Beyond Simplicity Analytical Strategies for Contemporary Music
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Beyond Simplicity Analytical Strategies for Contemporary Music Daniel March D.Phil University of York Department of Music July 1997 Abstract Focusing on a repertoire which has often been dismissed for its apparent simplicity, this thesis indicates appropriate strategies for analytical study of this significant body of contemporary music, often termed 'minimalist' or 'post-minimalist', but in fact escaping any such easy classification. Traditional analytical approaches have most usually failed to account successfully for this music, concentrating on the more obvious aspects of its construction and ignoring the complexities that arise when perceived. As a result, the current approach marks an explicit turning towards a consideration of effect, capturing the ways in which different parameters interact and how traditional models of expectation are subverted. Viewed as the means of refining the intentional representation of an individual piece of music, analysis is reinscribed within a cultural network of understanding, both losing its pretence of objective formalism, and gaining a particular and well-defined role within a contemporary musicological context. The evolution of a number of different strategies is a response both to deconstructive and postmodern approaches to text, a recognition of the multiplicity inherent in the repertoire involved, and a general avoidance of clearly theoretical orientations for a more ad hoc process. Situated within discussion both of analytical considerations in general and of this repertoire in particular, the analyses of seven representative pieces of music considerably extend those that have been offered previously. Approaches adopting different aspects of deconstruction are used for discussion of music by Ligeti, Nyman and Andriessen, displaying a number of 'Disorderings' of traditional concepts of how music behaves; further analyses of pieces by Feldman, Reich, Skempton and Monk place greater emphasis on aspects of sound. Illustrating in concrete terms the application of the analytical understanding evolved earlier, these various strategies mark an extension and deepening of the conceptual framework within which this music is usually considered. 2 Table of Contents Preface 5 Acknowledgements 8 Chapter 1 Simplicity in Theory Asking the Question 9 Posing the Problem 12 Approaches to Analysis 18 Disorderings 36 Chapter 2 1. Towards Analysis The Resistance to Analysis 37 Techniques and Strategies 43 'Long, Slow and Quiet' 53 2. Reasserting the Temporal: Gyorgy Ligeti's First Piano Étude (1985) Analytical Context 60 Disordering Désordre 64 Chapter 3 Crossing the Borders: Michael Nyman's MGV(1993) The Infinite Context 82 Analytical Points of Departure 86 Segmentation 90 Foreground and Background 93 Motivic Process / Development 103 Harmonic Articulation 110 Emergence of Overall Form 116 Re-Context 122 Chapter 4 Past, Presence and Absence: Louis Andriessen's De Stiji (1985) Past and Presence 125 Models and Figures 129 Overall Form 133 Make-up of Material 139 Over-running the Structural 151 Past and Absence 156 3 Soundings 165 Chapter 5 Hearing the Wood for the Trees: Morton Feldman's Three Voices (1982) Analytical Issues and Procedures 166 Large-scale Form 169 Segmentation of Material 176 Words 186 Repetition and Variation / Reiteration and Change 191 Between Categories 199 Chapter 6 Listening Through a Gradual Process: Steve Reich's Four Organs (1970) Process and Product 203 Systems and Material 206 Hearing the Changes 214 Process and Sonority 217 Chapter 7 Variations on a Theme: Howard Skempton's The Durham Strike (1985) Sections and Categories 221 Analytical Strategy 225 Ambiguity and Interplay 242 Chapter 8 Consistency, Contradiction and the uses of Confusion: Meredith Monk's Arctic Bar (1990) Score and Performance 247 Types of Material and Process 250 Musical Layers and Aspects of Consistency 254 Combinations and Contradictions 262 Expectation and Confusion 265 The Voice and the Intangible 269 Chapter 9 Afterwards 273 Appendix 1: Graphic Representation of Four Organs 280 Appendix 2: Transcribed Score of Arctic Bar 283 List of Primary Materials 286 Bibliography 288 4 Preface The title of this study, Beyond Simplicity, represents a deliberate reference to Edward Cone's now famous article, 'Beyond Analysis' written some thirty years ago (Cone 1967); despite Jonathan Dunsby's characterisation of this notion as being 'quite a hoary old idea' (Dunsby 1995: 134), Cone's consideration of what is, in his terms, beyond analysis still indicates a number of the starting points for the current examination of analytical strategies applied to a significant body of contemporary music. Cone takes as an example a serial composition, and asks