Moment Form in Twentieth Century Music

Moment Form in Twentieth Century Music Author(s): Jonathan D. Kramer Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Apr., 1978), pp. 177-194 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/741444 . Accessed: 10/09/2013 10:42 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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MOMENT FORM IN TWENTIETH CENTURY MUSIC ByJONATHAN D. KRAMER

D

ISCONTINUITY is a profoundmusicalexperience.The unexpected is more striking,more meaningful,than the expected because it contains more information.'The high value I is a personalprejudice(surelyit is a cultureplace on discontinuity bound opinion - discontinuity is not, for example, what Indian music is about); the musical experiencesthat are mostmemorable are the magical momentswhen expectationis subverted,when and whena new worldopens. The power complacencyis destroyed, of discontinuity is mostpotentin tonal music,which is the music par excellenceof motionand continuity. Harmonicallydefinedgoals and linear prioritiesforvoice-leadingprovidenormsof continuity againstwhichdiscontinuities gain theirpower.Tonal discontinuities, when pushed to extremes,create new experiencesof time- time thatis notlinearand not one-dimensional.2 The dissolutionof triadictonalityafterabout 1910 removedthe a priori of continuity.The early posttonalcomposerswere forced to extremelengthsin order to createcontextuallya sense of goaldirectedmotion,sincecontinuity was no longera givenof thesystem. The solutionsof Schoenberg,Berg,and Bart6k,for example, are oftenpowerfuland convincing,but theyare nonethelessconstructs.

Part of the research for this article was done at the School of Criticismand Theory, Universityof California at Irvine, 1976, under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This essay is extracted from a book-length study entitled Stravinskyand Darmstadt: a Study of Musical Time. 1 Leonard B. Meyer, "Meaning in Music and Information Theory," Music, the Arts,and Ideas (Chicago, 1967),pp. 5-21. 2sJonathanD. Kramer, "Multiple and Non-Linear Time in Beethoven's Opus 135," Perspectivesof New Music, XI/2 (Spring-Summer,1973), 122-45.

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Once continuitybecame an option, other composersattemptedto createmusic that minimizedit. Such a composeris Stravinsky (as well as Ives); his Symphoniesof Wind Instruments,composed in 1920,is an extremeexpressionofdiscontinuity. The consequences of the deposing of musical continuityare enormous.The entireedificeof Westernmusic had been built on the assumptionthatone eventleads to another,that thereis implication in music: Westerncomposershave believed forcenturiesin the metaphorof musicalmotion.The decline of tonalitycontained the seeds of destructionof this myth;the temporaldiscontinuities of certainearly twentieth-century worksconfirmedthat motion is not absolute;by the 1950ssomecomposerswereable to writemusic thatin no way assumedcontinuityor motion.(Many composers,of course, have continued to create continuous languages for their pieces, often with considerable effort.The struggleagainst the crumblingof continuitylends greatstrengthto the mostsuccessful of thesepieces. I have in mind such composersas Sessions,Carter, Gerhard,and Henze.) The crisisforthe listeneris extreme;it is no musicis oftennot undersurprisethatdiscontinuouscontemporary stood by its audience.To removecontinuityis to questionthe very meaningof timein our cultureand henceof humanexistence.This statementis questioningis goingon all around us, and its strongest art. By dealing withthe resultingapparent foundin contemporary chaos of thisart,we are forcedto understandour cultureand thus to grow.3 I have -writtenelsewhereabout the correlationbetween discontinuous life stylesand contemporaryart.4 Since writingthat articleI have found it increasingly difficult to experiencemusical is There continuitycomfortably. somethingartificial,something about the idea that one musical event can actually otherworldly, Even listeningto the most innocentlylinear progressto another. tonal music involvessome sense of contradiction.The conflictis not in the music; the conflictis betweenhow the music uses time listenerunderstandstime. Recent music and how a contemporary thatdeals with time in new wayshas soughtto solve this conflict, and in so doing it has strucka nervecenterin our culture.I refer to antiteleologicalmusic (e.g., some worksof John Cage), which 3 Morse Peckham,Man's Rage for Chaos (New York, 1967), pp. 25-40.

