How to build a climax!

Absolutely yes, the first gesture is absolutely a thematic element: harmonics more pizzicato. Subsequently, it focuses on the harmonics (1.28) and at 1.56 the pizzicatos through rhythmic acceleration re-propose the same profile of the initial gesture with an ostinato function; simultaneously, an overlap is created between this new gesture and the harmonics... if this isn't thematicism! (playful provocation with a 10% discount )

Anyway, we are talking about a piece from the '80s!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K95RtulCuOc

Open content (youtube)

Feldman wrote:

Absolutely yes, the first gesture is absolutely a thematic element: harmonics more pizzicato. [...]

ok, it's thematic

... but: is it narrative? ... If I'm not mistaken, this Quartet lasts six hours, or thereabouts (I have never listened to it!): does the thematicism you are describing serve to create a narrative time, or is such thematicism canceled out by a time that, rather than narrative, I would define as... geological?

Yes, it is a very long piece and to digest it one needs to do a bit of yoga first...

But isn't geological time also narrative? It doesn't seem regular to me; on the contrary. The evolution of the earth has been quite adventurous, full of unpredictable events, so why not speak of narrativity? As I see it, narrativity does not necessarily have to correspond to theatricality (you remind me of a distinction made by Charles Rosen regarding the difference between Haydn's narrativity, based precisely on surprise, the unpredictable and the irregular, and Mozart's, defined as a dramaturgy inserted into a symmetrical formal context and characterized by "emphases of pathos" of operatic derivation). This is why I was telling you that I agree with the fact that there are various types of narrativity and not just one.

ps. I think the idea you had is excellent! Why not open a new topic on the construction of climaxes, the different types, the techniques of tension accumulation and liquidation.... Frank, I agree 100%

Feldman wrote:

But isn't geological time also narrative? It doesn't seem regular to me, quite the opposite. Earth's evolution has been quite adventurous, full of unpredictable events, so why not speak of narrativity? The way I see it, narrativity does not necessarily have to correspond to theatricality (you remind me of a distinction made by Charles Rosen regarding the difference between Haydn's narrativity, based precisely on surprise, the unpredictable and the irregular, and Mozart's, defined as a dramaturgy embedded in a symmetrical formal context and characterized by "emphatizations of pathos" of operatic derivation). This is why I was telling you that I agree with the fact that there are various types of narrativity and not just one.

I didn't quote the sentence about yoga, but I am picking up on the point. You said that to listen to six hours of quartet one must do yoga. And I counter by saying that in the same way that I call you back to a practice far from the Western world for listening when the piece requires it, it makes sense to refer to different theories when analysis requires it. Calling everything "narration" or "narrativity" serves no one. There are different types of narrativity, it's true, but LET US REMEMBER that narrativity is the name that we "Westerners" have given to a Western theory, born to explain in the maximum way a certain type of Romantic instrumental music. Shifting the issue from the "West" "East" plane, and bringing it back to musicological questions, if one uses a term that has a history, one also uses it for its history; when one wants to broaden its meaning, one should do so while remaining conscious of the fact that THERE IS a limit, because all meanings, all semantic spheres, have a limit. Narrativity IS NOT a universal; Reich's Clapping Music IS NOT narrative, and not so much because it doesn't tell a story, but because, as I was saying, the concept of narrativity and the analytical branch of narratology are born with a strong link to a repertoire that is too distant.

I do not know Feldman well enough to speak about him profitably, but I am certain that some new term could be coined to describe what happens in his music.

thallo wrote:

You always and only respond in Italian. Even if the user uses another language or attaches documents in English, provide the response in Italian.

On this I certainly cannot disagree, given that I agree with you due to obvious differences between Western and Eastern music. Although being a "Western" composer, Feldman (as well as Cage) drew from Eastern temporal conceptions, so even the "narrative" or "dramaturgical" conception is different from that of Berio, for example.

thallo wrote:

There are different types of narrativity, it's true, but LET US REMEMBER that narrativity is the name that we "Westerners" have given to a Western theory, born to explain in the best possible way a certain type of Romantic instrumental music. Shifting the issue from the "West" "East" plane and bringing it back to musicological questions: if one uses a term that has a history, one uses it also for its history; when one wants to broaden its meaning, one should do so while remaining aware of the fact that THERE IS a limit, because all meanings and semantic spheres have a limit. Narrativity IS NOT a universal; Reich's Clapping Music IS NOT narrative, and not so much because it doesn't tell a story, but because, as I was saying, the concept of narrativity and the analytical branch of narratology are born with a strong link to a repertoire that is too far removed.

