Musical analysis is the study of musical structure in either compositions or performances . According to music theorist Ian Bent , music analysis "is the means of answering directly the question 'How does it work?'". The method employed to answer this question, and indeed exactly what is meant by the question, differs from analyst to analyst, and according to the purpose of the analysis. According to Bent, "its emergence as an approach and method can be traced back to the 1750s. However it existed as a scholarly tool, albeit an auxiliary one, from the Middle Ages onwards."
108-484: The principle of analysis has been variously criticized, especially by composers, such as Edgard Varèse 's claim that, "to explain by means of [analysis] is to decompose, to mutilate the spirit of a work". Some analysts, such as Donald Tovey (whose Essays in Musical Analysis are among the most accessible musical analyses) have presented their analyses in prose . Others, such as Hans Keller (who devised
216-574: A "conceptual space" in which a finite, independent world could exist. This has received different later interpretations in Jewish mysticism, from the literal to the metaphorical. In this process, creation unfolds within the divine reality. Luria offered a daring cosmic theology that explained the reasons for the Tzimtzum , the primordial catastrophe of Shevirat Hakelim (the "Breaking of the Vessels" of
324-462: A "light that surrounds all worlds", representing transcendent expressions of Divinity. The new doctrines of Isaac Luria in the 16th Century completed the Kabbalistic system of explanation. Lurianic Kabbalah describes the process of Tzimtzum (צמצום meaning "Contraction" or "Constriction") in the Kabbalistic theory of creation, where God "contracted" his infinite essence in order to allow for
432-449: A "metaphor for the universe" or nature as "perfect form". The process of analysis often involves breaking the piece down into relatively simpler and smaller parts. Often, the way these parts fit together and interact with each other is then examined. This process of discretization or segmentation is often considered, as by Jean-Jacques Nattiez , necessary for music to become accessible to analysis. Fred Lerdahl argues that discretization
540-443: A "respeaking" in plain words of the events of the text with little interpretation or addition, such as the following description of the "Bourée" of Bach's Third Suite : "An anacrusis , an initial phrase in D major. The figure marked (a) is immediately repeated, descending through a third , and it is employed throughout the piece. This phrase is immediately elided into its consequent, which modulates from D to A major. This figure (a)
648-507: A French sixth on D, D–F ♯ –A ♭ –[C] in the usual second inversion. This means that D is the second degree and the required reference to the first degree, C, being established by the D:VII or C major chord . "The need to explain the chord in measure five establishes that C–E–G is 'equally important' as the D–(F)–A of measure one." Leibowitz gives only the bass for chord, E indicating
756-472: A Kantian Ding-an-sich ( thing-in-itself ), and (2) the tendency of neo-Hegelian philosophy to lose the particular self in an Absolute that amounts to a kind of mystical reality without distinctions." Political theorist Carl Schmitt used the term in his book Politische Theologie (1922), meaning a power within some thought, which makes it obvious for the people to accept it, without needing to claim being justified. The immanence of some political system or
864-476: A bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. The Holy Spirit is also expressed as an immanence of God. and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." The immanence of
972-418: A button to release music exactly as the composer wrote it—exactly like opening up a book." Varèse would not realize these predictions until his tape experiments in the 1950s and 1960s. Some of Edgard Varèse's works, particularly Arcana make use of the idée fixe , a fixed theme, repeated certain times in a work. The idée fixe was most famously used by Hector Berlioz in his Symphonie fantastique ; it
1080-611: A celebrated translator of French poetry whose versions of the work of Arthur Rimbaud for James Laughlin 's New Directions imprint were particularly influential. Varèse composed many of his pieces for orchestral instruments and voices for performance under the auspices of the ICG during its six-year existence. Specifically, during the first half of the 1920s, he composed Offrandes , Hyperprism , Octandre , and Intégrales . He took American citizenship in October 1927. After arriving in