whether a retrograde version remains equally valid, since it may be considered 'analytically' equivalent; as far as a composer's initial choices are concerned, 'they are so fundamental... as to belong.., among its basic assumptions. They are determined by what may be called absolute decisions, i.e. decisions for which no adequate analytical reasons can ever be adduced' (Cone 1967: 43). However, as David Lewin has pointed out, there seems to be a confusion here between Theory and Analysis, and although the two are not wholly separable, he does reinscribe some difference between them in the application to Cone's particular problem: 'analysis certainly can tell the difference between up and down, sooner and later, even if serial theory can't (yet)' (Lewin 1969: 67). This view of analysis tacitly places emphasis on consideration of effect rather than simply of structure, and this distinction is fundamental within the current study. The repertoire which is considered here has generally been badly served by analytical reflection. One of the main contentions of this study is that this music may be 'rescued' for such reflection, partially though a rehabilitation of analysis within a context which places much greater importance on effects rather than structures. This emphasis, which involves a more critical approach, also marks a move away from seeing analysis as a reflection purely of 'what is there in the music', toward considering whether the structures which are observable make any effect on the aural level, and how this is achieved. Within Cone's terminology, this means that very little remains 'beyond analysis'; instead, as Arnold Whittall has commented, 'perhaps we should think of things which are beyond singular analysis rather than beyond any kind of analysis' (in Dunsby 1995: 134). An important aspect of this process is how the type of analysis which is 5 discussed and practised here does not seek to provide a singular explication of a piece of music, but rather to capture something of the multi-dimensional way in which it is perceived, and to inscribe a particular hearing within a more general currency of understanding and listening. For the current repertoire this means avoiding lapsing into generalisations and assumptions regarding which features of the music are either the most conducive to analytical discussion, and therefore 'important', or are insignificant and 'merely trivial'; as a model of analytical rectitude this is hardly controversial, but there is a tendency when discussing the most recent music, and particularly the range of styles considered here, to suspend such considerations. The indication of a number of 'analytical strategies' within the title is a part of the recognition that the requirements of the music indicate a much less rigid approach than the establishment of a new, distinct methodology; the status and analytical reach of these strategies will become clear through the current study, and they are inserted at a particular point within contemporary considerations of approaches to the study of 'texts'. Although it has become fashionable in recent times to talk about numerous disciplines as 'modes of writing', here this aspect of the analytical process is emphasised. As a result, what may be viewed as the 'rhetorical' dimension of the analyses becomes increasingly important. In analytical contexts which view the process as recording levels of objective knowledge, the particular situation of the analyst within the text, and the textual strategies employed, are considered as a marginal aspect; with a slightly different orientation, such as that adopted here, the persuasive elements gain greater weight, and the process of writing is seen very much as a part of the analysis itself.' This emphasis means that the analyses presented here explore a wide variety of approach, and manner of presentation, again reasserting the multiplicity of the strategies used, a multiplicity which seems better to reflect the profusion of styles that contemporary music offers. In this, the current study marks a deliberate response to the often-discussed 'simplicity' of much of the music upon which it reflects. This response is situated at a particular position within the discipline, and endeavours to move past the analytical impasse that often seems to block acceptance of this repertoire. In considering issues such as the multiplicity of analytical approach within more general concerns of discourse within the humanities, as well as inscribing a number of these pieces within a complex For a consideration of the way in which what Marion Guck calls 'analytical fictions' evolve, even within 'objective' accounts, see Guck l994a. 6 network of contemporary ideas, these analyses represent an extension of the conceptual framework within which this music is most often considered.