual outcome

s a refined

ollage

structure uch

as

used

in Couleurs de la Cite

c'leste

[1963],

where not

only

melody

nd

harmony

ut also

rhythm

nd

timbre

interact o

form he total

collage.29

These

sectionalized

collages (in

our

terminology,

moment

forms)

suggest species of musical timequite different rom thatof classical

tonality:

He

arrives t

a

position

which

s

analogous

to Eastern

music

because

of his atti-

tude to

harmony

s a

static

element.

A

sense

of

time,

marked

by

an

evolving

texture,

s

fundamental

o

Bach and

Beethoven,

ut

it has

always

been

Messiaen's

aim to

suspend

the sense

of time

n

music

(except

n

those

works

which re

based

on

birdsong

n

relation

to

nature),

n

order to

express

the

idea

of the

"eternal"

- in

which

time

does not exist

as

distinct

rom he

temporal.30

Embryonic moment forms,adulterated by occasional goal-directed

passages

but

becoming

progressively

more

pure,

can be heard

in

such

pieces

as

L'Ascension

(1931-35),

Visions

de

l'Amen

(1943),

Turan-

galila-Symphonie 1946-48),

and

Cante'odjayd

(1948).

Written

in

1960,

virtually

concurrently

with Stockhausen's

Kon-

takte,

Messiaen's

Chronocromie

is

the

work

in which

the

composer

most

fully

confronts

moment

form.

Gone are the

recapitulations,

cadences,

and structural

downbeats

of

the

earlier

pieces.

Moments

stop ratherthan conclude, and theyare juxtaposed withoutmediat-

ing

transition.

They

are defined

by

a rich

palette

of

textures,

nstru-

mental

colors,

compositional

techniques,

and

in

addition

the use

or

avoidance

of

various

birdcalls.

Proportions

are

important

n the

form,

as are

the

placement

of

particularly

long

and

especially

short

mo-

ments.

And

the

placement

of

returns contributes

to the

overall

coherence,

although

there is

no

feeling

of

prepared

recapitulation.

The

formal

division

into

movements

is

minimal,

since

they

are

played without pause and since some movementscontain but one

moment,

while

others

contain

many.

28

Messiaen

(Berkeley,

975),

pp.

22-23.

29

bid.,

p.

24.

30

bid.,

p.

183.



16/19

Moment Form

191

The

firstmovement

includes

several

moments;

some

are

only

a

few seconds

in

length,

but

none

are

long.

The second movement is

internallyundifferentiated nd it is static. Despite its greaterdura-

tion

(86

seconds),

it, too,

is

a

moment. The

placement

of

the

long

moment

after

a

series

of

shorter

ones is

satisfying.

This

is

one

of

the first

ieces

in which Messiaen

uses metronome

markings,

ndi-

cating

perhaps

a

greater

sensitivity

o the

importance

of exact

pro-

portions

in

an extended

moment

form.)

The

longest

moment

the

sixth

movement)

comes late

in the com-

position

and

thereby

erves

as the

major

focal

point.

Although

theo-

retically a moment form is antithetical to the idea of climax, in

practice composers

gave

up

the

dramatic curve

with

reluctance.3'

We

find

remnants

of it here in the

placement

of this

weightiest

moment

at

the

traditional climax

point;

we

find

t also in

Symphonies,

whose

climax occurs

n

[46]

-

[56].

It

remained

for

the

youngergeneration

to write

totally

antidramatic music

that is faithful to the

moment-

form

idea. The nonclimactic nature

of

a

piece

like

Stockhausen's

Momente

(1960-72),

for

example,

makes

difficult

istening

for

some-

one broughtup on artthatrespectsthe dramatic curve. Of course the

dramatic curve

is

peculiar

to

Western

art;

it

is not

a

universal

of

mankind,

as

Eastern music

readily

demonstrates.32

ence

we

should

not

lament

its

passing;

its

time

has

come

and

gone.

Still,

our

expecta-

tion of

finding

a

dramatic curve is

strong,

and

listening

to

a

pure

moment

form

requires

an

effort,

commitment,

a belief. This

weighty

3' 36"

moment

in

Chronocromie

is

a

dense texture

of bird-

songs,

with

little

internal differentiation

f

the

texture;

there

are no

phrases (phrasestructure,which had provento be themosttenacious

relic of

tonality,

s

overthrown),

and

the moment

finally

breaks

off

rather

than

comes to

any

conclusion.

