Recognising Absurdity Through Compositional Practice Comparing an Avant-Garde Style with Being Avant Garde
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Recognising Absurdity Recognising Absurdity through Compositional Practice Comparing an Avant-Garde Style with being avant garde Critical Commentary on the Portfolio of Original Compositions Alannah Marie Halay Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds, School of Music September, 2016 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Alannah Marie Halay to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2016 The University of Leeds and Alannah Marie Halay i Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors Prof Martin Iddon and Dr Mic Spencer for their supervision during the past three years, and especially Martin for introducing me to the work of Brecht, Dahlhaus, Freud, Gadamer, Hegel, Heidegger, Plato, and those that, although not mentioned explicitly in this thesis, have affected its research. I would like to thank Sarah Hall and Julia Zupancic for helping form the School of Music’s Adorno Reading Group and for our discussions about Adorno and his writings, and Michael D. Atkinson for introducing me to the work of Camus, Marx, and the Situationists. I would also like to thank Bryn Harrison for discussing over email his work on repetition, and for providing some of his musical scores and written texts on repetition (the work of Bryn Harrison is mainly discussed in Chapter III of this thesis). Finally, I offer my thanks to Samuel Halay for making the iPhone app that is used in the composition Interstice (2013–present), which is discussed in Chapter V of this thesis. I would also like to offer my gratitude to the following performers and ensembles for performing and workshopping the music in this thesis: LSTwo Ensemble (conducted by Mic Spencer); percussion ensembles of the Musikhochschule Freiburg and the University of Leeds; the Yorkshire Young Sinfonia (conducted by Tom Hammond); ensemble Trio Layers; the University of Leeds Flute Ensemble; clarinettist John Pearmain and the Leeds University Union Music Society; Discord; cellist Ellen Fallowfield; double-bassist Dario Calderone; cellist Katharina Gross. I would also like to thank the ‘Centre Stage’ Concert Series for giving me the opportunity to perform some of the pieces in this thesis; the Gaudeamus Muziekweek Academy for the opportunity to attend their summer school where some of the work in this thesis was workshopped. Last but by no means least, I would also like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for funding this PhD. ii iii Abstract ‘avant garde’ and ‘Avant Garde’: one term denotes artistic progression, the other describes a fixed concept. These terms are easily and often confused, and this contributes to blurring the boundaries between being progressive and adhering to a style. Unknowingly adhering to the Avant-Garde style, under the false guise of being ‘new’, perpetuates a Sisyphean nature in Avant-Garde practice today. Such practice has become inward-looking, separated from the majority of society, and therefore fails to be the ‘advance post’ it proclaims. In Camus’s terms, this is absurd. Rather than proving and accepting this absurdity, I explore the unfolding of such absurdity through compositional practice, and attempt to avoid it. This involves recognising the absurdity (and maintaining an awareness of it) as well as examining and comparing the mechanics behind the formation of the Avant-Garde style with being avant garde by way of an introspective examination of my compositional process. This practice-led method is supported by theoretical, musicological, and analytical research into existing practice. My research is supplemented by the following topics: Meno’s paradox; Heidegger’s hermeneutic framework as a development of Meno’s paradox; Adorno’s notion of naïveté; détournement as a means of recognising absurdity through practice. Examining my own compositional process, in relation to existing practice, allows me to propose that the Avant-Garde style is based on two interacting hermeneutic frameworks between ‘unfamiliarity’ and ‘familiarity’, and creative ‘freedom’ and ‘restriction’. If one is to overcome these frameworks and be genuinely avant garde, subversion of technique cannot be an end in itself but should support the truth content of a musical work; this is because a musical work is defined by its context more than its constituent musical characteristics. Subversion must happen in relation to the context of a composition, not the composition itself. Adherence to an Avant-Garde context, perpetuated by the expectations of practitioners with a knowledge of that context, prevents compositional practice from moving beyond that context and being genuinely avant garde. All one can do now is recognise this absurdity. This is not a solution, but should pave the way for future developments in this area. For now, ‘there is no longer any art that has remained inviolable.’1 1 Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, trans. by Robert Hullot-Kentor (London: Continuum, 2012), p. 432 iv v Table of Contents Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... i Abstract ..................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ....................................................................................................... v List of Figures ........................................................................................................... ix List of Examples ........................................................................................................ x List of Tables .......................................................................................................... xiii List of Compositions ................................................................................................ xv List of Recordings .................................................................................................. xvii Introduction: ‘avant garde’ and ‘Avant Garde’ ......................................................... 1 Methodology ....................................................................................................... 16 An overview of Investigations in Chapters I–V .................................................. 16 Conclusion to the Introduction ............................................................................ 18 Literature Review: Absurdity versus Naïveté .......................................................... 21 Chapter I: Observing the Mechanics of an Avant-Garde Style ............................... 29 Aim .................................................................................................................. 29 Method ............................................................................................................ 29 Prediction ........................................................................................................ 29 Style 1: The Interlocutor (2014) for ensemble ................................................ 30 Style 2: Graphite Pendulum (2014) for solo clarinet in B and fixed-media electronics ....................................................................................................... 34 Style 3: Air, Earth, Water, Fire (2015) for orchestra...................................... 36 Evaluation ....................................................................................................... 39 Chapter II: Manipulating the Mechanics of an Avant-Garde Style ......................... 41 Aim ...................................................................................................................... 41 Method ................................................................................................................ 41 Prediction ............................................................................................................ 41 vi Attempt 1: Parallax Error (2014) for any four-string bowed instrument .......... 42 Attempt 2: ‘It sounds an isochronism.’ (2015) for solo piano and optional fixed- media electronics ................................................................................................. 48 Evaluation ........................................................................................................... 52 Chapter III: The Compositional Act and the Musical Work ................................... 55 Aim...................................................................................................................... 55 Method ................................................................................................................ 55 Prediction ............................................................................................................ 56 [Co]Valence Ia (2014) for String Quartet ........................................................... 56 [Co]Valence Ib, Ic, and Id (2014), for String Quartet ........................................ 59 [Co]Valence I (2014) for string quartet: Conclusions ........................................ 66 [Co]Valence II: 144 musical fragments for flautist(s) (2016)