4 Kramer,"Multiple and Non-Linear Time in Beethoven's Opus 135," pp. 132-41.


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presentsstatic,endless Nows; to processpieces (e.g., some works of Steve Reich), thatmove inexorablythroughwell-defined gradual changes(Is this a desperateattemptto recapturecontinuity?);and to moment-form pieces (e.g.,some worksof KarlheinzStockhausen), in whichthemusicconsistsof a successionof self-contained sections thatdo not relateto each otherin any functionally implicativemanner. However,composersof momentformshave not given up continuityentirely;thatwould be a fiction,because implicationis still ofcontinuity can be used positively.But possible,and thediscomfort implicationis now localizedbecauseit has becomebut one possibility within a large universe; continuityis no longer part of musical syntax,but ratherit is an optional procedure.It must be created or denied anew in each piece, and thus it is the materialand not thelanguageofthemusic. The conceptofmomentformwas firstarticulatedbyStockhausen in his 1960 article"Momentform."5 This articleis an explicationof in compositionalprocedures Kontakte,composedin 1959-60,Stockhausen'sfirstself-conscious momentform.His ideas were expanded and slightlymodifieda yearlaterin "Erfindungund Entdeckung."' The proceduresthat are crystallizedin these two articlescan be traced back throughseveral earlierarticlesand compositions;but they derive ultimatelyfromthe practicesof Debussy, Stravinsky, Webern (particularlyin his variation movements),Varese, and, above all, Messiaen.The philosophicalbasisofStockhausen'sthought reflects aestheticideas implicitin twentieth-century visual, literary, and filmicartsas well.Stockhausenwrites: Everypresentmomentcounts,as wellas no momentat all; a givenmomentis notmerely as theconsequence of thepreviousone and thepreludeto regarded thecomingone,butas something and centered in itself, individual, independent capableof existingon itsown.An instantdoes not need to be just a particle

of measuredduration.This concentrationon the presentmoment-

on every

presentmoment- can makea verticalcut,as it were,acrosshorizontaltime out to a timelessness I call eternity. This is notan eternity perception, extending thatbegins at the end of time,but an eternitythat is presentin everymoment. I am speakingabout musical formsin which apparentlyno less is being under-

takenthantheexplosion- yes-

of duration.7

evenmore,theovercoming of the concept

5 Texte zur elektronischenund instrumentalenMusik, 3 Bde. (Cologne, 1963-71),

zur Theoriedes Komponierens(hereafter 1952-1962 Texte1), pp. 189-210. I: Aufsqitze 6 "Inventionand Discovery," TexteI, pp. 222-58,butespeciallypp. 250 ff.

7 Texte I, p. 199, trans. Seppo Heikinheimo in his book The Electronic Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen (Helsinki, 1972),pp. 120-21.


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Since moment forms verticalize time, render every moment a Now, avoid functional implications between moments, and avoid climaxes, they are not beginning-middle-endforms. Although the piece must start for simple practical reasons, it may not begin; it must stop, but it may not end. I have made a strictdifference betweentheconceptsof "beginning"and "starting," "ending" and "stopping."When saying "beginning,"I imply a process,somethingthatrisesand merges;whensaying"ending" I am thinkingabout something that ends, ceases to sound, extinguishes.The contraryis true with the words "start"and "stop,"whichI combinewiththe conceptof caesuraewhichdelineate a duration,as a section,out of a continuum.Thus "beginning"and "ending" are appropriateto closed developmentformswhichI have also referredto as dramatic forms,and "starting"and "stopping"are suitable foropen momentforms.This is whyI can speak about an infiniteformeven thougha performanceis limited in its durationbecauseof practicalreasons.8

A proper moment form will give the impression of starting in the midst of previously unheard music, and it will break off without reaching any structuralcadence, as if the music goes on, inaudibly, in some other space or time afterthe close of the performance.These ideals are difficultto realize compositionally,especially the startthat does not sound like a beginning. Several compositions that for other reasons deserve to be considered moment formsdo not achieve this ideal of an endless eternity. The compositional idea of endlessness is richly suggestive. Stockhausen writes: For me, everyattemptto bring a work to a close aftera certaintime becomes more and more forcedand ridiculous.I am looking for ways of renouncingthe compositionof singleworksand - if possible- of workingonly forwards,and of workingso "openly" thateverything can now be included in the taskin hand, and being transformed at once transforming by it; and the questingof others forautonomousworksjust seemsto me so muchclamourand vapour.9

In his recent book on Stockhausen, Robin Maconie writes in a more craft-orientedvein about the implications of closing' off endless forms: Ending a permutationalform is nearly always a matterof taste, not design. While the listenermay be satisfiedwitha sensationof completion,the composer 8 TexteI, p. 207,trans.Heikinheimo, retainstheoriginal pp. 121-22.Heikinheimo Anfang,Beginn,Ende, and SchlussforwhichI have substituted "beginrespectively ning,""starting," "ending,"and "stopping." 9 Quoted in Karl H. W6rner, Stockhausen: Life and Work, trans. Bill Hopkins

1973),pp. 110-11. (Berkeley,


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knows that though a series of permutations may eventually be exhausted, it does not automatically resolve. The ending's essential arbitrarinesshas to be disguised.10

