Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

The Musical Timespace

36

The gliding bundles of quarter-tones opening Livre pour Orchestre are heard
at 0'00-0'32 in the recording. In this microtonal polyphony, the instruments

merge in a flow of sound, but the flow is not without direction. The sound-
stream takes the shape of lines, curves and gestures evoking fleeting

harmonious colors in continuous transition.
The shapes of musical movement and the accumulations of gestures
leading to climactic eruptions are akin to the expressions of emotion

through melody and harmony in the European symphonic tradition; the
gliding, falling streams gain a lamento character comparable to the ex-

pression of sorrow in the last movement of Tjajkovskijs Sixth Symphony,
Adagio lamentoso.
Lutoslawski's invention of quarter-tone polyphony does not constitute a

break with European tradition, but a continuation of tradition by new
means. Conversely, the early works of Xenakis and Ligeti described in this
chapter constitute a break with tradition. Furthermore, both composers

dissociate themselves from a predominant line of thought in the musical
avantgarde of the 1950's.

The Musical Timespace

38

Innovations and achievements

In terms of exploration of the potentials of the musical continuum, the

achievements of Ligeti and Xenakis in their pioneering works of the 1950's

and early 60's can be summed up as follows;

Space: Opening and investigation of the total musical soundspace of height

and depth, proximity and distance, foreground and background, masses

of sound expanding and contracting, merging and dividing, states, events

and transformations occurring and disappearing.

Timbre: Composition with and composition of timbre as a predominant

musical dimension, determinative for musical events and processes from

the articulation of brief musical moments to the unfolding of large-scale

musical form. Timbre is investigated in its rich variety between harmonic

color and noise, brightness and darkness, individualized attacks,

contrasting instrumental groups and fused complex timbres.

Pitch: Investigation of the pitch continuum, pitch movement, pitched

and unpitched sounds.

Intensity: Exploitation of intensity as a constitutive factor in musical evolu-

tion and structure, varying from the barely perceptible sound to ex-

plosions and fields of maximized noise. Intensity is investigated in its vast

potential for continuous transitions, for contrasts and interruptions, for

oppositions of sound and silence.

Movement: Composition of movement and transformation in a variety of

continuous and discontinuous shapes, patterns and processes, rise and

fall, oscillations and glissandos, flow and growth, activity and stasis.

Pulse: Application of pulse as an independent musical dimension, evoking

slow, fast or multilayered patterns of time, sensations of speeding up or

slowing down, and transitions between regularity and irregularity.