Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

4 –Time, Space and the Environment

53

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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4 –Time, Space and the Environment

55

In comparison with The Unanswered Question, the background color of

Central Park in the Dark is less transparent. It is more complex and slightly

blurred, but not disturbingly dissonant. This soundscape is earthly, not

cosmic; no solemn questions are asked and discussed, but snatches of

tunes and rhythms in recognizable musical styles appear and disappear.

Each new event gives rise to a focusing or zooming in, and its disappear-

ance re-opens the spatial sound perspective to the recurrent cycle of softly

colored string chords. In Ives' own words;

This piece purports to be a picture-in-sounds of the sounds of nature

and of happenings that men would hear some thirty or so years ago

(before the combustion engine and radio monopolized the earth and

air), when sitting on a bench in Central Park on a hot summer night.

The strings represent the night sounds and silent darkness - inter-

rupted by sounds [the rest of the orchestra] from the Casino over the

pond - of street singers coming up from the Circle singing, in spots,

the tunes of those days - of some "night owls" from Healy's whist-

ling the latest or the Freshman March - the "occasional elevated", a

street parade, or a "break-down" in the distance - of newsboys crying

"uxtries" - of pianolas having a ragtime war in the apartment house

"over the garden wall", a street car and a street band join in the

chorus - a fire engine, a cab horse runs away, lands "over the fence

and out", the wayfarers shout - again the darkness is heard - an echo

over the pond - and we walk home. (Ives, score note)

The interactions of different kinds of time in Central Park in the Dark can be

heard as follows;

Central Park in the Dark

0'00 Slow movement time: the string chords change quietly, but no

regular pulse or grouping appears.

0'55 Event and movement time: The clarinet timbre attracts attention,

and awareness of its fluid melodic movement continues.

1'14 As the clarinet disappears, the slow-moving background of

strings reappears. Sensation of chord movement is now weakened, the

quality of background more prominent.