Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Note about Online Supporting Material
- Part One Dialogues
- Part Two Articles
- 6 Remembrance of Things Future: On the Listener's Contribution
- 7 Patterns of Energy: On the Composer's Contribution
- 8 Dynamic Analysis: On the Performer's Contribution
- Appendix: Forms
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Patterns of Energy: On the Composer's Contribution
from Part Two - Articles
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Note about Online Supporting Material
- Part One Dialogues
- Part Two Articles
- 6 Remembrance of Things Future: On the Listener's Contribution
- 7 Patterns of Energy: On the Composer's Contribution
- 8 Dynamic Analysis: On the Performer's Contribution
- Appendix: Forms
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Musical Forms
Musical works have long been classified into standardized forms on the basis of the nature of the material (i.e., A theme, B theme, development, coda, episode) and the key relationships. But form is not like the design of a walkway that might be made as easily of brick, or stone, or concrete, or logs. Nor is it an arbitrary shaping applied to the musical material, like a hairdo to hair or a clipping to a hedge. Rather, the material determines its unfolding; the structure determines its material.
The fundamental purpose of music is to lead to that transcendent experience we know as beauty. So the overriding consideration for the composer in those mutually dependent determinations of material and structure is the potential of the performance of the composition to enable the highest experience of beauty. Since this highest experience comes about only when the tones are absorbed in a single, undivided act of consciousness, and since they can be absorbed as such only when they come to the listener as singular, the overriding consideration for the composer is creating a work whose performance can come to the listener as singular.
The possibility of experiencing the multiplicity of tones of a musical composition as singular depends largely on its structure of energy. Any musical unit is defined by a singular creation of energy and the resolution of that energy: a single note, a motive, a phrase, or an entire movement.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Looking for the 'Harp' QuartetAn Investigation into Musical Beauty, pp. 147 - 161Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011