1188-469: A comparative critique of already-written analyses, when they exist, so as to explain why the work has taken on this or that image constructed by this or that writer: all analysis is a representation; [and] an explanation of the analytical criteria used in the new analysis, so that any critique of this new analysis could be situated in relation to that analysis's own objectives and methods . As Jean-Claude Gardin so rightly remarks, 'no physicist, no biologist
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#17327797818841296-613: A concept derives from the Kabbalistic theology that the physical World, and also the Upper spiritual Worlds, are continuously recreated from nothing by the Shefa (flow) of divine will, which emanates through the Sefirot . As a result, within all creations are divine sparks of vitality that sustain them. Medieval Kabbalah describes two forms of divine emanation, a "light that fills all worlds", representing this immanent divine creative power, and
1404-428: A creative process, but concern myself with the result, whose only tangibles are mathematical relationships? If I have been able to find all these structural characteristics, it is because they are there, and I don't care whether they were put there consciously or unconsciously, or with what degree of acuteness they informed [the composer's] understanding of his conception; I care very little for all such interaction between
1512-559: A futuristic drama of world catastrophe and instantaneous communication with the star Sirius . This second form, on which Varèse worked in Paris in 1928–1932, had a libretto by Alejo Carpentier , Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes and Robert Desnos . According to Carpentier, a substantial amount of this work was written but Varèse abandoned it in favour of a new treatment in which he hoped to collaborate with Antonin Artaud . Artaud's libretto Il n'y
1620-626: A generation of young musicians starting in the 1960s and 1970s. This group includes Robert Lamm and Terry Kath from the band Chicago, as well as composer John Zorn . One of Varèse's most devoted fans was the American guitarist and composer Frank Zappa , who, upon hearing a copy of The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse, Vol. 1 (EMS Recordings, 1950) became obsessed with the composer's music. Zappa wrote an article titled Edgard Varèse: The Idol of My Youth , for Stereo Review magazine in June 1971. At
1728-546: A global radiophonic event. Varèse sought input on the text from Henry Miller , who suggests in The Air-Conditioned Nightmare that this grandiose conception—also ultimately unrealized—eventually metamorphosed into Déserts . With both these huge projects Varèse felt ultimately frustrated by the lack of electronic instruments to realize his aural visions. Nevertheless, he used some of the material from Espace in his short Étude pour espace , virtually
1836-425: A mixture. Stylistic levels may be hierarchized as an inverted triangle: Nattiez outlines six analytical situations, preferring the sixth:: Examples: Jacques Chailley views analysis entirely from a compositional viewpoint, arguing that, "since analysis consists of 'putting oneself in the composer's shoes,' and explaining what he was experiencing as he was writing, it is obvious that we should not think of studying
1944-406: A music yet to come; that is, that it is also normative ... transforming the value of the theory into an aesthetic norm ... from an anthropological standpoint, that is a risk that is difficult to countenance." Similarly, "Boretz enthusiastically embraces logical formalism, while evading the question of knowing how the data—whose formalization he proposes—have been obtained". Typically a given work
2052-763: A musical work, like our sense of historical 'facts,' is mediated by lived experience." (176) While John Blacking, among others, holds that "there is ultimately only one explanation and ... this could be discovered by a context-sensitive analysis of the music in culture," according to Nattiez and others, "there is never only one valid musical analysis for any given work." Blacking gives as example: "everyone disagrees hotly and stakes his [or her] academic reputation on what Mozart really meant in this or that bar of his symphonies , concertos , or quartets . If we knew exactly what went on inside Mozart's mind when he wrote them, there could be only one explanation". (93) However, Nattiez points out that even if we could determine "what Mozart
2160-424: A part of it comes from the reigning contemporary definer of Weltanschauung , namely religion (or any similar system of beliefs, such as rationalistic or relativistic world-view). Many hold Schmitt to be interested in an immanent polity without anything transcendent involved in its vital operations beyond the very border that separates it from the enemy outside. As such he might have ironically secularized politics in