This description applies to Stockhausen's earlier, nonmoment permutational forms (in this case the reference is to Kontra-Punkte); the advent of moment form came about through the celebration, ratherthan the disguise, of the arbitrarinessof closing a permutational form. By abruptly stopping rather than artificiallyending, Stockhausen makes overt his referenceto eternities.Maconie's description also applies aptly to Stravinsky'sSymphonies of Wind Instruments: the C-major chorale that tonally closes this otherwise nontonal work is the means by which Stravinskydisguises the arbitrarinessof ending a piece that has dealt with neither tonality nor foreground motion, but ratherwith permutation. Moments are defined as self-containedentities,capable of standing on their own yet in some sense belonging to the context of the composition. They may comprise a static entity,such as a harmony, that lasts throughout the moment, or they may contain a process that completes itself within the moment. If a static state or process defines the self-containmentof the moment, the order of moments should not matter.That the order actually be arbitraryis an extreme requirement; in many moment-formpieces complete mobility" (or even any partial mobility) of formis avoided. Nonetheless, the order of moments must appear arbitraryfor the work to conform to the spirit of moment form. This apparent arbitrarinesseven applies to the return of previous moments. Stockhausen forbids return in his articles, but it is to be found in Kontakte12and more overtlyin his other works. There should be no reason why a previous moment cannot return,provided such a returnis not prepared by a structural upbeat (this would render the return a recapitulatory goal of the previous moment, thereby destroyingits self-containment).For, if no moment ever returned, the requirement of constant newness would in itself imply a kind of progression, because the listener could predict that the next moment would always differfrom all previous moments. And progressionis impossible in a pure moment form. If moments are defined by internal consistency,it follows that to The Works of Karlheinz Stockhausen (London, 1976), pp. 143-44. 11In a mobile form there are several possible orders of succession of the sections fromwhich to choose fora given performance. 12Heikinheimo,p. 208.


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theycan be of any length13 (practically speaking, froma few seconds to several minutes). Thus proportions are indeed important in moment-formpieces. Global coherence cannot come from progression nor even, in most cases, from order of succession. Nor can the statistical totality of moments necessarily be highly meaningful in those pieces that really do suggest themselves as fragmentsfrom an ongoing eternity.But the nature of moment form suggests proportional lengths of moments as the one remaining principle of formal coherence. It is no surprise, therefore,that Stockhausen at times laid out his proportional schemes prior to deciding with what music to fill these empty forms. (Interestingly,his proportional layouts often depend on the Fibonacci series, which approximates both a golden ratio and a 3:2 ratio.14Consider, for example, Adieu,15 Telemusik,"6 Klavierstiick IX,17 Mikrophonie II,18 or Hinab-Hinauf.19 Whether or not a moment-formcomposition is formallysatisfyingdepends to a large degree on the proportional lengthsof moments. Two questions thus arise: (1) Can durational proportions be perceived? It is safe to say that, when there is no large internal activity within sections, the objectively measurable durations correspond to the perceived proportions. However, I am reluctant to discuss relative proportional weight in two sections of a tonal piece, because those sections will undoubtedly be filled with various kinds of motion - middleground motion of voices, rates of harmonic change, varying degrees of harmonic stability,dissonance resolutions, the whole network of structural upbeats and downbeats. This complex of kineticism influences (one might say distorts,though surely in a positive way) our perception of time units. Furthermore,as I have shown,20tonal motion is not necessarily temporally linear at all. The whole ques13Heikifnheimo, p. 192. 14Kramer,"The Fibonacci Series in Twentieth Century Music," Journal of Music Theory,XVII/1 (Spring, 1973), 114-18. 15Ibid., pp. 125-26. 16Maconie, p. 207. 17Kramer,"The Fibonacci Series,"pp. 121-25. 18Jonathan Harvey, The Music of Stockhausen:An Introduction (Berkeley,1975), p. 96. 19Maconie, p. 263. 20 Kramer,"Multiple and Non-Linear Time in Beethoven'sOpus 135,"passim.


