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ANALYSIS OF TONAL ALLUSIONS IN LACHENMANNS MUSIC THROUGH HATTENS
THEORETICAL CONCEPTIONS OF STYLE
GROWTH
Rossana Lara Velzquez Escuela Nacional de Msica
Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico
[email protected]
Abstract One of the aesthetical premises in the work of the
German contemporary composer Helmut Lachenmann is to provoke a
critical reflection about the way our perception is and has been
socially conditioned. In his string quartet Gran Torso Lachenmann
conceives tonality with its rules and taboos as well as the
classical instruments as the listeners principal framework to be
alienated through its interaction with new logics of string
instrument performance producing mostly noise. To analyze those
adaptations and veiled references to tonality a flexible
theoretical framework focused in the principles of style growth in
tonal historic music styles was needed. In this paper I present
some results of this analysis inspired in Robert S. Hattens musical
gesture theory in order to discuss some connections between Hattens
theoretical and Lachenmanns aesthetical concern with style growth
and adaptation strategies. Moreover I also present the advantages
of using open, flexible concepts to distinguish and evaluate
complex connections between tradition and modernity in music and
arts in general. Keywords: Lachenmann, tonality, Hatten, gesture
theory By introducing compositional material and performing
techniques that disrupt or contradict the listeners frame of
reference related to the concert tradition, Lachenmann associates
himself with a long German tradition of critical composition that
can be traced back to the 18th Century, when music gains autonomy
from its previous decorative and religious functions. Music turned
into a very important tool for Enlightenments civilizing project.
New music genres and forms are developed, as the inner structure of
music itself becomes the focus of attention in the public concert
encouraging the listener to new listening behaviors. The formal
complexity of music demands from the listener a constant
self-reflection, it requests an open-ended development of critical
listening continuously confronting conventions and perceptual
habits. Through theses arguments, Lachenmann understands (German)
tradition in a teleological narrative, not as a conservative but as
a revolutionary one. In Lachenmanns view, the history of tonality
as the common frame of European music tradition should be regarded
as the history of its continuous deconstruction, an open-ended
project that should be maintained and not removed from the
aesthetical and compositional debates of contemporary music. By
recovering this progressive sense of tradition, Lachenmann seeks to
counteract the current status of classical tradition, which in his
view has been completely devoid of its historical grounds,
fetishized and reduced to mere commodity by the cultural industry.
On the other hand, he seeks to position himself in face of the
postmodern compositional trends of the 1970s, a period that he
associates with restoration and stagnation [1].
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According to Lachenmann, only a dialectical compositional
approach to tonality, taken as the unavoidable condition of
listening experience could produce a real change in our preserved
listening conventions, reinvigorating tradition while expanding our
horizon of aesthetical appreciation to really unknown domains. In
short, Lachenmanns poetics assume that in order to alter any
convention this has to be necessarily alluded. Accordingly, with
his string quartet Gran Torso (1971-72/1988) Lachenmann aims to
confront our expectations concerning the string quartet sound by
working with the taboos of traditional performance practices. That
means: 1) to focus on those traditionally avoided noisy sounds
attached to the moment of friction of the bow against the strings.
2) The organizing principles are not grounded in the intervallic
relations of pitches, but in the varying physicalenergetic
conditions of sound production inherent to the sound quality. 3) To
change partially the conventional tuning of the strings, thus
altering the automated relation between stopping and resulting
pitch. 3) To prevent completely or partially the vibration of
strings. By considering the qualities of sound that prevail in Gran
Torso, a series of questions concerning the analysis of this piece
emerge. What materials and organizing principles in Gran Torso
could allude to tonal principles? How can these allusions be
recognized as such? How allusions to tonal principles are in turn
alienated? To address these questions a theoretical framework
focused on the dynamics of historic music styles, genres and forms,
as well as on the compositional strategies that propel adaptations,
disruptions, transformations in style growth, was needed. Robert
Hattens gesture theory to approach historic tonal styles was very
appropriate to my inquiry, since the definitions and
characterizations of compositional strategies fostering style
growth proposed by him allowed me to analyze principles of
continuity of tonal tradition in a completely different sound
context such as Lachenmanns Gran Torso. On the other hand, Hattens
approach gives prominence to the corporeal dimension of sound as an
important organizing factor of the compositional work, what was
crucial in order to understand the correlations in Gran Torso
between the corporeal aspect (i.e., the physicalenergetic
conditions of sound production) and the formal-structural aspect.
Hatten starts out with a definition of human gesture
rather inclusively as any energetic shaping through time that
may be interpreted as significant [...] Note that this definition
embraces not only all varieties of significant human motion [...]
and perception, but also the translation of energetic shaping
through time into humanly produced or interpreted sounds [2].