It

is

a

most obvious self-con-

tained

moment,

and

quite

static;

an undifferentiatedblock whose

main

formal

significance

s

its

duration

and

its

placement

within the

whole.

The

close of Chronocromie

is

a

rather short

moment

that

does

not

cadence

but

rather

drops

away:

an

open

ending, fully

ppropriate

31

For a discussion of the dramatic curve in music and its demise in the twentieth

century,

ee

Barney

Childs,

"Time and

Music: a

Composer's

View,"

Perspectives

of

New

Music,

XV/2

(Spring-Summer, 977).

32

For

an

interesting

iscussion

of

temporality

n certain non-Western

music,

see

Richard

Saylor,

"The

South

Asian

Conception

of Time

and Its

Influence on

Con-

temporary

Western

Composition,"

a

paper

read to

the

American

Society

of

University

Composers,

Boston,

Proceedings

of

the

Annual

Conferences,

ebruary

29,

1976.



17/19


18/19

Moment Form

193

lections;

and

skipped

across:

in

visions of

the future.

Concurrent,

imultaneous

eventscan be

shown

successively,

nd

temporally isjunct

events

simultaneously

-

by double-exposurend alternation;the earlier can appear later, the later

before

ts

time.

This

cinematic

onception

f time

has a

thoroughly

ubjective

nd

apparently

rregular

haracter

ompared

with the

empirical

and

the

dramatic

conception

f the same

medium.34

The

language

and

conventions of

the

film

depend

on

the

splice, just

as

the

discontinuities

of

tape

music

are creations

of

the

razor

blade.

The

profound

temporal

experience

caused

by

the

simple

act of

splic-

ing

deeply

altered the

consciousness of all

composers,

not

only

those

who

work with

tape.

And

the

power

of the

film

splice

-

juxtaposing

standstills, lashbacks, lashforwards,uccessive

simultaneities,

double

exposures

-

scrambles the hitherto

orderly

nd

inviolable

succession

of

time.

Time

is

thus redefined as

a

malleable

Now,

as

an

arbitrary

succession

of

moments.

This new

concept,

born of

technology,

ever-

berated in all

art forms

during

this

century.

Thus

Stravinsky's

1920

masterpiece

s not an

isolated

experiment;

he

was

responding

to new

concepts

of

time

that were

deeply

affecting

he

meaning

of

human

existence,

at

least

in

Western

Europe.

To

what

extent

other

com-

poserswho came to compose momentformswere influencedbyStra-

vinsky's

radical

statement

hardly

matters.

They,

too,

were

reacting

to

increasingly

potent

new

currents

in

Western

thought.

New con-

cepts

of

musical

time

were

well

enough

assimilated to

have

been

articulated

verbally by

1960,

the

year

of

Stockhausen's first

rticle on

moment

form.

His

polemical

stance

may

sound

as

if

he is

proposing

an

original

musical

form,

but

he

is

in

fact

providing

a

rational

frame-

work

within

which to

deal with

a

species

of

musical

time

that

had

been practiced forsome fortyyears.Stockhausen makes clear, as do

the

most

successful

moment-form

compositions,

that

that

species

of

time

deals with

the

isolated

moment

as

an

eternal

Now.

As Arnold

Hauser

has

aptly

said:

The

time

experience

f the

present ge

consists

bove

all

in an

awareness

f the

moment

n

whichwe

find

ourselves: n

an

awareness f

the

present.

Everything

topical,

contemporary,

ound

together

n

the

present

moment s

of

special signi-

cance and

value

to the

man

of

today,

nd,

filled

with this

dea,

the

mere

fact of

simultaneitycquiresnewmeaning n his eyes. ... Is one not in everymoment

of

one's

life the

same

child

or the

same

invalid

or the

same

lonely

stranger

with

the

same

wakeful,

ensitive,

nappeased

nerves?

s

one

not

in

every

ituation

of

34

The

Social

History

of

Art,

Vol.

IV,

trans.

tanley

Godman

(New

York,

958),

239,

241.



19/19

194

The Musical

Quarterly

life

the

person

capable

of

experiencing

his

nd

that,

who

possesses,

n

the recur-

ring

features f

his

experience,

he one

protection

gainst

the

passage

of

time?

Do not all our experiences ake place as it were at the same time?And is this

simultaneity

ot

really

he

negation

f

time?

And

this

negation,

s

it not

a

struggle

forthe

recovery

f that

nwardness

f

which

physical pace

and

time

deprive

us?35

35

Hauser,

V, 243,

45.

moment form in twentieth century music

Documents