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tion of proportions in tonal music as perceived is too complex to be dealt with by objective measurement. But, if there is no motion, the problem evaporates. The measurable length of one static section relates to that of another. (2) Is musical staticism an experiential possibility? The archetypal static moment - a prolonged unchanged sound - is almost never really encountered. (La Monte Young's Composition 1960 Number 7, which prolongs B and F# "for a long time," is a somewhat special - though not unique - reductio ad absurdum.) But would even this sound be experienced as static? How long must it go on before the listener gives up expectation of change and enters a static mode of perception? The answer seems to depend on the richness of the unchanging sound; experiments with students have suggested a thresholdof static perception at somewhere between two and three minutes. But this is a trivial case. More common are nondifferentiatedyet subtly changing sound worlds: lannis Xenakis' Boh6r I is a prime example. We soon understand the very narrow limitations of its sound world and we stop expecting change beyond those limits. There is motion, but it somehow does not matter- it is not perceived as change. I am not saying just that changes are nondirectional - there are pieces that involve directional changes that do not really matter,so that the experience is static (Les Moutons de Panurge by Frederic Rzewski is a good example). A large part of the answer has to do with the absence of phrases, of alterations of density,or of rhythmicevents that might appear cadential. But I am also saying that it is a question of degree. The threshold of staticismdepends on context: if there are large contrastsbetween sections, a higher degree of internal motion will not disturb the perceived staticism as it would in situations where the contrasts between sections are small. This thresholdultimatelydepends on the rate of flow of information.In a given context a certain amount of new informationper unit time creates a static sensation, while more informationproduces motion.21 My assertion that staticism is relative to context is supported by stylisticallyeclectic music, such as William Bolcom's Frescoes, some of the music of Peter Maxwell Davies, George Rochberg's Third Quartet, or, to go back to the source, several works of Ives, such as 21 For a very interestingand rather differentdiscussion of musical staticism,see Thomas Clifton, "Some Comparisons between Intuitive and ScientificDescriptions of Music," Journal of Music Theory,XIX/1 (Spring,1975),96-105.


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the two piano sonatas, Putnam's Camp, or parts of the Fourth Symphony. In all of these pieces, there are tonal sections alongside nontonal passages. Tonality is heard as a possibilityof the particular composition, but surely not as its universe of discourse. The result is that the tonal sections are rendered static by contrast with the various nontonal surroundings. Tonality is robbed of its inherent kineticism, but it retains its associations, so that we experience a moment of history frozen in the midst of a contemporary sound world. It is impossible to enter the world of tonalitywhen it occurs in such a context; it is also impossible to experience tonality as a system,because we encounter it in a world that has differentlaws. Tonality becomes a foreign object, and thus one tonal passage in an eclectic work relates to another simply because the two are tonal, which can hardly be claimed of a trulytonal composition.22 If we grant that relative staticism can be experienced and that the proportional lengths of static sections in a moment-formcomposition can be a perceptual force governing the global form, then it is meaningful to calculate actual durational proportions. To find consistentproportionsin the music of Stockhausen or in that of some of his Darmstadt colleagues and disciples would hardly be surprising, given their predilection for establishing the lengths of sections as a firstact of precomposition. However, there are interestingproportions in earlier moment-formconstructions,most notably in what is probably the firstmoment-formpiece ever composed, Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments. In Symphonies the music is not really static,of course, but the major progressionstake place between rather than within moments, and motivic consistency and tempo consistencysupport this self-containmentof the moments,guarantee22 The Rochberg quartet, by the way, plays on the dual nature of tonality systemvs. material - in a way that emphasizes my argument.The middle movement set of variations in A major. We almost forget,we try to forget, is a fifteen-minute the movement that the quartet lives in the expanded world of atonality-plus-tonality; but the comfortableassociations tries to lure us into the world of tonality-as-system, of tonality - continuity,progression,goal-direction,resolution - are never quite as comfortableas they would be in a real tonal quartet, because the language of the variation movementcan never completelyerase that of the two earlier movements (a language that is to return in the final two movements).There is thereforea contradiction between movements I, II, IV, and V, in which triadic tonality is used as musical material, and movement III, in which it is the system,the bounded world, of the music. This provocative and haunting paradox lends the quartet its special appeal; the piece really probes the consequences of stylisticallyeclectic music. It seeks to reestablish tonality as the music of kineticism despite its tendency to behave staticallyin an atonal context.


Moment Form

185

ing their relative staticism. The elegance of the temporal form is created by a systemof proportions that functions only because the moments are self-contained. This system is not exact, and hence probably was not consciously derived, but within the limits of perception it does operate.23The systemhas to do mainly with the ratio 3:2. This proportion pertains to many important relationships. To demonstrate this, I have tabulated the durations of the moments and submoments of the firsthalf of the piece.24 (The bracketed numbers referto rehearsal numbers in the printed score.) Moments: [0] - [6] [6] - [8] [8] - [9] [9]- [11] [11]--[26] [26] - [29]

49.58 12.22 7.78 14.17 80.00 22.50

[38] - [39] [39] - [40] [40] - [42]