2268-470: A performance of Beethoven 's Seventh Symphony at the Salle Pleyel . As the story goes, during the scherzo movement, perhaps due to the resonance of the hall, Varèse had the experience of the music breaking up and projecting in space. It was an idea that stayed with him for the rest of his life, that he would later describe as consisting of "sound objects, floating in space." From the late 1920s to
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#17327797818842376-645: A personal covenant with the forefathers Abraham , Isaac and Jacob . Daily Jewish prayers refer to this inherited closeness and personal relationship with the divine, for their descendants, as "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob". To Moses , God reveals his Tetragrammaton name, that more fully captures divine descriptions of transcendence . Each of the Biblical names for God describe different divine manifestations. The most important prayer in Judaism, that forms part of
2484-472: A philosophy of immanence that has a history on the subcontinent of India from early CE to the present. A paradoxical non-dual awareness or rigpa ( Tibetan — vidya in Sanskrit ) — is said to be the 'self-perfected state' of all beings. Scholarly works differentiate these traditions from monism . The non-dual is said to be not immanent and not transcendent, not neither, nor both. One classical exposition
2592-492: A plus de firmament was written for Varèse's project and sent to him after he had returned to the U.S., but by this time Varèse had turned to a second huge project. This second project was to be a choral symphony entitled Espace . In its original conception, the text for the chorus was to be written by André Malraux . Later, Varèse settled on a multi-lingual text of hieratic phrases to be sung by choirs situated in Paris, Moscow, Beijing and New York City, synchronized to create
2700-524: A similar German organisation with Busoni . Varèse contributed a poem to the Dadaist magazine 391 after an evening of drinking with Francis Picabia on the Brooklyn Bridge. The same magazine claimed that he was orchestrating a "Cold Faucet Dance". Later that year, he met Louise Norton, who edited another Dadaist magazine, Rogue , with her then-husband. She was to become Louise Varèse and
2808-444: A table, or classificatory analysis, which sorts phenomena into classes," one example being "trait listing" by Helen Roberts, and classificatory analysis, which "sorts phenomena into classes," examples being the universal system for classifying melodic contours by Kolinski. Classificatory analyses often call themselves taxonomical. "Making the basis for the analysis explicit is a fundamental criterion in this approach, so delimiting units
2916-428: A technique he called Functional Analysis ) used no prose commentary at all in some of their work. There have been many notable analysts other than Tovey and Keller. One of the best known and most influential was Heinrich Schenker , who developed Schenkerian analysis , a method that seeks to describe all tonal classical works as elaborations ("prolongations") of a simple contrapuntal sequence. Ernst Kurth coined
3024-520: A way that liberalism never could have. But this is a contentious issue. The French 20th-century philosopher Gilles Deleuze used the term immanence to refer to his " empiricist philosophy", which was obliged to create action and results rather than establish transcendents. His final text was titled Pure Immanence: Essays on a Life and spoke of a plane of immanence . Furthermore, the Russian Formalist film theorists perceived immanence as
3132-400: A work in terms of criteria foreign to the author's own preoccupations, no more in tonal analysis than in harmonic analysis ." On the other hand, Fay argues that, "analytic discussions of music are often concerned with processes that are not immediately perceivable. It may be that the analyst is concerned merely with applying a collection of rules concerning practice, or with the description of
3240-451: Is a direction for performance," and Thomson: "It seems only reasonable to believe that a healthy analytical point of view is that which is so nearly isomorphic with the perceptual act." Analyses of the immanent level include analyses by Alder, Heinrich Schenker , and the " ontological structuralism" of the analyses of Pierre Boulez , who says in his analysis of The Rite of Spring , "must I repeat here that I have not pretended to discover
