Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

4 –Time, Space and the Environment

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The piece opens in a feeling of timeless harmony. The first score page

displays a sustained G major chord, played ppp con sordini by the strings

spread over a range of four octaves, evoking the impression of a transpa-

rent space.

The string voices continue in diatonic motion and mainly triadic

harmonies, moving slowly in phrases of irregular length so that a sense of

beat does not emerge, and time almost seems to stand still.

A slow forward-directed movement appears in violas and cellos in

measure 11-13. The movement is absorbed in the long sustained chord in

measure 14.

The atonal trumpet question stands out as a distinct gestalt in the trans-

parent string space, salient due to its particular timbre and precise attack.

Its slow-moving triplets contribute to the feeling of fluid time.

The woodwind answers represent a competing musical force, tending

towards the emergence of regular pulse time. The first and second answers

are vague and indistinct, but in the third answer a feeling of pulse and

rhythm emerges. In the fourth answer at 4'07- 4'13, pulse time comes

clearly to the fore in distinct, disciplined, almost march-like rhythms.

But this well-disciplined agreement is not of lasting character. The next

entry of the woodwinds is an exchange of uncoordinated musical argu-

ments, and the "secret conference" in a tight, sustained cluster at 4'38 does

not lead to unanimous pulse, but to an agitated dispersal of energy. The

piece then comes to an end as it began, in harmony with the time of being.

Central Park in the Dark

In the companion piece, Central Park in the Dark, another musical space is

created by the strings. Soft, rather dense and complex chords of particular,

individual colors are played continuously, piano pianissimo, in slow

phrases of unequal shapes by the strings. One and the same succession of

chords is played over and over again as an unchanging cycle till the end of

the piece.

According to remarks written in one of Ives' early sketches, it is his

intention to let the strings represent "night sounds of nature, bugs, leaves

on trees, sounds of silent darkness, sounds natural and unnatural."

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