Snapshots in Sound: Mystère de l’instant and the Legacy of Moment Form Mark Hutchinson Please note: this is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Contemporary Music Review 29.5 (2010), available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07494467.2010.589127?journalCode=gcmr20#. VR0miMYtxyU Dutilleux’s Mystère de l’instant for cymbalum, strings and percussion (1986–9) stands out within his output for its unusual approach to large-scale form. Eschewing processes of ‘progressive growth’ and the emphasis upon organic, symphonic continuity which had characterised the composer’s mature language, , this work presents a succession of selfcontained ‘instants’ in which little attempt is made to establish longer-term connections of material. His approach shows some striking parallels with the aesthetic of ‘moment form’ adopted by Stockhausen and his Darmstadt colleagues during the 1960s and set out systematically by Jonathan Kramer in 1978, even though the respective musical languages employed are very different. A more detailed exploration of these parallels highlights new connections between Mystère de l’instant and the work of Proust, who has long represented an important source of inspiration for Dutilleux, and allows the work to be ‘rehabilitated’ within the main thread of the composer’s stylistic development. Keywords: Henri Dutilleux, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Jonathan Kramer, Marcel Proust, moment form, snapshot. Dutilleux’s composition for string orchestra, cimbalom and percussion Mystère de l’instant (1986-9) reveals striking aesthetic parallels with the concept of moment form, an approach towards structure which is closely associated with Stockhausen and his companions in the Darmstadt School of the late 1950s and early 60s. Of course, it is difficult to imagine two composers more different than these two: whilst Dutilleux has stated his admiration for
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Stockhausen on a number of occasions, he has also made it clear that their respective aesthetics and compositional languages share almost nothing in common.1 The connections discussed here do not imply any kind of direct influence; indeed, they are abstract enough that any attempt to trace a ‘lineage’ for them is bound to be a futile exercise. Instead, the focus here is more pragmatic: the perspective of moment form is used to shed new light upon Mystère de l’instant, a work which might otherwise seem like an anomaly within Dutilleux’s output. In order to set up the terms for the comparison, I will provide a brief introduction to the concepts of moment form, seen through the writings of Stockhausen and the composermusicologist Jonathan Kramer; this is contrasted with the linear, organic approach seen through much of Dutilleux’s mature style. I will then look in some detail at Mystère de l’instant itself, investigating the way in which the composer’s own commentary on the piece is reflected in the music, and relating it to the formal archetype set up by Kramer. Finally, a wider-ranging exploration of the broader conceptual landscape which informs both sides of the comparison, drawing upon the metaphor of a snapshot and the work of Proust, will serve to place Dutilleux’s work more clearly in context.
Introduction to moment form The term ‘moment form’ arose initially out of a number of texts and lectures by Stockhausen from 1960 onwards, introducing a new approach in his output which began Kontakte (195660).2 The idea was expanded considerably in 1978 with Jonathan Kramer’s article ‘Moment Form in Twentieth Century Music’, which applied the concept to a wide variety of recent works; his argument draws on a number of earlier-generation composers (such as Varèse and Ives) as models, and includes a detailed discussion of Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments.3 Kramer’s use of the term proceeds from a recognition of discontinuity as a fundamental aspect of the modern condition, and one which has affected music as much as ievery other aspect of life and art. Because our experience of time is now so charged with 2
discontinuity, he argues, any attempt by a new composition to deal with ideas in a linear and continuous way is bound to emerge as a kind of struggle against chaos, or else appear rather archaic; this is especially true given how quickly other art forms have adapted to ideas of fracture and fragmentation. Yet Kramer sees this tendency towards disintegration as an opportunity, rather than a disaster: he suggests that ‘the musical experiences that are most memorable are the magical moments when expectation is subverted, when complacency is destroyed, and when a new world opens.’4 ‘Moment form’ arises, then, as an attempt to integrate this newly omnipresent sense of discontinuity into the larger-scale temporal structure of music. In Kramer’s account, a piece is in moment form when it is built out of a collection of musical ‘blocks’ – or ‘moments’ – which follow certain conditions. The first is that they are ‘independent’: every moment must count for itself, irrespective of those which surround it; sections which function purely as ‘transitions’ are therefore excluded. This means also that relationships of clear expectation and release between moments are generally avoided, since they lead to an unwanted sense of causality between consecutive passages. As a result, there is no attempt to move towards long-term structural goals in the music; it is fundamentally anti-teleological. Indeed, the ‘order’ of moments within a composition may even become arbitrary; moment form is closely related to the ideas of the ‘open work’ which were also prevalent in the Darmstadt School around this time.