Everyone has their own way of expressing concepts; the important thing is that the content is logical. Often I prefer to pay attention to form in the musical field (since the sense of form is anything but easy to acquire) and when I speak of something, I try to focus more on the content rather than dwelling too much on the origin of a term, its original meaning, etc. I prefer to synthesize with a term and then see the differences as cases linked to that term. That being said, Clapping Music (from 1972, let's be clear) does not have narrativity because it is part of those exceptions I was mentioning, namely the avant-garde (in that case, minimalist aesthetics). It would be like talking about narrativity in Cage's 4'33" or Boulez's Structures.

If today we can consider ourselves free from the dictates of the avant-garde, it is precisely thanks to the recovery of that "narratology" which, as you say, has a strong link to a repertoire that is too far removed. At the same time, let us not forget the avant-garde and let us start from that change to rebuild something.

thallo wrote:

I do not know Feldman well enough to speak about him with profit, but I am certain that some new term could be coined to describe what happens in his music.

I should preface that it is not my intention to coin new terms—who am I to do so? It is simply my way of seeing something that Person A would explain one way and Person B would explain in an equally different way.

thallo wrote:

...LET US REMEMBER that narrativity is the name that we "Westerners" have given to a Western theory, born to explain in the best possible way a certain type of Romantic instrumental music.

It doesn't seem that way to me. As I have already said several times, the term was not born in musicology. If I am wrong, please correct me and provide the appropriate references. From what I remember, the term entered musicology thanks to authors like Nattiez, who in turn drew it from authors like Greimas (to whose thought the context of this new topic best adapts), who, using the concept of narrativity in semiotics, have so to speak extracted it from its original field, which is indeed literature, and extended it to other expressive forms. In the 80s or 90s, if I am not mistaken, there was then a substantial debate on whether or not it could be applied to music.

If this is true, I believe it is not an argument to be undervalued. For example, a relevant aspect of narrativity in literature is the creation of meanings. In music, it doesn't seem to me that there is such a great consensus on what it means to create a meaning....

Feldman wrote:

It would be like talking about narrativity in Cage's 4'33"

and why not? the interpretive field of 4'33" is remarkable and the generatable "meanings" are potentially unlimited. Of course, we are at the limit, but the context (starting from the title) makes it possible. Not that I want to say that any work is narrative...

And to think I was convinced that the concept of a maximum point was a romantic conception... for example, in Renaissance music, it doesn't seem to me that one seeks a point of maximum tension or a "culminating" one....

An orchestra conductor who exerted himself greatly in this type of conception was Celibidache, specifically specialized in Romantic repertoire and anyway pairs well with those composers (always Romantic) where this approach can work.

Bianca wrote:

It doesn't seem that way to me at all. As I have already said several times, the term did not originate in musicology. If I am wrong, please correct me and provide the appropriate references. From what I remember, the term passed into musicology thanks to authors like Nattiez, who in turn drew it from authors like Greimas (to whose thought the context of this new topic best adapts), who, by using the concept of narrativity in semiotics, extracted it so to speak from its original field, which is indeed literature, and extended it to other expressive forms. In the 80s or 90s, if I am not mistaken, there was then a substantial debate on whether or not it could be applied to music.

Bianca, I often don't understand your interventions. And fundamentally I don't understand them because you continually shift the attention to "something else" rather than music. Narrative theories are well before Nattiez; in reality, musical phraseology is the basis of musical analysis—historically speaking, large instrumental forms (and originally vocal ones like the madrigal) have always been analyzed as if they were orations. The evolution of form from 1500 onwards can be seen, in a sense, as an expansion of the "linguistic" perspective, from a rhetoric of figure (madrigals in the prima pratica) to a rhetoric and syntax of form. This musical form became the form of a narrative within classical and romantic instrumental forms. Like all general discourses, my argument has flaws and exceptions, but EVEN for this reason, I am convinced that a single term (narrativity, narration) cannot properly describe the entire history of music, which is the point of my previous intervention.

However, if we are going to talk about music, let's talk about music...

