18 februari 2010
For many twentieth-century composers, time was not only an important subject of theoretical reflection, but also a central musical subject in many of their compositions – either implicitly or explicitly. The music-analytical research presented in this colloquium centers on works of three very different composers who nonetheless all somehow questioned, undermined, or ignored the presumed linear progression of time in their music. The focus is on tempo relationships and durational proportions, the most tangible temporal aspects of music.
A discussion of the various implementations of durational structure in John Cage’s oeuvre will be followed by an analysis of some of the ‘Number Pieces’ (1981-92). In these works, tempo and duration are most intimately related, tempo being determined by the system of ‘time brackets’ governing the temporal distribution of events over the work. Karlheinz Stockhausen’s large scale composition Momente (1962-1969) will be analyzed to illustrate the concept of mobile ‘Momentform’ and its nonlinear features and aspirations. Louis Andriessen’s emblematic piece De Snelheid (1983), strongly related to minimal music, will provide an example of how repetition and the layering of contradictory processes may also suggest a nonlinearization of time.
The analyses will be related to art historian Pamela Lee’s concept of ‘chronophobia’. According to Lee, ‘chronophobic’ (visual or plastic) art exhibits an anxious, obsessive approach to time, often expressing the desire to master or still its passage. The concept will be transposed to the domain of music in order to discuss whether the works analyzed may be considered musical examples of ‘chronophobia’.
Jochem Valkenburg (1979) recently completed his PhD-thesis Tempo and Duration in Nonlinear Music of John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Louis Andriessen at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He graduated in Musicology at the University of Amsterdam in 2004. He has contributed to the Dutch Journal of Music Theory and Grove Music Online, among others. Currently, he writes on contemporary music for the newspaper NRC Handelsblad, and is editor for classical music and science at the daily TV show De Wereld Draait Door (VARA).