In addition, musical gestures may be comprised of any of the
elements of music, although they are not reducible to them. [...]
The elements synthesized in a musical gesture include specific
timbres, articulations, dynamics, tempi, pacing, and their
coordination with various syntactic levels (e.g., voice- leading,
metric placement, phrase structure). [...] they are not merely the
physical actions involved in producing a sound or series of sounds
from a notated score, but the characteristic shaping that give
those sounds expressive meaning [3].
From Hattens classification of strategic functions of gesture,
four are fundamental for this analysis: the thematic, the topic,
the tropological, and the rhetorical function. The most important
function of gesture comes from its thematization; a gesture becomes
thematic when it is (a) foregrounded as significant [...] and then
(b) used consistently [...] and may be subjected to developing
variation as part of a coherent musical discourse [2].
Nevertheless, what is crucial of this definition is that a thematic
gesture can be constituted by what might appear as accessory, as
articulations and dynamics. Indeed this is precisely the case in
Gran Torso, which as mentioned above, is not structured by pitches
or particular rhythmic
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configurations. Accordingly, as Hatten points out, its modes of
its development will result not merely from the developmental
calculi of fragmentation, inversion, transposition techniques [...]
but from the unfolding of its gestural and implied expressive
meanings [3]. Lachenmann himself has finally admitted the
pertinence of a concept as thematic gesture to analyze how all
these residual components such as variants of bow pressure, actions
of different parts of the instrument, bow motion and the relations
among them can be easily transferred to compositional processes
[and] categories of classic motivic-technique [4]. In my analysis I
found six thematic gestures treated in the form of developing
variations constituting the principal material of Gran Torso.
Because of space limitations in this article I referred only some
of them. Other functions of gesture may result through the
variation of thematic gestures. Thus, a thematic gesture may have a
variety of functions, depending on its treatment and the context
where it is inserted. In some variations of thematic gestures it is
possible to recognize the presence of archetypical rhythmic
configurations, which Lachenmann has abstracted from tonal syntax
and we can identify as topics. Leonard Ratner states in his book
Classic Music that topics are forms of associative signification.
They consist in musical types, and include various stylized dances
from the earlier part of the eighteenth-century, which classic
music inherited [5]. According to Hatten, topics may involve
characteristic rhythmic gestures. Use of topics is significant in
Gran Torso for it provides the familiar element to be alienated.
Use of topics is then motivated by its tropological potential. A
trope may be engendered when typical material is combined in
atypical ways [...] Like a metaphor in literary language, a trope
is sparked from the collision or fusion of two already established
meanings, and its interpretation is emergent [3]. There is another
function of gesture classified by Hatten as rhetorical. This
rhetorical action is recognized in a sudden reversal, a collapse,
an interruption, or a denial of implication. Rhetorical gestures
disrupt or deflect the ongoing musical discourse, contributing to a
contrasting dramatic trajectory [3]. Since they promote the
atypical by disrupting the continuity of a musical discourse hence
confronting listeners expectation, they play a central role in Gran
Torso. Rhetorical gestures in Gran Torso function mostly to mark
the beginning and the end of sections and subsections of the piece,
where new variants of thematic gestures are abruptly inserted.
Finally, there is an extra function of gesture that Lachenmann
himself calls Kadenzklang or cadence-sound. It is the result of an
accumulation of the sound energy (a tension process) that concludes
with a distention as the energy fades out. It is used in Gran Torso
to mark the ends of sections or higher-level gestures. In the
following examples I want to show, on the one hand, how the same
thematic gesture can be varied to acquire different strategic
functions, even simultaneously, which means that by varying some
aspect of the same thematic gesture a topic, rhetorical or
tropological function might emerge. On the other hand, I want to
illustrate how different thematic gestures may have equivalent
functions. The same thematic gesture is present in both examples,
but varied in a way to produce very different sound qualities with
completely contrasting functions. I call this thematic gesture
pressed bowing, which is its most essential, identifiable aspect.
In Ex.1 the series of pressed bowing impulses played by the first
violin with ritardando as well as a dynamic (volume) decreasing al
niente delineates the gesture as a cadence. This cadence-sound is
reinforced by another thematic gesture, which I identify as arco
flautato, played by the cello in the way of a large descending
glissando with a decreasing dynamic to pppp. This is an example of
two
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different thematic gestures with equivalent functions, working
together to produce one single cadence-sound.