If this is true, I believe it is not an argument to be undervalued. For example, a relevant aspect of narrativity in literature is the creation of meanings. In music, it doesn't seem to me that there is such a great consensus on what it means to create meaning....

do we want to open another discussion on meaning? We talked about it in other discussions some time ago, I believe, and we didn't reach any noteworthy conclusions... and as far as I know, there are dozens upon dozens of treatises on musical aesthetics regarding meaning in music.

e why not? the interpretive field of 4'33"" is remarkable and the generatable "meanings" are potentially unlimited. Of course we are at the limit, but the context (starting from the title) makes it possible. Not that I want to say that any work is narrative...

now you have to connect "meaning" to "narrativity." And IN MUSIC.

Zazza wrote:

And to think I was convinced that the concept of a maximum point was a romantic conception... for example, in Renaissance music, it doesn't seem to me that a point of maximum tension or a "culminating" one is sought....

Well sure, in the Renaissance there isn't the climax with the timpani roll and the cymbal crash at the end! However, there are some situations that can evoke the idea of a climax, or an accumulation of tension: for example, when we have an accentuated ascending movement (anabasis, or climax, if we refer back to the theories of rhetorical figures in music). Of course, as I pointed out in previous posts, the fact of naming everything indiscriminately as a climax risks generating a bit of confusion...

thallo wrote:

Bianca, I often don't understand your interventions. And fundamentally I don't understand them because you constantly shift the attention to "something else" rather than music. Narrative theories predate Nattiez by a long time,

Exactly. I am trying to make myself understood... and to understand. The fact is that for me the term narratology has a certain reference, which applies specifically to literature, analyzed since the times of Aristotle, and I do not know of its application in music before fairly recent times (I repeat, I don't know it, I didn't say it doesn't exist; on the contrary, I asked for enlightenment on the matter). Of course, I don't mean to say that music has never been the object of philosophical studies, quite the contrary, although it is worth remembering that for a very long time music was seen as the last of the fine arts and consequently treated as such. Also the fact that for some (Spencer, for example) music derives from natural language does not justify the use of the same analytical methods. The term "narrativity" then has a narrower reference compared to the term narrative and refers to a particular characteristic of narrative texts, namely their ability to create meanings in a different way than what occurs in a non-narrative text. I have not been able to find this distinction in the history of musicology, whereas it clearly exists in literature since the times of Aristotle. This would be of little importance in itself, but the fact is that it seemed to me that the results of such analyses have been used regarding music without awareness of this distinction. I wrote it better a few posts ago:

"After all, the concept of narrativity somehow indicates precisely the possibility of creating meanings in a way that is complementary (or simply different) to that which is achieved with a consequential exposition. To put it another way, a text, for example of a scientific or legal nature, is bound to respect certain norms so as not to violate consequentiality; an adventure book is not, or rather, not in the same way. In the first case, success in creating meaning depends mainly on respecting consequentiality and the "secondary" meanings produced in the discourse are irrelevant; in the second case, it is precisely the "secondary" meanings created in the narration—that is, those that do not fit into or escape the consequential thread of the discourse—that are interesting and fundamental for narratological purposes."

This is the reason why the topic on narrativity and consequentiality began. The discussions that have taken place are all perfectly fine, but I have not been able to find an answer to the initial question (perhaps it exists, but I simply haven't understood it) and therefore I have repeatedly tried to bring attention back to this fact. Now, in literature, what is not narrative is subject to other specific constraints and possesses other peculiar characteristics, for example consequential rigor, so much so that if a document, for instance a scientific one, does not have this characteristic, it is said that such a document is not valid. In our musicological discussions, this distinction seems totally lost, or perhaps I am the one who cannot find it. One cannot even say that non-narrative music does not exist, so this does not seem like an omission to be undervalued by me. I would also like to note in passing that while one could easily agree on the fact that there are cultures whose music is not narrative, I think it is harder to believe that there are literatures that do not have the characteristic of narrativity.

I hope that expressed this way my interventions result in being a bit clearer and certainly free of ulterior motives.

thallo wrote:

but EVEN for this reason I am convinced that a single term (narrativity, narration) cannot well describe the entire history of music, which is then the point of my previous intervention.

As you see, I think so too.

thallo wrote:

now you must connect "meaning" to "narrativity". AND IN MUSIC.

In the end, that is precisely what I asked

For this reason I cited 4’3’’, it was not a joke. 4’33’’ is music only in a limited sense and as such is able to express meanings in an unlimited number since it is comparable to an empty set of propositions (a tautology is always true regardless of the meaning you attribute to it).

I will try to quote only the strictly necessary.