Finally, and most drastically, even the large-scale
coherence of the piece is undermined; that is, it is seen more as a collection of individual moments than as a unified whole. Kramer suggests that a true moment form piece will not ‘begin’ and ‘end’ in a traditional sense, but rather simply ‘start’ and ‘stop’: it will ‘give the impression of starting in the midst of previously unheard music, and […] break off without reaching any structural cadence, as if the music goes on, inaudibly, in some other space or
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time after the close of the performance.’5 Instead of listening for larger connections, we hear each moment for itself; the music just ‘is’. Kramer’s quote from Stockhausen’s first article on the subject illustrates the close parallels between their respective conceptions; this does, however, highlight a significant difference of focus (to which I will return). Stockhausen seems less concerned with specifics of technique and more with the philosophical, even spiritual, ramifications of the idea: Every present moment counts, as well as no moment at all; a given moment is not merely regarded as the consequence of the previous one and the prelude to the coming one, but as something individual, independent and centred in itself, capable of existing on its own. An instant does not need to be just a particle of measured duration. This concentration on the present moment – on every present moment – can make a vertical cut, as it were, across horizontal time perception, extending out to [.…] an eternity that is present in every moment. I am speaking about musical forms in which apparently no less is being undertaken than the explosion – yes – even more, the overcoming of the concept of duration.6
If the abstraction of these ideas seems a little overwhelming, they find plenty of concrete realisation in the musical world of the period. Stockhausen’s compositions and writings do not stand on their own; the idea of an approach to form which valued individual moments above all was very much ‘in the air’ in 1960s Darmstadt. For those searching for a French connection pre-Dutilleux, Messiaen’s Chronochromie (also from 1960) is identified by Kramer as a particularly clear example of the aesthetic7; it certainly serves as a demonstration of the block-like, discontinuous sound-world which tends to result from the strict application of moment-form principles.
Dutilleux and Moment Form On the surface it is difficult to see what parallels could be found between the concepts of moment form and Dutilleux’s own compositional language.
For most of his life, the
composer has made widespread use of linear connections and developmental processes within his works. Indeed, one of his most recognisable devices is the technique of croissance progressive (‘progressive growth’), which involves the slow and continuous morphing of thematic material on its every appearance, such that new motifs only gradually become
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recognisable as such.8 This process is entirely as organic as its title implies; as such, it seems resolutely opposed to the fracture and discontinuity of moment form. And, indeed, in a 1965 article entitled ‘Qui reste fidèle à la musique symphonique?’ (‘Who is still faithful to symphonic music?’), Dutilleux criticises the pointillism of much writing after Webern, suggesting that it distracts listeners and composers from what he calls the ‘continuous sonorous flow’ of symphonic music; thereafter, he dedicates himself to the task of revitalising this tradition.9 Moreover, in interview the composer has reiterated his belief that ‘a work comes to life not only through fleeting elements, however startling they may be, but through its incorporation into a trajectory, a trajectory which the listener cannot totally grasp at first hearing.’10 Set next to this established ideal, Mystère de l’instant comes as something of a shock. The composer’s own introduction to the piece warns the listener to expect something rather different. Of this work, he says: Ideas are put forward as they present themselves, without allusions to that which precedes or which will follow. In distancing himself somewhat from the schemas of preceding works […] the composer intended to seize the moment and to organise musical time differently.11
And, indeed, the work bears out these expectations. Mystère de l’instant is around fifteen minutes long, and runs without a break, but this span is divided into ten sharply contrasting movements (summarised in Figure 1). Given that Dutilleux is writing only for strings and percussion, there is a wide range of different textures, registers, moods and playing techniques in evidence. This variety of sonority serves as a demonstration of the composer’s mastery of instrumental timbre, of course, but is also suggestive of a particularly discontinuous approach towards form and development in comparison with earlier compositions.
Figure 1: Structural Summary of Mystère de l’instant
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Section
Description
Appels
Antiphonal exchanges of modal harmonics, moving from upper to lower register; cumulatively building intensity. Strings only.
Echos
Close imitation, expanding and contracting whole-tone and chromatic clusters, punctuated by cimbalom and cymbal.