7.50 10.83 16.10

[29] - [37] 35.28 [37] - [38] 9.58

231 know of no psychologicaldata that would determinewhat degree of approximation of a given duration proportion of moments is tolerable. There is, however,a perhaps not irrelevantstudy by C. Douglas Creelman that demonstratesexperimentally that a 10 percent or less deviation of duration in two compared sounds is not perceived. Creelman uses durations only up to 2 seconds; the shortestmoment in Symphonies is 3.61 seconds. Possibly the 10 percent limit also applies to greaterdurations; I have kept my approximationsall well within this limit. See C. D. Creelman,"Human Discrimination of Auditory Duration," Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, XXXIV (1962), 582-93. 24Durations, shown in seconds, are calculated from the firstattack of a section to the firstattack of the next section. Stravinsky'smetronomemarkingsare the basis of the calculations. The fermatavalue is averaged fromseveral recordings.The decision about what constitutesa moment,or its subdivision,a submoment,in this music was made on the basis of degree of change in tempo, harmony, and melodic material, with supporting data from timbre and texture. Only the firsthalf of the piece is analyzed here; the second half uses a differentproportional system,less economical and less elegant,but nonethelessappropriate to momentform.



186 Submoments: [0] - [1]

[1]-1[2] [2] [3] [4] -

7.92

12.92

5.21 3.54 20.00

[3] [4] [6]

26.11

[11]--[15] [15] -

[26]

53.89

[41] -

[42]

7.49

[40] - [41]

8.61

A useful proportion with which to start this discussion is that between [15] - [26] and [29] - [37], since the latter moment is a condensation of the former (both go through the same material, except for certain key omissions in [29] - [37]); this condensation is in an interestingrelationship, since the ratio of the durations of these two sections approximates 3:2 = 1.50. [15]

-

[26] : [29] -

[37] = 1.53

Similarly the subdivision at [15] of the moment [11] proximates 3:2, since [11]

-

[26] : [15] -

[26] ap-

[26] =- 1.48

Consider also the internal subdivisions of the firstmoment,up to[6]: [4] [1] [0] [2]

-

[6] [2] [1] [3]

: : : :

[1] [0] [2] [3]

- [2] = 1.55 (similar submoments) - [1] = 1.63 (adjacent submoments) - [3] = 1.52 (similar submoments) - [4] = 1.47 (adjacent submoments)

A still more impressive utilization of the 3:2 proportion is between rather than within moments. Consider, first,the two types of moments firstheard at the beginning and at [11]: =1.61 [11] - [26] : [0 -[6] = 1.41 : [0] [6] [29] [37] = 1.57 (adjacent moments) [37] : [26] [29] [29] [26] - [29] : [9] - [11] = 1.59 (similar moments) [9] - [11] : [37] - [38] = 1.48 (similar moments)


Moment Form

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These proportions include all instances of the opening fanfare moment except its final appearance in [39] - [40], which is in a 3:2 ratio with its surroundingmoments. [40] [39] -

[42] : [39] [40] : [38] -

[40] = 1.49 (adjacent moments) [39] = 1.44 (adjacent moments)

The only moments in the firsthalf of the piece not yet included in a 3:2 proportion are [6] - [8] and [8] - [9]. [6] -

[8] : [8] -

[9] = 1.57 (adjacent moments)

Therefore everymoment in the firsthalf of the piece is involved in a meaningful 3:2 approximation (meaningful because of adjacency or because of similarity of moment type), and almost every moment containing submoments is partitioned according to 3:2. I find the pervasiveness of this ratio impressive. It accounts for the formal balance of the firsthalf of the piece. I do not of course claim that we listen and say, "Aha! A 3:2 piece." But we surely do hear something consistentand elegant in the way the proportions relate, and the persistenceof 3:2 explains such an impression. Stravinskyclearly discovered somethingimportantand it received its purest statementin Symphonies. The techniques of this piece are both a culmination of Stravinsky'searlier methods and an anticipation of the radically nonlinear procedures of a younger generation, in whose music moments are truly independent both of each other and of an underlying progressivelogic. Stravinskysubsequently did not abandon his explorations of proportioned staticism,any more than he abandoned radicalism after Sacre, as is often charged. The techniques achieved in Symphonies suggest the procedures, though not the materials, of neoclassicism. Stravinskywas now ready to embrace the music most deeply involved with kineticism. He was able to strip tonal sounds of their kinetic implications and to freeze them in motionless nonprogressions.25Still there is a background motion 25 For an obvious demonstrationof the process of neoclassic staticism, compare Stravinsky's1956 "orchestration" of Bach's Vom Himmel hoch variations with the original. Bach's version is contrapuntallydense, yet the goal-directedharmonic motion is unmistakable. Stravinsky,consideringtriadic tonalityas a violable possibilityrather than the entire universe of musical discourse, was able to add new melodic lines, stylisticallyconsistentin themselvesyet obscuring the triadic orientation of the verticalities. The new lines, it would seem, should increase the polyphonic density and