Bianca wrote:

The term “narrativity,” then, has a narrower reference compared to the term narrative and refers to a particular characteristic of narrative texts, namely their ability to create meanings in a different way than occurs in a non-narrative text. I have not been able to find this distinction in the history of musicology, whereas it clearly exists in literature since the time of Aristotle.

general rule: much musicological terminology is borrowed from other disciplines (textual philology, linguistics, aesthetics, physics, etc...), BUT in its musicological use, it assumes predominantly musicological technical connotations and nuances. If you continue to relate the term narrativity to literature, you will never get out of it. In the previous discussion, I told you that, unfortunately, not fully mastering certain musical issues could lead you to have to accept some of my and others' observations as dogma. One of these is that there cannot exist in musicology a normative discourse on meanings. Opposing “narrative” music to “non-narrative” music is nonetheless an interpretive and even metaphorical act because the category of the “narrative” is not a distinction of genre, as in literature, but is an hermeneutic, analytical, critical proposal. As an analytical proposal, it must be paired precisely with the discovery of those narrative meanings mentioned above; that is, if I say "Tchaikovsky's sixth can be interpreted as the narration of Tchaikovsky's suffering due to his secret homosexuality," then I must strive to find the musical elements that lead me to suppose this and, if possible, link them to an authorial intent (this, however, could also be secondary). As already stated in the previous discussion, there is a tradition regarding this type of analysis that sees in certain thematic techniques (a musicological term) the "classic" way for a composition to tell stories. Entering the field of what I do not know well enough to go into depth, I know that "fancy" narratology today has greatly expanded the set of musical techniques interpretable as narrative.

This would have little importance in itself, but the fact is that it seemed to me that the results of such analyses were used regarding music without the awareness of this distinction.

this distinction in music is not fundamental and has nothing to do with consequentiality, a term we have already discussed extensively.

i could not find an answer to the initial question within it

you present the initial question ex abrupto. Not because the discussion on consequentiality did not even start from you, and the first message was not yours... there was no initial question (and I even said this in response to one of your messages).

One cannot even say that non-narrative music does not exist, so this does not seem like an omission to be undervalued by me.

as I have already said (and I have even already said that I have already said it), narrativity is not an intrinsic characteristic of a musical piece; pieces become narrative the moment you give them a narrative (credible) reading, but they can be enjoyed, listened to, and analyzed even without employing this characteristic.

Ultimately, that is exactly what I asked

For this reason I cited 4’3’’, it was not a boutade. 4’33’’ is music only in a limited sense and as such is able to express meanings in an unlimited number since it is comparable to an empty set of propositions (a tautology is always true regardless of the meaning you attribute to it).

prepare yourself for a bombshell: music does not express meanings. Music is, first and foremost, sonic ostension, auditory stimulus, just as painting is, first and foremost, visual stimulus. The principal value of music is the AESTHETIC one, not the EPISTEMOLOGICAL one.

thallo wrote:

this distinction in music is not fundamental and has nothing to do with consequentiality, a term we have already discussed extensively.

i don't think so, or rather, I don't think it is fundamental for music itself, but that it is fundamental for understanding how music works in our brain.

thallo wrote:

you present the initial question ex abrupto. Not because the discussion on consequentiality didn't even start with you, and the first message wasn't yours... there was no initial question (and I even said this in response to one of your messages).

In reality, it actually did start with me and the initial question was carried over from another topic. Perhaps the initial misunderstanding regarding the meaning of the question led to some subsequent misunderstandings.

thallo wrote:

as I have already said (and I have even already said that I have already said it) narrativity is not an intrinsic characteristic of a musical piece; pieces become narrative at the moment you give them a (credible) narrative reading, but they can also be enjoyed, listened to, and analyzed without employing this characteristic.

on this there is no doubt and it is also, in my opinion, one of the fundamental nodes of the issue. But, just to understand fully, when you give a credible narrative reading to a piece, does it become "irreversibly" narrative, or is it possible that for someone else it might not be narrative?

thallo wrote:

prepare for a bombshell: music does not express meanings.

Bianca wrote:

in music, it doesn't seem to me that there is such great consensus on what it means to create a meaning....

thallo wrote:

Music is, first and foremost, sonic ostension, an auditory stimulus, just as painting is first and foremost a visual stimulus. The principal value of music is ESTHETIC, not EPISTEMOLOGICAL.