Prismes
Layered texture, contrasting held diatonic harmonies with polyrhythmic pizzicato figures; ends on unison F sharp.
Espaces lointains
Inverted canon in octaves between extreme high and low registers, punctuated by tremolandi and tam-tam.
Litanies
Unison, impassioned, chant-like melody in central register; cimbalom and cymbals prominent.
Choral
Tranquil, homophonic ‘chorale’ in lower strings, quasi senza vibrato, with timpani
Rumeurs
Continuous whole-ensemble glissandi, growing in intensity
Soliloques
A series of solo string cadenzas against trill pedals
Métamorphoses
Contrapuntal variations on a six-note figure, contrasting legato and pizzicato timbres; grows to a 12-note chord before subsiding
Embrasement
Rustling spiccato figuration, ascending to a final climactic tutti gesture
What is most disconcerting of all, however, is the absence of any clear thematic material to unify different sections of the piece. Dutilleux is as good as his word here: the principles of progressive growth seem indeed to have been set aside. Individual movements do make use of particular melodic and harmonic figures, but none of these ever become established to the point where they could be seen as primary thematic material for the work as a whole. Indeed, here more than anywhere before in his output, Dutilleux seems at times more content to discard the idea of thematic writing altogether, and to concentrate instead on the immediate impact of sonority and gesture – ‘seizing the moment’, as he puts it in his commentary. Perhaps the most extreme example of this is the seventh movement, ‘Rumeurs’, which is built almost entirely from layered glissandi (Figure 2); but other sections of the
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piece are hardly less drastic in their exploitation of the colouristic potential of slowly-shifting clusters (‘Echos’), opposed registral extremes (‘Espaces lointains’), or overlapping instrumental solos (‘Soliloques’).
Figure 2: Mystère de l’instant, ‘Rumeurs’, bars 4-8
On the face of it, then, it is tempting to see this piece purely as an ‘anomaly’, an attempt by a composer in his seventies to break out of working methods which he felt were growing increasingly stale. (After all, in conversation with Roger Nichols Dutilleux did describe the work as an opportunity to ‘renew himself’.12) Such an account is intrinsically unsatisfying, however: given the remarkable stylistic and technical consistency of Dutilleux’s output as a whole, and his notoriously self-critical approach towards his own compositional process, it seems rather facile to ‘explain away’ the differences of aesthetic here in such superficial terms. Furthermore, any brief survey of the works following Mystère de l’instant will show that after this piece the composer quickly returns, without any apparent discomfort, to the linear organicism of his earlier works: The Shadows of Time (1997) is a large-scale symphonic work in the same mould as Métaboles or the symphonies, for example, whilst Sur le même accord (2001) for violin and orchestra is based (as its title suggests) around a single six-note chordal cell. If Mystère de l’instant represents primarily an attempt to break free from Dutilleux’s earlier working methods, it would appear that it was unsuccessful. The central argument of this paper is that the work represents not an anomaly but a continuation; it stands as a kind of extreme ‘limiting case’ within Dutilleux’s wider output,
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developing concerns which are found within all of his compositions to their breaking point. The catalyst for this shift of perspective is the model of moment form: seeing Mystère from this unusual angle reveals striking and unexpected sideways connections with the composer’s long-refined concept of musical memory (a crucial feature in all his mature works), and opens up further relationships with the writers and thinkers who have influenced the development of this idea – above all, Proust. The discontinuity of the composition emerges as a kind of rarefied perspective upon musical expression: by removing all the surface workings of motivic organicism, Dutilleux shifts the focus to a particular aspect of his (and Proust’s) aesthetic – the creation of individual, perfectly-formed ‘moments’ which point to something greater than themselves.