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at work- theneoclassicpieces have beginnings,middles,and ends, means. althoughthesegesturesare createdbyotherthantonal-triadic The musicofneoclassicism is like thatof Symphonieswithan added the material complexity: implies a motion that never (or at least on its own level. There is ironyin this music: the occurs rarely) tonal materialssuggestmovement,but theydo not move; in the backgroundthepiecesdo move,but by nontonalmeans. ThereforeStravinsky's move into neoclassicismwas in no way a from his retreat temporalexplorations.He may have adopted the outlinesof formsthatoriginallydealt withkineticism,but he often used themas assemblagesof staticor at least self-contained sections. In his use ofsonataform,forexample,he transformed thetraditional kineticsectionsinto moments.Because of the referenceto classical discontinuouson the style,the resultingmusic is less aggressively surfacethanSymphonies.But the sectionsdo tend to be definedby bounded processesor by staticharmonies.To takeone of manypossible examples,considerthe firstmovementof the Sonata forTwo Pianos, an unjustlyneglectedwork datingfrom1943-44.Here we findStravinsky's typicalverticalizingof tonal functions(the opening,forexample,superimposeslines simultaneously outliningI and V7chords),withtheresultthattheharmonyis a staticcomplex(such writingused to be called pandiatonic).The textureremainsas conuntil the bridgesectionbeginsabruptly.This stantas the harmony, sectionis a new staticharmonicarea,arrivingwithminimalpreparation; its textureis also new and unprepared.Justas suddenly,the second themearrives,which is staticby virtueof ostinatofigures. The expositionsection,then,is reallya series of threeapparently unrelatedand unconnectedmoments(thereare reallyhalf-hidden as thereare in Symphonies).The developmentsection relationships, is also a seriesof moments(of lesserdurationso that the increased rate of successionof staticmomentsfunctionsanalogouslyto the increasedharmonicrhythm as of the classicalsonata'sdevelopment), is the recapitulation.The gentlenatureof thismovementprecludes extremediscontinuities like thoseof Symphonies, but it is nonethelessa productofthesametimeconsciousness. thus complicate the music, but in fact they almost freeze the harmonies and thereby simplify the situation. With harmonic direction no longer a prime factor, there is actually less information.Similar additions are made to the originals (thought to be by Pergolesi) in Pulcinella, Stravinsky'sfirstneoclassic effort,composed just prior to Symphonies.


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The composers working in Darmstadt in the late 1950s did not realize that Stravinsky's neoclassic music continued the striking temporal achievements of his Russian period. The misguided scorn that they heaped upon Stravinsky fortunatelyhad no impact on either his or their music. The Darmstadt musicians did not even realize the importance of the overtly experimental Symphonies to their aesthetic. Their writingspraise Sacre as the source of permutational and cellular rhythms,yet they turn to Debussy's Jeux, written in 1912, as the source of moment form. This work, in contrast to Symphonies, was seminal to the Darmstadt composers. Stockhausen pays homage to it in "Von Webern zu Debussy (Bemerkungen zur statistischen Form),"26 Herbert Eimert analyzes it in "Debussy's Jeux,"27 Boulez conducts it, and referencesto it are scatteredthroughout the Darmstadt literature. The often fragmentarynature of the material, the frequent changes of tempo, the nondevelopmental form, the transformation of material, the discontinuities- these were the appealing features of Jeux. But it is really not a moment-formpiece. It is highly sectionalized, to be sure, but the sections are as often in motion towards other sections as they are static. Since motion is usually to or from some place not immediately heard, the piece works as a nonlinear progression.The sections are not self-contained,because they point toward goals (or come from sources) not within their boundaries; that these goals (or origins) do not appear in adjacent sections, and may not appear at all in the piece, renders the temporal world of Jeux complex and fascinating.But to move into the realm of moment formswas another huge step, one that Debussy never took. This development was taken up by Stravinskyand later by Messiaen. Olivier Messiaen began his compositional maturity under the influence of Stravinskyand Debussy, and he eventually wrote music of a sufficiently arresting originality to become the father figure of the Darmstadt school. His music, then, is a link, perhaps an all too convenient link, between earlyStravinskyand the Stockhausen circle. In his early years Messiaen toyed with the sonata, but, like the neoclassic Stravinsky,he approached the formas a static object rather than as a self-motivatingprocess. As Robert Sherlaw Johnson says in his comprehensive book on Messiaen, "He is thinking of the 26 Texte I, pp. 75-85.