Ex. 1. Measures 53-58
Ex. 2. Measures 61-64
In Ex. 2 variations of the pressed bowing gesture produce in
context a variety of functions. The previous cadence-sound gives
way to this new section, marked by a tremolo in the first violin.
Two sequential attacks of the pressed bowing with maximal pressure
in fff are abruptly introduced as the new motivic variation of this
gesture (m. 61). This irruption can be interpreted as a rhetorical
gesture that affects the rest of the passage. The tremolo dynamic
in the first violin increases to ff adopting a furious character
(furioso). With a second irruption of the pressed bowing with
maximal pressure (expanded to the second violin, viola and cello)
the tremolo figure adopts also the modality of the pressed bowing
(m. 63). This emergent gesture might be characterized as a trope
(the fusion of a conventional gesture, i.e. the tremolo, with an
atypical articulation, i.e. the pressed bowing gesture). This trope
also functions as a modulation passage leading the original tremolo
figure to a new variant of the pressed bowing thematic gesture (a
quintuplet ostinato articulation in fff (quasi Sge, m. 64)). This
transition to the new thematic variation of the pressed bowing
gesture is reinforced by a second tropological gesture, consisting
in a harmonic pitch played by the viola producing a cadence-form
(Kadenzklang, m. 63) and the superposition of the pressed bowing
gesture with maximal pressure, producing a noisy sound. Finally,
because of the previous context we can easily associate this new
ostinato variation of the pressed bowing gesture with the
production of a slowing-down tremolo. This
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example shows how expressively and syntactically rich a single
gesture such as the pressed bowing might be. The analysis stresses
how heterogeneous and adaptive are gestures significant
motivations, what prevents me to naively assign the thematic
gestures an essential or single expressive quality. In addition,
Hattens definitions of strategic gestures allow analyzing
principles of continuity of historical compositional strategies
(generation and development of motivic-thematic material inspired
by the gestural conditions of sound production) in completely
contrasting musical contexts with quite different gesture material,
as it is the case in Gran Torso, by means of which the very
definitions and identity conditions of such historical gesture
strategies are interrogated, modified, and expanded. In addition,
theoretical and analytical tools must be understood as open
concepts to distinguish, comprehends, and evaluate veiled and
complex connections between tradition and modernity in music and
arts in general. This obviously implies also that the very
analytical or theoretical concepts can be redefined. According to
the music philosopher Lydia Goehr [6],
open concepts have most been described as: i) not corresponding
to fixed or static essences; ii) not admitting of absolutely
precise definitions of the sort traditionally given in terms of
necessary and sufficient conditions; iii) intentionally incomplete
or essentially contestable because of the possibility of an
unforeseen situation arising which would lead us to modify our
definition can never be eliminated [...] Continuity is crucial to
the functioning of open concepts. [...] Such continuity is
guaranteed through the expansion or modification of definitions
rather than through their replacement. [...] An open concept
sometimes undergoes quite radical shifts in function and meaning,
but it does not thereby lose its identity. Its identity is
preserved by the continuity that is guaranteed at any point in time
if the concepts present use is appropriately connected to its
previous uses.
Conclusions The use of open concepts in music analysis is
particularly relevant to elucidate principles of change and
continuity that construct music tradition as a living and
constantly reevaluated practice. I hope this article has
contributed to show the possible applications and vantages of an
analytical framework grounded in open concepts, to interpret (in
this case) how Lachenmann dialogues with the growth principles of
tonal historic music styles in a radical piece like Gran Torso. The
use of open concepts is an attempt to counteract those methods of
music analysis and music theory that privilege the focus on rules
over exceptions, thus using music to illustrate guidelines or
relatively established and fixed principles that are consisting
with previously determined fixed concepts. The use of frameworks
grounded in open concepts is on the contrary needed, if music
scholars are interested not in reifying music tradition through
their analytical tools and theoretical frameworks, but in regarding
tradition as a dynamical, living and dissenting practice.
References [1] Lachenmann, H. (2004), Composing in the Shadow of
Darmstadt, Contemporary Music Review, vol. 23, no. 3-4, p 47. [2]
Hatten, R. (2006), A Theory of Musical Gesture and its Application
to Beethoven and Schubert, Music and Gesture, p 1. [3] Hatten, R.
(2004) Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes. Mozart,
Beethoven, Schubert, 2004, pp. 93-94. [4] Lachenmann, H. (2004)
Fragen-Antworten, in Musik als existentielle Erfahrung, 2004, p.
197 [5] Agawu, K. (1991) Playing with Signs: A Semiotic
Interpretation of Classic Music, 1991, p. 32. [6] Goehr, L. (1992)
The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works, 1992, pp. 91-94.