Before this perspective can be presented with any clarity, a more nuanced understanding is needed of the formal principles underlying Mystère de l’instant, one which allows more detailed comparisons to be made with the ideas of moment form. One way to approach this task is to look again at Dutilleux’s own description of the piece, and see how each of his comments is borne out within the music; the results can then be compared with Kramer’s definition. Another statement from the composer’s preface notes that the work is made of ten sections of highly varied proportions, each focusing on a particular perspective, deliberately ‘stereotyped’ in their material, the structure of the whole not responding to any pre-established canvas. Ideas are put forward as they present themselves, without allusions to that which precedes or which will follow.13
Dutilleux’s first comment is that each section of the work is ‘focused on a particular perspective’. This is visible not only in the wide-ranging associations given by the titles of different movements, but above all in their musical content. Of course, the mere renunciation of long-range thematic connections does not necessarily imply that there will be no largescale unity; after all, it is perfectly possible to unify the material and mood of a piece through
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other methods apart from motivic development. Here, however, Dutilleux takes pains to keep movements distinct from one another in their content; between the different sections of the work there are striking contrasts in terms of texture, rhythmic devices, timbre and the handling of registral space, as well as in mood. This can be seen very clearly from a brief examination of a few different sections of the work. In the first movement, ‘Appels’ (‘Calls’), the texture is based on antiphonal exchanges between different sections of the ensemble, the rhythms are relatively simple, and the timbre is delicate and muted; there is as yet no sign of the cimbalom or percussion. The movement traces a descent from the upper register, increasing in confidence as it does so; its mood starts out as very calm and ethereal, but rapidly grows in force. By contrast, the fifth movement, ‘Litanies’, is texturally very simple. It employs the whole string section in unison to present a highly evocative melody in free, almost improvisatory rhythms; there is a prominent role for tam-tam and cymbals, and the cimbalom is used to ‘punctuate’ the phrases of the melody. Most of the movement is fixed in the middle register of the ensemble, and its mood is lyrical but anguished. By the ninth movement, ‘Métamorphoses’, things are again very different. Its texture is complex and contrapuntal, with different versions of the pitch material presented in interlocking rhythms; and the orchestration plays heavily on the contrasts between arco and pizzicato, as well as pitting the timpani against the rest of the ensemble. It begins in the lowest register and expands gradually upwards (the inverse of the opening movement in shape) and its mood is dynamic and aggressive. The contrasts between each of these sections of the piece go far beyond the absence of thematic connections; they are based just as strongly around sharply defined distinctions of texture, register and mood.
The second point in Dutilleux’s commentary draws attention to the sharpness of these distinctions: he describes each section as deliberately ‘‘stereotyped’ in its material’. The
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layered glissandi of ‘Rumeurs’ offer an extreme example of this approach, of course, yet this single-mindedness is just as audible throughout the rest of the work. Perhaps more than any other score by this composer, here every movement is very strongly characterised around a single timbre, gesture, or expressive idea: in ‘Rumeurs’ it is sequences of glissandi; in ‘Litanies’, the unfolding of a single, unison melody; in ‘Soliloques’, the eighth movement, a sequence of solo cadenzas. This is not to say that individual movements never contain any internal development; in some them, the basic unifying ‘idea’ is a process rather than a single piece of material, so that change is an integral part of the sound-world. This is true of the transformations of the ‘Métamorphoses’ movement, for example, or the gradual textural growth of ‘Appels’. Regardless of whether the idea is static or based around a process, the result is the same: every movement is concerned with the elaboration of a single, distinct and self-contained ‘atmosphere.’
Whilst the first two points in Dutilleux’s commentary concern the unity of the material (or, rather, its disunity), the remaining two address issues of continuity and sequence, and need to be handled with care. Firstly, Dutilleux says that ‘the structure of the whole [that is, the sequence of movements which makes up the piece] does not respond to any fixed canvas.’14 By this he means that there is no clear overarching formal scheme here, as might be found in his earlier works. Yet this does not imply that the piece is devoid of any dramatic curve whatsoever; listening through the whole work, different sections clearly do play different roles in the management of long-range tension and release. The anguished unison of ‘Litanies’ is an example of this: it serves as a kind of central emotional crisis for the piece, to which the ‘Choral’ that follows emerges as a brief but calming response, a gentle wave of cello homophony which seems to be imitating a viol consort in its timbre.15 In this way, it serves as a kind of ultra-compressed, minute-long slow
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movement, perhaps; a microcosmic parallel of the ethereal lento movements which are found in the composer’s two earlier string concertos. Likewise, the three movements ‘Rumeurs’, ‘Soliloques’ and ‘Métamorphoses’ can be seen together as a build-up to the final climax – each one raises the overall tension in a particular way. The ending of the work is certainly unequivocal in its dramatic force: following a cumulative, movement-long escalation in dynamic and pitch, which marks its final ‘arrival’ with the introduction of a Chinese gong, the final bars hammer out complex (but triad-based) tutti chords in rhythmic unison across the entire register of the ensemble (Figure 3). There is no question here of the audience not knowing when to applaud.