27 Die Reihe, V (1959), trans.by Leo Black (1961), 3-20.



190

sonata sectionally rather than organically,and, as a result, the forms he derives from it have very little to do with its real spirit."28Later on, his sectionalized formsbecame more organically coherent. In his later worksthe musicalthoughtoftendemandsa sectionaltreatment.The starkjuxtapositionof ideas in earlier workseventuallybecomes sophisticatedin as well as juxtapositionbeing involved.The eventhe '40s withsuperimposition tual outcome is a refinedcollage structuresuch as used in Couleurs de la Cite c'leste [1963], wherenot only melodyand harmonybut also rhythmand timbre interactto formthe totalcollage.29

These sectionalized collages (in our terminology,moment forms) suggesta species of musical time quite differentfrom that of classical tonality: He arrivesat a positionwhich is analogous to Easternmusic because of his attitude to harmonyas a static element.A sense of time,marked by an evolving texture,is fundamentalto Bach and Beethoven,but it has alwaysbeen Messiaen's aim to suspendthe senseof timein music (except in thoseworkswhichare based on birdsongin relationto nature),in order to expressthe idea of the "eternal" - in which time does not exist- as distinctfromthe temporal.30

Embryonic moment forms,adulterated by occasional goal-directed passages but becoming progressivelymore pure, can be heard in such pieces as L'Ascension (1931-35), Visions de l'Amen (1943), Turangalila-Symphonie(1946-48), and Cante'odjayd (1948). Written in 1960, virtuallyconcurrentlywith Stockhausen's Kontakte, Messiaen's Chronocromie is the work in which the composer most fully confronts moment form. Gone are the recapitulations, cadences, and structural downbeats of the earlier pieces. Moments stop rather than conclude, and they are juxtaposed without mediating transition.They are defined by a rich palette of textures,instrumental colors, compositional techniques, and in addition the use or avoidance of various birdcalls. Proportionsare importantin the form, as are the placement of particularly long and especially short moments. And the placement of returns contributes to the overall coherence, although there is no feeling of prepared recapitulation. The formal division into movements is minimal, since they are played without pause and since some movements contain but one moment,while otherscontain many. 28 Messiaen (Berkeley,1975),pp. 22-23.

29Ibid., p. 24. 30Ibid., p. 183.


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The firstmovement includes several moments; some are only a few seconds in length, but none are long. The second movement is internally undifferentiatedand it is static. Despite its greater duration (86 seconds), it, too, is a moment. The placement of the long moment after a series of shorter ones is satisfying.(This is one of the firstpieces in which Messiaen uses metronome markings,indicating perhaps a greater sensitivityto the importance of exact proportions in an extended moment form.) The longest moment (the sixth movement) comes late in the composition and therebyserves as the major focal point. Although theoretically a moment form is antithetical to the idea of climax, in practice composers gave up the dramatic curve with reluctance.3' We find remnantsof it here in the placement of this weightiestmoment at the traditional climax point; we find it also in Symphonies,whose climax occurs in [46] - [56]. It remained forthe youngergeneration to write totally antidramatic music that is faithfulto the momentform idea. The nonclimactic nature of a piece like Stockhausen's Momente (1960-72), for example, makes difficultlistening for someone brought up on art that respectsthe dramatic curve. Of course the dramatic curve is peculiar to Western art; it is not a universal of mankind, as Eastern music readily demonstrates.32Hence we should not lament its passing; its time has come and gone. Still, our expectation of finding a dramatic curve is strong, and listening to a pure moment form requires an effort,a commitment, a belief. This weighty3' 36" moment in Chronocromie is a dense texture of birdsongs, with little internal differentiationof the texture; there are no phrases (phrase structure,which had proven to be the most tenacious relic of tonality,is overthrown),and the moment finallybreaks off rather than comes to any conclusion. It is a most obvious self-contained moment, and quite static; an undifferentiatedblock whose main formalsignificanceis its duration and its placement within the whole. The close of Chronocromie is a rather short moment that does not cadence but ratherdrops away: an open ending, fullyappropriate 31 For a discussion of the dramatic curve in music and its demise in the twentieth century,see Barney Childs, "Time and Music: a Composer's View," Perspectives of New Music, XV/2 (Spring-Summer,1977). 32 For an interestingdiscussion of temporalityin certain non-Westernmusic, see Richard Saylor, "The South Asian Conception of Time and Its Influence on ContemporaryWestern Composition," a paper read to the American Societyof University Composers, Boston, Proceedings of the Annual Conferences,February 29, 1976.


