IDEAS OF TIME IN MUSIC Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies Faculty of Arts University of Helsinki Finland Marianela Calleja IDEAS OF TIME IN MUSIC A Philosophico-logical Investigation Applied to Works of Alberto Ginastera (1916–1983) ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be presented with the permission of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Helsinki, for public examination in Auditorium XII, University main building, on 28th June 2013, at 12 noon. Studia Musicologica Universitatis Helsingiensis Eero Tarasti, Editor Volume 24 Marianela Calleja IDEAS OF TIME IN MUSIC A Philosophico-logical Investigation Applied to Works of Alberto Ginastera (1916–1983) Studia Musicologica Universitatis Helsingiensis 24 ISSN 0787-4294 ISBN 978-952-10-8992-3 (paperback) ISBN 978-952-10-8993-0 (PDF) © Marianela Calleja Cover: Xul Solar, Cinco melodías (1949). With the kind authorisation of the Xul Solar Museum of Buenos Aires. Scores of Alberto Ginastera used by permission of Boosey & Hawkes, USA. Studia Musicologica Universitatis Helsingiensis 24 Printed by Hakapaino Oy, Helsinki 2013 ABSTRACT This thesis proposes temporal conceptions that stem from philosophical inquiry, such as linear time, cyclical time and branching time, to then find a connection with the way music is structured and with musical meaning. I consider ontological and phenomenological approaches to the problem of time and music in order to demonstrate this. The central aim of this investigation is to build bridges and dissolve the opposition between time ‘taken’ (clock time) vs. time ‘evoked’ (conceptual time) in studies on time and music. Lewis Rowell, Jonathan Kramer, Jos Kunst and Alan Marsden’s contributions are going to be taken as the main references. I consider the ontological approach as extremely literal since linearity, circularity and branching time are not explored there as concepts defining the meaning of music, but as abstract orders in time for music being processed, viewed from an exclusively technical point of view. In turn, the phenomenological approach does not generally link music to philosophical developments, it just describes general cultural conceptions of time. This thesis interprets the temporal modes of the phenomenological approach as highly coincident with the temporal ontologies in the ontological approach, as seen through developments in temporal logic. Temporal logic, a branch of the classical logic, is used as a methodological trigger. Here the work of Arthur Prior is going to be taken as reference. Temporal logic first formalises, then clarifies, and finally validates assertions expressing temporal beliefs. The hypothesis of this thesis, that temporal conceptions are expressed through music, having in this case the power to explain at least its primary meaning, uses temporal logic as a bridging symbolism. In this sense, a comparison between music and language within a broader analysis is undertaken, before developing ideas of logic and temporal logic within musical practice. In particular, in my study of some works by the Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera (1916–1983), I illustrate the idea of a multi-temporality, i.e. the same composer works with several time structures already available by a cumulative process in the history of ideas. The thesis finds there is a special type of time in music─neither an exclusive ‘musical time’ as a totally separate time species; nor ‘Time’ in music, in an abstract de- subjectified view. Thus, a cooperative, synthetic position is defended. Secondly, music represents by means of its distinct elements something inherent to itself, which links with concepts of time (ideas), and by using these elements in certain conventional ways, displays culturally conditioned temporal meanings. Thirdly, music displays a kind of temporal logic, although an extended view comparing it with the exclusively linear logic of music as conceived by the formalist tradition in musicology. It is also an aesthetically oriented approach different from the temporal logic as applied in literal representations of music in computing areas. Finally, I argue for a new musical temporal mode, the actual branched time in music (in the sense of parallel times), through the addition of a theoretical background for this mode in musicological studies. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis was born from the confluence of many factors. In 2003 I was accepted as a postgraduate student at the University of Helsinki, Finland, where I began my doctoral studies. My sudden move to the North was motivated by two facts: firstly, the direction of the Department of Musicology, that encouraged working allowing discussions concerning philosophical issues jointly with traditional musicological studies. Secondly, I was interested in the activities of the Department of Philosophy, specially their tradition in Analytical Philosophy. I studied Philosophy from 1996 to 2001 at the Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS) of Bahía Blanca, Argentina. During that period, I was particularly interested in metaphysical issues, specifically the topics of space and time, and also in rational approaches to aesthetics. As a musician, and parallel to this academic education, I was a student of classical guitar at the Conservatory of Bahía Blanca. A way of combining my apparent ‘double life’ was to write a doctoral work about music and time or how music can be analyzed as an organism logically designed in time. I am profoundly grateful to all those who helped me to make this real, in one or another sense: affective, moral, intellectual, and economical. Thanks to Dr. Cynthia Grund and Dr. Rubén López Cano, for your suggestions that so much enriched the whole message I wanted to convey in this work. Both of you are models of dedication and thorough scientific work. Thanks to Dr. Eero Tarasti, Director of the Department of Musicology, for his acceptance as a doctoral student in the department, for his creation of an international team of researchers, for fomenting new ideas and openness in discussion, and for his close support especially during the first stages of my doctoral studies and now at the end of the process. Thanks to Dr. Alfonso Padilla, Docent at the Department of Musicology, who decisively intervened for my attendance at the University of Helsinki and took care of the integrity of my status in Finland, becoming a tutor from the very basic details up to those specific of scientific research. I am indebted for his constant guidance and advice, supervision through attentive reading and compromise with research. To Dr. Gabriel Sandu, Professor at the Department of Philosophy, I express my gratitude for encouraging me to reach the limits of knowledge everytime, for his respect towards scientific work, his careful critical position and guidance during all the central process of studies. Thanks to the first English reviser Professor Hernán Mouro, old friend and colleague in Argentina who deciphered and corrected my ‘Span-glish’. Thanks to the second reviser Anthony Shaw from Finland, who did essential work so my thesis could be presented in a correct language. Thanks to the whole Department of Musicology. Thanks to Irma Vierimaa, our permanent study secretary, for your beloved patience and peaceful energies. Thanks to Paul Forsell, working on the important task of editing our research results, always diligent and friendly. Thanks Jaakko Tuohiniemi, for your effectiveness in such important task as librarian, always ready to respond. Thanks to Erja Hannula, when she was temporary our study secretary, and for the nice moments we shared in Vironkatu 1, 2b. Thanks to my friend and colleague Riitta Rainio: I would know much less about Finland and the Finnish without your company. I will never forget our deep discussions on scientific work, and all kinds of exchanges from which I learned from you how to face life in the North and in any place of the world. Thanks to those degree students who came and took part of the study circle I guided and left questions for me to solve. Finally, thanks specially to the Latin American Seminar for Musicological Studies (LASM), a fraternal meeting whose preoccupation was the common advance of our studies and, with it, the advance of musicological studies in our own fields. Gracias Camilo Pajuelo, Rafael Junchaya, Mercedes Krapovickas, Sergio Natali, Grisell Mc Donald, Gabriel Pareyón. My special thanks to friend and colleague Clara Petrozzi. Thanks to the foundations CIMO, Niilo Helander, Jenny ja Antti Wihuri, and the financial support of the University of Helsinki. Thanks Boosey & Hawkes editions, for providing me the rights for publishing Ginastera’s extracts of scores. Thanks to the authorities of the library in the National Institute for Musicology, “Carlos Vega” in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for gently providing all the necessary sources. Finally, thanks to the Xul Solar Museum of Buenos Aires, for allowing me to use their picture as a cover for this thesis. Also thanks to our Argentinian friends in Finland, a substitute family who helped at all levels. Warmly thanks to Patricia Roppel and Fernando Gregorio. Thanks to our friends from Finland and surroundings, such rich alchemy we created. To my music and guitar students in Finland, they connected me with musical practice, of which I was so much deprived during the time of writing a doctoral thesis. And finally, thanks to our neighborhood of Malminkartano, which worked as a perfect frame for our family life. Finally, kiitos paljon to Finland as a country, its generosity and fresh atmosphere (indeed!). I learned from this country and people a very important chapter on strength, austerity, and prudence I will never forget. Thanks for the necessary silence of winters, and the brightness of summers I will ever in life remember as a miracle. In Argentina, I would like to thank firstly my mother, Professor Lidia Azpiroz, who motivated me from my youth in philosophical and logical questions. I thank Professor María José Lopetegui for later continuing to nourish my passion for philosophy. Also I would like to express my deepest acknowledgment to Dr.