Figure 3: Mystère de l’instant, ‘Embrasement’, final bars
When Dutilleux states that there is ‘no pre-established canvas’ within Mystère de l’instant, then, he is not referring to long-range drama; rather, he is noting the absence of simple and clearly defined formal divisions. Here the ‘movements’ are in one sense only notional; although in content each is very different, the composer uses overlapping gestures and textures to ‘dovetail’ them together so that it is never quite clear where one ends and the next begins. This is evident at the link between the first and second movements, for example: the first ends on a clear climactic gesture, but the second begins with identical harmonic material, so that at first it sounds like a simple continuation – an ‘echo’, as its title might suggest. Only gradually does it move towards its own, contrasting material. Another example of this ‘dovetailing’ occurs at the end of the third movement, ‘Prismes’, where the whole ensemble settles onto octave F sharp; this prepares for the next movement, which is based around two canonic lines which circle around the same pitch. This process becomes more extreme over the course of the piece: while early movements are separated at least to some
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degree by audible closing gestures and silence, from ‘Rumeurs’ onwards the overlaps are totally seamless.
It is important to note here that this careful ‘dovetailing’ is quite different from the use of referential sonorities and gestures in earlier works by Dutilleux; this point is clarified by the fourth statement from Dutilleux’s commentary on the piece. He suggests that ‘[i]deas are put forward as they present themselves, without allusions to that which precedes or that which will follow.’16 In the majority of Dutilleux’s mature works, connections of material and gesture are generally set up and developed over an extended period of time; they form part of the long-range architecture of a work. Within Mystère de l’instant, each of these ‘dovetailing’ links is only momentary; once the listener has settled in the new section, contrasting material is freely introduced. The connections are more to do with a kind of immediate ‘free association’ than with any long-term logic. Here, too, any generalisations should be treated with caution: there is, in fact, one prominent exception to this rule within Mystère de l’instant. Towards the end of the piece, at the close of ‘Métamorphoses’, there is a direct reprise of material from the ‘Choral’ which serves as a transition into the final movement (Figure 4). This single instance of overt repetition is driven again by concerns of overall dramatic shape. The climax of ‘Métamorphoses’ is an enormous twelve-note chord which represents the dramatic high-point of the piece so far; the restatement of the chorale, coming soon after this point, provides a means of reducing the tension and preparing for the gradual, cumulative crescendo which closes the work. At the same time, there is something almost cyclic about the reappearance of earlier material at this stage; it acts as a signal to the listener that the end is approaching. For the first time the various twists and turns of the music take us not into yet another new area, but back to familiar ground. Given the location of this repeat, there is a further logic to this
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exception: the reappearance of earlier material here acts as another kind of ‘metamorphosis’ alongside the main transformational process of the movement.
Figure 4: Reduction of ‘chorale’ material a) ‘Choral’, bars 3-6;
b) ‘Métamorphoses’, bars 62-6
Dutilleux and Kramer Looking at Dutilleux’s own commentary provides a helpful overview of the way in which long-range form is handled within Mystère de l’instant. Sections are highly varied, but each is focused in its own material; the larger formal architecture is blurred by the use of ‘dovetailing’ between sections, although the overall dramatic shape is not in doubt; and ideas are presented not in some logical, associative sequence but rather as a series of unpredictable redirections, with only the penultimate movement showing signs of overt recall. This compressed, large-scale overview provides ample material for a direct comparison with Kramer’s own summary of moment form ideology. In the end, the results are somewhat mixed: although the process does indeed yield some fruitful insights, it is also rather frustrating. Certainly, individual movements here are ‘independent’ – the contrasts of material make this clear; but ‘linear connections’ are not avoided but actively created, as a means of blurring the boundaries between individual moments. Long-term goals are generally absent, because there is no clear logical sequence to sections, and as such the ‘order’ of moments is arbitrary in theory; but, again, in practice there is a clear dramatic curve to the work which Dutilleux is careful to maintain. Lastly,
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Kramer’s notion that the work have no clear ‘beginning’ or ‘end’ must be rejected: Mystère de l’instant does not just ‘stop’ – it goes out with a bang.