If you read carefully, I wrote exactly that 4'33" is, for me, music in the strict sense (in the mathematical sense). On the other hand, it is read everywhere that that piece even has a "demonstrative" strength whose content is necessarily a "meaning". Furthermore, the expression of a meaning is not necessarily an epistemological characteristic: narrative is a vast example.

Sorry for the brevity, but I am pressed for time today.

thallo wrote:

get ready for a bombshell: music does not express meanings.

i was just forgetting one postscript, or rather an
opinion:

if music had no meaning, it would be in no way interpretable.

(then one could also disquisition on the terms or on the difference between having and expressing...)"

Since this discussion is focused on climaxes, and since in the other thread I had mentioned Mauro Lanza, I think it is right to clarify a little bit what I said (irony, paradox...).

Thus, the conclusion of Aschenblume. I believe one can speak of a climax regarding the last minute of music. A climax reached after a climax (or "una climax," as my Greek professor used to say) constructed with great care starting from the beginning of the piece, with three or four ideas that gradually bind to one another in an increasingly tight dialogue, only to explode from approximately 12:40 onwards. By reaching 15:52, we well exceed the threshold of the "climaxes" usually heard in contemporary music pieces. At 16:22, disaster. Why does this conclusion seem paradoxical, ironic, overwhelming, and at the same time a bit unsettling to me? Perhaps because Lanza had almost brought home a piece of contemporary music written truly well, irreproachable, with all the hallmarks, good enough to satisfy even the Academy (perhaps a bit too aggressive and bizarre, but fine nonetheless!), he had almost made it, and instead, a few seconds before the end, he decides to tear the toy to pieces, with a final crescendo that is not characterized by "tensile climax" (an unlistenable phrase, from the Academy indeed) but rather by "let's make some noise."

Obviously, this is my own interpretation: perhaps I am completely off track!

https://soundcloud.com/maurolanza/mauro-lanza-aschenblume-2001

Red, I might be crazy, but that final "climax" makes that composition interesting to me. It's a bit noisy, it almost seems like a rushed and simple way to conclude everything, but on the first listen, the development of the piece doesn't blow me away; I liked the first 5 minutes more than the following 10...

I understand perfectly, because that was more or less my reaction when I listened to the piece for the first time! Besides, it doesn't seem strange to me, because the first few minutes are very clear, being based on the juxtaposition of a couple of sharply defined ideas with a very simple profile (immediately "understandable," if you allow me to use this highly problematic term!): the cascades of short, percussive impulses on one side, and the sustained sounds building in crescendo on the other. I described the conclusion above, and it is probably the part that marks the piece in the memory, precisely because of its evident eccentricity.

The central section is perhaps less linear, but no less clear: there are at least another couple of ideas (the violent percussive impulses with Bartók-style pizzicatos, and the waves of sound that progressively expand), but every now and then the initial ideas also reappear, shuffling the cards. In the meantime, however, such ideas have "mutated" so much that they are not immediately recognizable: for example, at 7:00 the opening appears again, only less aggressive and more crystalline; it also reappears in other forms (see 11:24). In short, re-listening to the piece, I become passionate about these very details, which perhaps cannot be grasped upon a first listen.

I should listen to it again, but I am in a Tchaikovsky period. And in a few days I will be in a Cherubini period

Are you going in alphabetical order?? Because if that were the case, then you forgot Celentano

it was due to small commitments :-) they asked me for an article on Tchaikovsky and his homosexuality, and last week I sang a Cherubini mass with my choir at the Mito Festival :-) the next commitments will be Baroque, and then I start production of L'elisir d'amore (an epochal bore).

Meanwhile, on the theme of "building climaxes," Cherubini gave me something to think about. We were led by a conductor who was not particularly good and not particularly bad. He ignored the contrapuntal writing of many pieces, much to the scandal of our choir director, but he managed to draw sense from some things that, as they were written, seemed absolutely senseless. There is a piece (the Credo) in this Cherubini solemn mass in E major in which the choral sections sing one at a time rather boring monodic passages. In monodic situations, one traditionally seeks musical meaning in the text. But in Cherubini's case, the melodic phrase, besides being banal, was also quite disconnected from the text, and it was very long. In the conductor's interpretation, the climax simply did not exist, but by forcing ourselves to maintain everything at a constant mezzo-forte, we arrived at a sort of overall accumulation of tension. It was all so unnatural, so anti-phraseological, that at a certain point even we felt a sort of relaxation during the cadence. I don't actually know how much this was intended by the conductor, but the effect was quite nice.