Music 421, Fall 2007: Materials of Contemporary Music
Class 7: October 17, 2007 - integral serialism and after: Boulez, Stockhausen, Berio, and Xenakis
Luciano Berio Sequenza I (1958)
the Sequenza cycle: instrumental solos for almost every orchestral instrument
concern for harmonic “sequence”
for instrumental (and sometimes theatrical) virtuosity
and eventually as a concern for the history and traditions of each particular instrument
(guitar: flamenco, violin: Bach & chaconne, etc.)
as music after integral serialism: individualized concepts of form and material
two notational variants for Sequenza I: proportional rhythm, and conventional
slippery rhythm, the performer’s freedom, and the composer’s intentions
Paul Griffiths: “Europe 2: Total Organization, 1949-1954”
Messaien (partly in response to Cage, Boulez, and Goeyvaerts) suggests generalizing the series
not only pitch as series but also rhythm/duration, dynamics, and timbre/articulation
fixed relationships between the four parameters
(though Messiaen isn’t using a serial ordering: instead, ordering fragments)
Stockhausen, Goeyvaerts, and Nono encounter Messaien’s Mode de valeurs at Darmstadt in 1951
and are immediately attracted to the possibilities of pointilism (as opposed to thematicism)
Goeyvaerts and then Stockhausen are particularly interested in algorithm
the patronage of Darmstadt, Donaueschingen, WDR, and SWF as crucial support for this work
Stockhausen and research: “a pattern of one-offs”
Nono as a refusal of pointilism; preferring continuity to dissociation
the turn to electronic music to create rhythmic accuracy and timbral possibility
György Ligeti: “Decision and Automatism in Structures 1a“
unlike Mode de Valeurs and Kreuzspiel, Boulez dissociates rhythm from pitch
compositional shaping: “decision”
palindromic tempos
increasing (and increasingly stable) density
variations ot the fixing of pitch-classes in particular registers
”automatism” for Boulez as an escape from taste and habit: freeing one’s compositional mind
...a way of opening up new grammars of expression
where for Stockhausen and Cage the “automatic” form is a source of beauty
detailing the process
establishing the pitch row as a twelve-tone group
series and its inversion have only one overlapping interval (tritone)
duration row as a thirty-second note multiplied by one through twelve (up to a dotted quarter)
dynamics row as a scale from pppp to ffff (with quasi p and quasi f in-between p/mp and mf/f)
only using four dynamics rows
articulations as a sequence of only ten values
(and using the same row forms as with dynamics)
”arrangements of arrangements”
48 “doubly-determined” serial threads (one of each pitch-row and duration-row form)
threads arranged in bundles; 1-3 threads per bundle; 0-2 bundles (1 per piano) active
for a total of 1-6 threads simultaneously
limited by the need to prevent a regular thrity-second note pulsation
threads in bundles begin and end at the same time