Comparisons with the specifics of Kramer’s definition can thus only offer a fairly limited perspective on the formal issues which Dutilleux is exploring within Mystère. At best, the work emerges as a hybrid of moment form and more conventional, continuous writing; at worst, it seems to be something else altogether – and so the basic questions of its particular effect, and its status within the composer’s output, remain unanswered. There is, however, a danger of getting lost in superfluous analytical detail. Dutilleux’s preface does include a surprising amount of technical commentary, but he is also adamant that the work be approached in more general terms as well: he talks about the need to ‘seize the instant’, and about the multi-faceted resonances of the word ‘mystery’ in its title. His own discomfort with detailed musical analysis is well-known;17 and it surely stems in part from a concern that issues which are broader and more difficult, but also more important, will be lost amid an excess of specifics. In order to answer these weightier questions, it is necessary to step back from the surface of the piece, and focus instead upon the underlying conceptual and philosophical perspectives which inform its composition. This broadening of the frame allows unexpected connections to emerge, not only between Mystère and moment form, but also with the rest of Dutilleux’s output.
Snapshots The starting-point for this discussion is the idea of a photographic snapshot. (Dutilleux’s working title for the piece was Instantanés, the equivalent term in French, so this seems like a sensible place to begin.)18 A snapshot is an instant frozen in time, fixed and immutable. The viewer may not look at it in a fixed and immutable way, because our attention may move
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freely around its various constituent elements; so, in fact, a single snapshot could occupy the viewer’s attention for quite some time. Indeed, a snapshot might be framed so as to draw our attention to different elements in turn: many tricks of photographic composition rely on this effect, using directed threads such as rivers or roads to lead the eye across the picture. In a sense, then, there may even be a process inherent in a snapshot. But the picture itself stays fixed and unchanging. The most pertinent contrast here is between snapshot and story. A story is linear and directed, where a snapshot remains fixed and static. Things can change in a story, but because of that nothing really lasts – everything is temporary; by contrast, in a snapshot things are frozen as they are, and so become timeless. A snapshot and a story thus focus on different things. It is useless to say that either is better than the other; they simply serve different purposes. A narrative is about tension and release: it focuses on problems which are solved, lessons which are learned, and transformations which occur. A snapshot is simply about evocation – taking a moment that was special and making it last forever. In this sense snapshots sacrifice the element of time in return for an increased expressive power. A snapshot can only ever be a partial representation of its source, but because of this fixity, it has a concentrated emotional weight which goes far beyond its real accuracy – it carries in one frozen moment all the rich associations of the event it commemorates. Because it does not try to expand on or exhaust the possibilities of its material, its effect is timeless. Of course, this does not imply that it is impossible to turn snapshots into a story. When a photographer compiles an album (or an exhibition) and places the pictures in sequence, they are inviting the viewer to look at them in a particular order, and in that sense they are turning them into a form of narrative. In selecting that order, decisions might even be made on the basis of narrative ideas such as tension and release, transformation and climax. Indeed, if the pictures are being presented as a slideshow on a computer, fades of various
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kinds may even be used to blur the transition from one snapshot to the next, so that at some points the viewer cannot tell which picture is on display – they seem for a moment to have become continuous. Nonetheless, for all this, an album of snapshots remains fundamentally different from a conventional narrative. At every stage of a photo album, in the absence of a written or spoken narrative, the onus is on the viewer to create the links between different elements (if indeed they want to experience it in a continuous way); and there is no guarantee that these links will be the same for every viewer. In any case, attempts to create such continuity are in a sense acting against the material; it is at its most effective when appreciated for what it is, a series of frozen moments which are complete in themselves. The parallels with Mystère de l’instant should be clear. Individual sections within the work do often represent processes, the connections between them are frequently seamless, and there are obvious signs of large-scale dramatic thinking in the arrangement of moments; yet there remains something fundamentally self-contained and non-narrative about this collection of instantanés, as audible to the listener as it is visible in Dutilleux’s own comments.