3348-486: Is also often analysed. An analysis can be conducted on a single piece of music, on a portion or element of a piece or on a collection of pieces. A musicologist's stance is his or her analytical situation. This includes the physical dimension or corpus being studied, the level of stylistic relevance studied, and whether the description provided by the analysis is of its immanent structure, compositional (or poietic ) processes, perceptual (or esthesic ) processes, all three, or
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3456-407: Is always accompanied by carefully defining units in terms of their constituent variables." Nattiez lastly proposes intermediary models "between reductive formal precision, and impressionist laxity." These include Schenker, Meyer (classification of melodic structure), Narmour, and Lerdahl-Jackendoff's "use of graphics without appealing to a system of formalized rules," complementing and not replacing
3564-403: Is analyzed by more than one person and different or divergent analyses are created. For instance, the first two bars of the prelude to Claude Debussy 's Pelléas et Mélisande : are analyzed differently by Leibowitz Laloy, van Appledorn, and Christ. Leibowitz analyses this succession harmonically as D minor:I–VII–V, ignoring melodic motion, Laloy analyses the succession as D:I–V, seeing the G in
3672-407: Is called Demiurge ( Dêmiourgos , Creator), Maker ( Poiêtês ), and Craftsman ( Technitês ). The nous of the demiurge proceeds outward into manifestation, becoming living ideas. They give rise to a lineage of mortal human souls. The components of the soul are 1) the higher soul, seat of the intuitive mind ( divine nous ); 2) the rational soul ( logistikon ) (seat of discursive reason / dianoia ); 3)
3780-475: Is filled with immanence, known as the light of Christ . It is also responsible for the intuitive conscience born into man. The Light of Christ is the source of intellectual and spiritual enlightenment, and is the means by which God is in and through all things. LDS scriptures identify the divine Light with the mind of God, the source of all truth and conveyor of the characteristics of the divine nature through God's goodness. The experienced brilliance of God reflects
3888-436: Is generally not transposed , differentiating it from the leitmotiv , used by Richard Wagner . Immanence The doctrine or theory of immanence holds that the divine encompasses or is manifested in the material world. It is held by some philosophical and metaphysical theories of divine presence . Immanence is usually applied in monotheistic , pantheistic , pandeistic , or panentheistic faiths to suggest that
3996-589: Is necessary even for perception by learned listeners, thus making it a basis of his analyses, and finds pieces such as Artikulation by György Ligeti inaccessible, while Rainer Wehinger created a "Hörpartitur" or "score for listening" for the piece, representing different sonorous effects with specific graphic symbols much like a transcription . Analysis often displays a compositional impulse while compositions often "display an analytical impulse" but "though intertextual analyses often succeed through simple verbal description there are good reasons to literally compose
4104-448: Is produced and that produce music, and vice versa. Insights from the social considerations may then yield insight into analysis methods. Edward T. Cone argues that musical analysis lies in between description and prescription. Description consists of simple non-analytical activities such as labeling chords with Roman numerals or tone-rows with integers or row-form, while the other extreme, prescription, consists of "the insistence upon
4212-428: Is surprised when asked to indicate, in the context of a new theory, the physical data and the mental operations that led to its formulation'. Making one's procedures explicit would help to create a cumulative progress in knowledge ." (177) Edgard Var%C3%A8se Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse ( French: [ɛdɡaʁ viktɔʁ aʃil ʃaʁl vaʁɛz] ; also spelled Edgar ; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965)
4320-472: Is the Madhyamaka refutation of extremes that the philosopher-adept Nagarjuna propounded. Exponents of this non-dual tradition emphasize the importance of a direct experience of non-duality through both meditative practice and philosophical investigation. In one version, one maintains awareness as thoughts arise and dissolve within the 'field' of mind ; one does not accept or reject them, rather one lets
4428-616: Is used again two times, higher each time; this section is repeated." "Hermeneutic reading of a musical text is based on a description, a 'naming' of the melody 's elements, but adds to it a hermeneutic and phenomenological depth that, in the hands of a talented writer, can result in genuine interpretive masterworks.... All the illustrations in Abraham's and Dahlhaus's Melodielehre (1972) are historical in character; Rosen 's essays in The Classical Style (1971) seek to grasp
