Maja Trochimczyk From Circles to Nets: Thornton School of Music University of Southern California Los Angeles, California 90089-0851, USA On the Signification of [email protected] Spatial Sound Imagery in New Music As Bas van Fraassen observes in his introduction to Escape. the philosophy of time and space, ‘‘with respect to The flight engenders a vertigo of multiple else- space, it is not easy to make a plausible prelimi- wheres. nary list of basic relations’’ (van Fraassen 1985). Here . There . (Dhomont 1991) And yet we try: the number of studies of spatial Espace/Escape brings together the immensity and topics has gradually increased with the ever- intimacy of the human experience of space. Sounds growing variety of thematic subcategories and from various acoustic environments, ranging from types of approaches. In the domain of music, theo- a bird’s cage (the flutter of wings) to an airport rists like to discuss ‘‘musical space,’’ usually equat- lobby (the muffled din of footsteps and conversa- ing it with a two-dimensional pitch-time space, not tions and the noise of the airplanes’ engines) are the space of performance (e.g., Kurth 1969, origi- juxtaposed with synthetic sonorities in complex, nally published 1931; Bernard 1983, 1987; Lerdahl evolving formations that defy description. This in- 1988; cf. Harley 1994a). In the area of electroacous- stance of contemporary musique concre`te draws tics, we deal with sound projection spaces and from the acoustic physicality of human life and composed spaces, the latter being integral to the from the exploration of spatial dimensions of compositions themselves. Still different types of sounds possible in acousmatic projection, ‘‘the di- spatial imagery are represented by sonorities or mensions of volume, of near and distance, of front hinted at by the works’ titles (e.g., Krzysztof and back, left and right’’ (Gue´rin 1991). Penderecki’s Dimensions of Time and Silence, 1961; Witold Lutosławski’s Les espaces du som- meil, 1975; Kaija Saariaho’s Lichtbogen, 1985– Spatial Designs 1996; Joan La Barbara’s Space Testing, 1977). In other words, there are a plurality of ‘‘spaces’’ Space may be experienced only in time, and time that might be associated with music. An insight only in space. It is important to note that music into this diversity of spaces is provided by Francis drawing the space of performance into the realm of Dhoˆ mont’s poetic program notes for his electro- meaningful elements, that is, ‘‘spatial or spatialized acoustic composition Espace/Escape (1989), which music,’’ is really ‘‘spatio-temporal’’ and not ‘‘spa- has the word ‘‘space’’ in its title and explores the tial.’’ The categories of spatialization may seem to associative and symbolic aspects of space and belong outside of time, but their realization is al- movement: ways temporal. For instance, the perceptual experi- ence of musical layers originating from different Space. spatial locations involves the awareness of their Open, intimate, confused spaces. Broken succession and simultaneity. Several factors have a spaces, whirling. bearing on the classification of musical-spatial de- Indecisive edges of the space. signs (see Table 1). Firstly, these designs are not Space-refuge, enclosed, maternal, space of rem- purely geometrical as they are realized in sound. iniscence and of associations. ‘‘Space’’ in music is neither empty, nor absolute, Tumult or murmur in the space of a thousand nor homogeneous; it is revealed through the spatial reflections. attributes of sound matter. Secondly, the human auditory perspective constitutes an essential ele- Computer Music Journal, 25:4, pp. 39–56, Winter 2001 ment of spatial arrangements. If, for instance, ᭧ 2001 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. groups of musicians are scattered in the hall, their Trochimczyk 39 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/01489260152815288 by guest on 28 September 2021 Table 1. General classification of spatial designs Acoustic environments Enclosed space of the concert hall Enclosed space of any other kind Open air (different acoustic backgrounds) Variable space (mobile performers and audiences) Private, virtual space (headphones) Sound-space types Real sound-space (with vocal-instrumental sound sources) Virtual sound-space (with electroacoustic sound sources) Mixed sound-space (with sound sources of both kinds) Categories of mobility Static performers and static audience Mobile performers with static audience Static performers with mobile audience Mobile performers and mobile audience distribution among listeners is more important per- able for experimental music in which all conven- ceptually than their exact balance of timbre and tions and limits are contested. At the other volume. The performance and perception of spatial- extreme, that is, in conventional concert music, ized music takes place within certain acoustic en- the spatial character of compositions in which the vironments, and the choice of these conditions musicians are placed traditionally on the stage may may be part of a