Dutilleux, Proust, and Stockhausen In fact, the visual analogy allows connections to be made much further back within Dutilleux’s output than Mystère de l’instant. Many of the composer’s earlier works contain moments which might rightly be classed as ‘snapshots’ in themselves: although they form part of a larger formal trajectory, they could stand equally well alone, as powerfully selfcontained evocations. Often they are focused upon small shreds of material which cycle around in a static manner; they may also make use of symmetrical structures in order to emphasise their timeless quality. Particularly notable examples of this strand of thinking include the ‘Parenthèse 3’ movement from the string quartet Ainsi la nuit, ‘Miroirs’ from Tout un monde lointain and ‘Torpide’ from Métaboles. This fondness for creating frozen 16
moments is an important part of the concept of memory which plays such a vital role in many of Dutilleux’s works, and it shows very clearly the influence of Proust, a writer whom he has long cited as a major source of inspiration. Proust’s thought overlaps meaningfully with Kramer’s own descriptions of the aesthetic behind moment form. His statement (quoted earlier) that experience is most memorable when ‘expectation is subverted, when complacency is destroyed, and when a new world opens’ serves as a surprisingly close description of the mysterious workings of ‘unconscious memory’ which feature so prominently in Proust’s masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu. When the protagonist, early in the first book Du côté de chez Swann, tastes a fragment of madeleine dipped in tisane, he is instantly transported almost physically to the world of his childhood; taking it literally, his ‘expectation is subverted’, and for him ‘a new world opens’ (albeit one which he knows very well). The event occurs because the taste and texture of the cake triggers a series of powerful associations within his memory, breaking into the continuity of his life and opening up a self-contained ‘moment’ of recall which continues for some time (in literary terms at least). In its own way, then, the madeleine cake itself functions as a kind of multi-sensory ‘snapshot’ – it preserves (in concentrated form) the memory of a particular moment frozen in time, ready to be reactivated in the future. In the works of Dutilleux which show Proust’s influence most clearly, such as Ainsi la nuit, this process has parallels with the composer’s treatment of thematic material. A motif is set up very subtly over the course of a work so that it finds its way into the listener’s unconscious memory; in this way, a later and more extended appearance of it can draw on the pre-established associations of earlier statements. In Mystère de l’instant there are no such long-range thematic processes to draw on, and this aspect of Dutilleux’s ‘memory concept’ is thus set aside. The focus thus shifts from the process of creating these ‘snapshots’ to the experience of them per se. From this perspective, Mystère de l’instant is a work made
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entirely of ‘madeleine moments’, frozen points, with the connecting material reduced to a bare minimum (in the ‘dovetailing’ of sections) so that the snapshots are allowed to speak for themselves. As Dutilleux notes in his own description, this allows for a different experience of musical time: here, more than ever, it is individual moments which matter, and not the links between them. As with a slideshow, we as listeners are free to generate our own larger continuity; but we might be better off doing as Dutilleux does and deciding to ‘seize the moment’ in our listening attitude. And so the thread leads back to moment form, and to the underlying conceptual impulse which inspired Stockhausen in his own explorations. In 1971, looking back on his first experiments from the late 1950s and early 1960s, the composer spoke of his desire to create ‘a music in which the forming process is instantaneous’; by analogy with poetic genres, he described this as a ‘lyric’ approach towards musical form, as opposed to the ‘dramatic’ approach of works which focussed upon direction and development.19 This polarity offers another parallel to the distinction drawn in this paper between ‘snapshot’ and ‘story’: where dramatic poetry is concerned with tracing a narrative thread, lyric poetry focuses on the evocation of a single instant, expanding it to fill eternity – much like a snapshot. So, in the end, Stockhausen and Dutilleux appear to be striving for similar effects, even if the means which they employ to realise them (and their musical languages in general) are strikingly different.
Conclusion Mystère de l’instant occupies a unique position within Dutilleux’s œuvre so far; after his act of self-renewal, he does not appear to have made any attempt to replicate its particularly extreme approach towards formal discontinuity. Nonetheless, upon investigation it becomes clear that the work by no means stands ‘outside’ the main path of the composer’s creative evolution: rather, it represents the culmination of a focus on the timelessness of memory 18
which has been a constant preoccupation throughout his mature compositional life. The contrast of ‘snapshot’ and ‘story’ makes this relationship clear; it also highlights the connections between this music and the rich world of Proust, itself so saturated with memory and nostalgia. Furthermore, placing this into the context of Stockhausen and Kramer reveals a new take on moment form, one which is concerned less with surface discontinuity than with deeper issues of evocation and timelessness. This piece fulfils, in its own way, the expressive, almost spiritual longings of Stockhausen’s original manifesto; it is no accident that it is entitled ‘Mystery of the moment’.
