A chameleon called musical time: Some observations about time and musical time Thomas Reiner In The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann asks begin but merely starts. It does not build to a about the possibility of narrating time and gives an climax, does not purposefully set up internal example from music as part of his answer: expectations, does not seek to fulfill any expec- tations that might arise accidentally, does not Can one tell-that is to say, narrate-time, time build or release tension, and does not end but itself, as such, for its own sake? That would simply ceases.' surely be an absurd undertaking. A story which read: 'Time passed, it ran on, the time flowed Elaborating on the feeling of timelessness, onward' and so forth-no one in his senses Kramer states that it could consider that a narrative. It would be as though one held a single note or chord for a can be aroused not only by music but also whole hour, and called it music.' through other artforms, certain mental illnesses, dreams, unconscious mental processes, drugs, A single harmony is sustained for approximately and religious rituals. Vertical music does not 70 minutes in Stimmung, a work which Karlheinz create its own temporality but rather makes Stockhausen wrote in 1968. The work's title has contact with a deeply human time sense that is oflen denied in daily living (at least in Western several meanings and could be translated as tun- cultures). The significance of vertical composi- ing, intonation, atmosphere, or mood. The vocal- lions, and of many modernist anworks, is that ists in this composition sing the second, third, they give voice to a fundamental human experi- fourth, fifth, seventh, and riinth overtones of the ence that is largely unavailable in traditional fundamental note B flat. Because of its static Western music4 harmony, Stimmung has a meditative character Stockhausen's Stimmung can be compared with which is more readily associated with Eastern the prelude to Wagner's Das Rheingold. As with culture than with the Western tradition of goal- Stimmung ,the parameter of harmony remains fixed: directed, developmental music. This is not sur- a single E flat major chord is held throughout the prising, considering that Stockhausen's music and 136 bars of the prelude. One may ask whether this writings reflect in many ways the cultural and presents another example of vertical music. The intellectual climate of the 1960s. He certainly was music of the prelude is vertical in the sense that not alone in his interest in Eastern philosophies and there is a lack of harmonic development, but in religions. terms of rhythm and timbre it is developmental: a Thomas Mann-in his time-would most likely continuous increase in rhythmic activity is com- have ascribed Stimmling to someone out of his bined with a timbral crescendo (the continuous senses. Even today, the work's lack of ham~onic addition of new instrumental colours within the change could result in 70 minutes of boredom for overall texture). In other words, the prelude con- the unsympathetic listener. For others, Stimrnurzg tains elements of linearity that are simultaneous might invoke a feeling of timelessness-an expe- with elements of non-linearity. In this, it does not rience in which the awareness of past, present, and differ from many other musical works in which future is replaced by a seemingly all-pervasive certain musical parameters are active while others simultaneity. remain fixed. Of course, the prelude does not Jonathan Kramer, in Tlze Time ofMusic, associ- constitute a self-contained musical work. The ates timelessness with what he calls vertical time. composer Peter Tahourdin has remarked that its He explains vertical time as a 'temporal continuum static harmony prepares the audience for a long of the unchanging, in which there are no separate musical evening.' Thus, the prelude sets up a time events and in which everything seems part of an frame for the complete opera. eternal present'.' He comments further that a com- Another more recent example of this device can position which is conceived vertically be found in Harrison Birtwistle's opera, The Mask docs not exhibit large-scale closurc. 11 does nor of Ot-pheus. The opening section is characterized by an extremely slow unfolding of motivic mate- of this century, the investigation into the nature of rial, while Apollopresides over the birth of Orpheus, musical time has become one of the focal points of and presents to him the gifts of speech, poetry and compositional and musicological thought. music. The stage action in this introduction is The study of musical time naturally engenders minimal: all one can see is a type of trapdoor that questions about time itself, and anyone who has slowly opens. In fact, the speed at which the contemplated time will have been challenged by trapdoor opens is such that one cannot perceive its elusiveness. Time as a topic is formidably large any motion at all; only after a certain duration, and by no means exhausted. Restricting one's perhaps a minute or two, does one realize that the focus to musical time, however, does not give a trapdoor must have moved because now it is more licence to exclude from one's field of vision all the open than it was a while ago. other types and dimensions of time. The inquiry This is an interesting instance of the perception about musical time may temporarily evade, but of time: one could say that time can be perceived will ultimately have to confront, the arch-question: through motion in space, but what happens in the what is time? case of this trapdoor which moves so slowly that Many people would agree that the continual one cannot observe a continuous motion? In such flow of time is simply a fact of life-a reality that a situation, it is memory that informs us about does not need to be questioned. They would also change, while the actual motion remains hidden agree that this continual passing of time can be from our perceptual faculties. measured objectively-clocks promote a By the time Orpheus has finally risen through positivistic conception of time. The apriorisni of the trapdoor onto the stage, the more open-minded a continual and objectively measurable flow of members of the audience might have suspended time is reflected in the often unreflecting use of any expectation of swift changes. They probably terms such as absolute time and objective time. will experience even the slightest increase in the Yet, the apparently indisputable reality implied by rate of musical and dramatic change more in- these terms presents little more than one of many tensely than they would have without this almost different and often contradictory conceptualizations static introduction. In the following quotation, of time. There is no single, generally accepted Birtwistle talks about his interest in circular as- understanding about the nature of time, and there pects of music: is equally no conclusive evidence for the common Essentially I'm concerned with repetition, with sense view that time, always andinevitably, passes going over and over the same event from differ- at a constant rate. ent angles so that a multi-dimensional musical In A Brief History of Time, Stephen W. Hawk- object iscreated,an object thatcontainsanumber ing shows how the concept of time in Newtonian ofcontradictions as well as a number of perspec- physics differs from that of Einstein's theory of tives. I don't create linear music, I move in circles; more precisely, I move in concentric relativity, and his explanations illustrate that dif- circles. The events I create move as the plancts ferent concepts of time can exist even within a move in the solar systcrn. They rotatc at various single branch of science.'"he existence of differ- speeds. Some move through bigger orbits than ent concepts of time makes it appropriate to ques- others and take longer to ret~rn.~ tion the notions and-more importantly-the mis- Birtwistle is only one of several contemporary leading implications of absolute time and objec- composers who have verbalized their ideas about tive time. This observation also hints at the prob- musical time; others are Milton Babbitt, Pierre lem of defining the term time. Boulez, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Brian Richard Toop, in an article on the alleged new Ferneyhough, Gyorgy Ligeti, Karlheinz complexity in contemporary music, relates Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis, to mention just Nietzsche's remark that to define something con- a few.' The desire to understand the premises of stitutes the beginning of lying about something.ll musical time is also reflected in hundreds of arti- Whether one shares Nietzsche's apprehension re- cles%nd, more recently, in two volun~inousbooks garding the act of defining, or whether one agrees on this topic: Barbara Barry's Musical Time: The with Susanne Langer's assertion that the business Sense of Order and Kramer's The Time of Music. of philosophy is to provide definite meanings of It is safe to say that, in the course of the second half the temis we use," time's elusive nature precludes 20 Context 5 (Winter 1993) simple definitions. For one thing, time does not these signs can be examined on the basis of various I consist of matter. Therefore, the term time does semiotic models. not signify a physical object. Instead, it has the In the case of musical time, it is possible to potential to refer to a range of different concepts. employ, for example, Jean-Jacques Nattiez's The particular concept of time that is referred to, at semiology of music as a theoretical backdrop.