composition. Moreover, even the be easily overlooked. Obviously, works in which same acoustic environment may be perceived from the orchestra is split into several separate ensem- different auditory perspectives that vary because of bles are spatialized. However, it may suffice to the mobility of performers and listeners. have a large number of divisi parts (as in Ligeti’s From the acoustic point of view, there is a differ- micropolyphony) to obtain a spatial texture, ex- ence if one listens to music in a concert hall, any tended and varied within the confines of the stage. other space, such as that of the home, during an In Ligeti’s micropolyphony, the sonorities are si- open-air concert, while changing one’s surroundings, multaneously ‘‘quasi-spatial’’ (i.e., they are extended or via headphones. If such an environment is speci- in pitch/time space, from the lowest to the highest fied by the composer who forbids the performance sounds played simultaneously), and they are ‘‘spa- of the music otherwise, it belongs to the composi- tial’’ (i.e., they are extended on the concert stage, re- tion. Examples of this type of spatialization may be sounding from a three-dimensional section of the found in works by John Tavener (the requirement of hall). When writing for orchestra on the stage and a at least 6 sec of reverberation for Ultimos Ritos, large number of performers, e.g., orchestras or 1972) and R. Murray Schafer (see Harley 1997b, choirs, composers are actually using the perfor- 1998b). mance space to create sonorities that are spatially Another aspect of musical spatiality, the mobil- extended in a physical sense. (There is a perception ity of the performers or audiences, is frequently of the ‘‘width’’ of sound, as well as—for listeners lo- problematic. The wealth of possibilities created cated closer—its ‘‘depth’’.) This physical spatiality is here is limited by the theatrical character of the not indicated in the score of a work written for div- performer’s movement in music. When the impor- isi instrumentalists, as it is taken for granted. tance of the musicians’ actions overshadows that of Postwar avant-garde composers were preoccupied the sonorous results of these actions, music is with geometric abstraction (in an anti-romantic transformed into musical theatre. Therefore, the vein) and with suffusing such abstract designs with movement of the audience forms a category of spa- a secular mysticism (e.g., Xenakis 1971). The new tialization rarely employed in the concert hall. The sound material was imagined as objective and rigid noisy informality of mobile listeners is more suit- ‘‘matter’’ devoid of all mutability of emotion— 40 Computer Music Journal Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/01489260152815288 by guest on 28 September 2021 Table 2. From point to sphere: positions of the performers forming simple geometric patterns, with representative compositions Point Any music for a centrally located, stationary soloist (e.g., an instrumentalist or singer) Line Segment Ton de Leeuw’s Car nos vignes sont en fleur (1981) for 12 voices in a linear arrangement on the stage Two Line Segments Two groups facing each other from a distance in Louis Andriessen’s Hoketus (1975) Triangle Three instrumental ensembles in Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gruppen of (1955–1957) or in Iannis Xenakis’s Alax (1985) Square Four choirs in Stockhausen’s Carre´ (1959–1960; see Figure 3); also a diamond shape, such as the three wind bands and a steel drum ensemble in Henry Brant’s Hidden Hemisphere (1992) Hexagon Six percussionists in Xenakis’s Persephassa (1969) Circle See the list in Table 3 Cube Julio Estrada’s Canto Naciente (1975–1978) for eight brass instruments Sphere Stockhausen’s Spiral (1970) for one performer, to be played inside the spherical pavilion in Osaka with electroacoustic sound projection in space lines, blocks, volumes, and sound masses (Rochberg perceived as if it resounded from a point (i.e., as if 1963; Harley 1998a). Interestingly, Henry Brant, an it were purely temporal, with a spatial dimension American composer of ‘‘spatial music,’’ had little of zero), to the full three-dimensionality of sounds appreciation for such geometry in sound: surrounding the listeners from all sides. (Table 2 presents a selection of examples; for a study fully Ideas of that kind seem to me more an expres- based on the growth of dimensions ‘‘from point to sion of hope than of reality. It is hard sphere,’’ see Harley 1993.) Because the point has no enough to make the sounds do what you want volume, it is bodiless; it may easily represent the ‘‘in sound’’ without saying that the sound situation in which the spatiality of music is irrele- should be shaped like a pretzel or something vant. The sphere symbolizes the opposite. Here, like that (Brant 1992; see Harley 1997a). music is perceived in the entirety of its spatial– Spatial designs based on sound location in the temporal presence surrounding the listeners with a performance space may be classified on the basis of multidirectional pattern of sounds.