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to a moment form,although on the background level there are ample reasons to conclude with this moment- reasons having to do with pacing of moment returnsand placement of moment durations within the span of the piece. The power of moment formssuch as Messiaen's Chronocromie or Stockhausen's Mixtur (1964) comes fromthe power of discontinuity,which is discussed at the beginning of this article. Extreme discontinuities became readily available with the advent of the tape recorder. A simple splice can transportthe listener instantaneously fromone sound world to another. Discontinuity is heightened by the unpredictabilityof preciselywhen a splice might occur or into what new world it might send the listener. Not all tape music, of course, avails itself of the potency of extreme discontinuity,but the possibility is there to be used or not used. Stockhausen must surely have realized the implications for musical form of the new technology when he was workingin the musique concrktestudio in Paris in 1952 and in the electronic studio in Cologne in 1953-56."3A composer's involvement with electronics tends to influence any subsequent return to purely instrumental media. Although Stockhausen's early tape pieces (Etiude, Studie I, Studie II, and Gesang der Jiinglinge) are not cast in moment form,Kontakte (for tape with or without instruments)was the work that opened the door for such further explorations in moment formas Carre' (writtensimultaneously with Kontakte), Momente, Mikrophonie I (1964), and Mixtur - none of which use tape. Of course, the splice did not originate with the invention of the tape recorder. The technologyof the film is intimatelylinked with new time conceptions. According to art historian Arnold Hauser, the agreementbetweenthe technicalmethodsof the filmand the characteristics of the new conceptof time is so completethatone has the feelingthat the time categoriesof modernart have arisen fromthe spiritof cinematicform,and one is inclined to considerthe filmitselfas the stylistically most representative . . . art. .... In the temporalmedium of a filmwe move in genre of contemporary a way thatis otherwisepeculiar to space, completelyfreeto choose our direction, proceedingfromone phase of timeinto another,just as one goes fromone room to another,disconnectingthe individualstagesin the developmentof eventsand regroupingthem,generallyspeaking,accordingto the principlesof spatial order. In brief,time here loses, on the one hand, its irreversibledirection.It can be broughtto a standstill:in close-ups;reversed:in flash-backs; repeated: in recol33 Maconie, pp. 30-40.


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lections; and skipped across: in visions of the future.Concurrent,simultaneous and temporallydisjunct eventssimultaneously eventscan be shown successively, - by double-exposureand alternation;the earlier can appear later, the later beforeits time.This cinematicconceptionof timehas a thoroughly subjectiveand apparentlyirregularcharactercompared with the empirical and the dramatic conceptionof thesamemedium.34

The language and conventions of the filmdepend on the splice, just as the discontinuities of tape music are creations of the razor blade. The profound temporal experience caused by the simple act of splicing deeply altered the consciousness of all composers, not only those who work with tape. And the power of the filmsplice - juxtaposing successive simultaneities,double standstills,flashbacks,flashforwards, scrambles the hitherto orderlyand inviolable succession exposures of time. Time is thus redefined as a malleable Now, as an arbitrary succession of moments. This new concept, born of technology,reverberated in all art formsduring this century.Thus Stravinsky's1920 masterpiece is not an isolated experiment; he was responding to new concepts of time that were deeply affectingthe meaning of human existence, at least in Western Europe. To what extent other composers who came to compose moment formswere influenced by Stravinsky's radical statement hardly matters. They, too, were reacting to increasinglypotent new currents in Western thought. New concepts of musical time were well enough assimilated to have been articulated verbally by 1960, the year of Stockhausen's firstarticle on moment form. His polemical stance may sound as if he is proposing an original musical form,but he is in factproviding a rational framework within which to deal with a species of musical time that had been practiced for some fortyyears. Stockhausen makes clear, as do the most successful moment-formcompositions, that that species of time deals with the isolated moment as an eternal Now. As Arnold Hauser has aptly said: The timeexperienceof the presentage consistsabove all in an awarenessof the momentin whichwe findourselves:in an awarenessof the present.Everything bound togetherin the presentmomentis of special signitopical,contemporary, cance and value to the man of today,and, filledwith thisidea, the mere factof simultaneity acquires new meaningin his eyes. . ... Is one not in everymoment of one's life the same child or the same invalid or the same lonely strangerwith the same wakeful,sensitive,unappeased nerves?Is one not in everysituationof 34 The Social History of Art, Vol. IV, trans.Stanley Godman (New York,1958), 239, 241.



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life the personcapable of experiencingthisand that,who possesses,in the recurring featuresof his experience,the one protectionagainst the passage of time? Do not all our experiencestake place as it were at the same time?And is this not reallythe negationof time?And thisnegation,is it not a struggle simultaneity forthe recoveryof thatinwardnessof whichphysicalspace and timedepriveus?35

35Hauser,IV, 243,245.


Moment Form in Twentieth Century Music

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