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Dutilleux, H.and Glayman, C. (2003) Music, Mystery and Memory: Conversations with Claude Glayman, trans. R. Nichols, p. 93. Aldershot: Ashgate 2 Stockhausen, K. (1960) Momentform. In Texte zur elektronischen und instrumentalen Musik ed. D. Schnebel, vol. I, pp. 189--210. Köln: DuMont Schauberg, 1963. See also Stockhausen, K. (1961) Erfindung und Entdeckung, pp. 222–58 in the same volume. 3 Kramer, J. (1978) Moment Form in Twentieth Century Music. Musical Quarterly 64(2), pp. 177--194. Kramer later developed and expanded on these ideas considerably: see Kramer, J. (1981) New Temporalities in Music. Critical Inquiry 7(3), 539–556, and Kramer, J. (1988). The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies. New York: Schirmer. 4 Kramer (1978), p. 177. 5 Kramer (1978), p. 180. 6 Stockhausen (1960), pp. 120--21. Trans. in Kramer (1978), p. 179. 7 Kramer (1978), pp. 190--192. 8 For a fuller description of this technique, see Potter, C. (1997) Henri Dutilleux: His Life and Works. Aldershot: Ashgate, p. 60. 9 Dutilleux, H. (1965) Qui reste fidèle à la musique symphonique?, ed. M. Fleuret. Le Nouvel Observateur, 10 June 1965, p. 23. Translated in Thurlow, J.R.Y.. (1998) The Music of Henri Dutilleux: A Critical Survey of the Major Works, pp. 105--6. PhD diss., King’s College London. 10 Dutilleux and Glayman (2003), p. 53. 11 Dutilleux, H. (1994) Mystère de l’instant. Paris: Leduc. Translation by the present author; original text ‘Les idées sont énoncées comme ells se presentment, sans allusion à ce qui precede ou ce qui va suivre. En s’éloignant quelque peu des schemas d’œuvres antérieures […] l’auteur s’est propose de saisir l’instant et d’organiser le temps musical différement.’ 12 Dutilleux, H. and Nichols, R. (1994) Progressive Growth: Henri Dutilleux in Conversation with Roger Nicholls, p. 90. Musical Times 135(1812), pp. 87--90. 13 See Dutilleux (1994) above. Original text: ‘Il s’agit d’une dizaine de sequences de proportions très variables, fixant chacune un aspect particulier, volontairement « typé » de la matière sonore, la structure de l’ensemble ne répondant à aucun canevas préétabli. Les idées sont énoncées comme ells se presentent […]’ 14 Ibid. 15 Thurlow (1998), p. 380. 16 See Dutilleux (1994) above. 17 See for example Potter (1997), p. 61. 18 Dutilleux and Nichols (1994), p. 90.
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Stockhausen, K. (1971) Lyric and Dramatic Form, p. 59. In Stockhausen on Music, trans. and ed. R. Maconie, pp. 53--62. London: Marion Boyars, 1989.
References Dutilleux, H. (1994) Mystère de l’instant. Paris: Leduc. Dutilleux, H. (1965) Qui reste fidèle à la musique symphonique?, ed. M. Fleuret. Le Nouvel Observateur, 10 June 1965, p. 23. Dutilleux, H. and Glayman, C. (2003) Music, Mystery and Memory: Conversations with Claude Glayman, trans. R. Nichols. Aldershot: Ashgate. Dutilleux, H. and Nichols, R. (1994) Progressive Growth: Henri Dutilleux in Conversation with Roger Nichols. Musical Times 135 (1812), 87--90. Potter, C. (1997) Henri Dutilleux: His Life and Works. Aldershot: Ashgate. Kramer, J. (1978) Moment Form in Twentieth Century Music. Musical Quarterly 64(2), 177--194. Kramer, J. (1981) New Temporalities in Music. Critical Inquiry 7(3), 539--556. Kramer, J. (1988). The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies. New York: Schirmer. Stockhausen, K. (1960) Momentform. In Texte zur elektronischen und instrumentalen Musik ed. D. Schnebel, vol. I, pp. 189--210. Köln: DuMont Schauberg, 1963. Stockhausen, K. (1961) Erfindung und Entdeckung. In Texte zur elektronischen und instrumentalen Musik ed. D. Schnebel, vol. I, pp. 222--58. Köln: DuMont Schauberg, 1963. Stockhausen, K. (1971) Lyric and Dramatic Form. In Stockhausen on Music, trans. and ed. R. Maconie, 53--62. London: Marion Boyars, 1989. Thurlow, J.R.Y. (1998) The Music of Henri Dutilleux: A Critical Survey of the Major Works. PhD diss., King’s College London.
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