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4536-611: The Grande messe des morts by Berlioz. He spent the first few years in the United States, where he was a Romany Marie 's café regular in Greenwich Village , meeting important contributors to American music, promoting his vision of new electronic art music instruments, conducting orchestras , and founding the short-lived New Symphony Orchestra . In New York, he met Leon Theremin and other composers exploring
4644-494: The Columbia Symphony Orchestra for Columbia Records (Columbia LP catalog Nos.MS6146 and MS6362). These recordings brought Varèse wide attention among musicians and musical aficionados beyond his immediate sphere. Much of the percussion music of George Crumb in particular owes a debt to works such as Ionisation and Intégrales . Varèse's emphasis on timbre , rhythm , and new technologies inspired
4752-775: The Guggenheim Foundation and Bell Laboratories in an attempt to receive a grant to develop an electronic music studio. His next composition, Ecuatorial , was completed in 1934, and contained parts for two fingerboard Theremin cellos, along with winds , percussion, and a bass singer. Anticipating the successful receipt of one of his grants, Varèse eagerly returned to the United States to realize his electronic music. Slonimsky conducted its premiere in New York on April 15, 1934. Varèse soon left New York City for Santa Fe, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In 1936, he wrote his solo flute piece, Density 21.5 . He also promoted
4860-556: The International Composers' Guild , dedicated to the performances of new compositions of both American and European composers. The ICG's manifesto in July 1921 included the statement, "[t]he present day composers refuse to die. They have realised the necessity of banding together and fighting for the right of each individual to secure a fair and free presentation of his work." In 1922, Varèse visited Berlin where he founded
4968-588: The Kabbalah , and Hasidic philosophy , use hidden approaches. Both dimensions are seen by adherents as united and complementary. In this way, ideas in Jewish thought are given a variety of ascending meanings. Explanations of a concept in Nigleh are given inherent, inner, mystical contexts from Nistar . Descriptions of divine immanence can be seen in Nigleh , from the Bible to Rabbinic Judaism. In Genesis , God makes
5076-544: The Kabbalah , began to be taught in 12th-Century Europe, and reached a new systemisation in 16th-Century Israel. The Kabbalah gives the full, subtle, traditional system of Jewish metaphysics . In the Medieval Kabbalah, new doctrines described the 10 Sephirot (divine emanations) through which the Infinite, unknowable divine essence reveals, emanates, and continuously creates existence. The Kabbalists identified
5184-705: The Kabbalistic tradition, explained using the four level exegesis method of Pardes . In this system, the first three approaches, Simple, Hinted and Homiletical interpretations, characterise the revealed aspects. The fourth approach, the Secret meaning, characterises a hidden aspect. Among the classic texts of Jewish tradition, some Jewish Bible commentators, the Midrash , the Talmud , and mainstream Jewish philosophy use revealed approaches. Other Bible commentators,
5292-869: The Royal Swedish Academy of Music , and in 1963 he received the premier Koussevitzky International Recording Award. In 1965, Edgard Varese was awarded the Edward MacDowell Medal by the MacDowell Colony. In his formative years, Varèse was greatly impressed by Medieval and Renaissance music – in his career, he founded and conducted several choirs devoted to this repertoire – as well as the music of Alexander Scriabin , Erik Satie , Claude Debussy , Hector Berlioz and Richard Strauss . There are also clear influences or reminiscences of Stravinsky 's early works, specifically Petrushka and The Rite of Spring , on Arcana . He
5400-605: The Sefirot in the first existence), and the messianic Tikkun ("Fixing") of this by every individual through their sanctification of physicality. The concept of Tzimtzum contains a built-in paradox , as it requires that God be simultaneously transcendent and immanent: Giordano Bruno , Baruch Spinoza and possibly Hegel espoused philosophies of immanence versus philosophies of transcendence such as Thomism or Aristotelian tradition . Kant's "transcendental" critique can be contrasted to Hegel's "immanent dialectics." Thomas Carlyle 's idea of " Natural Supernaturalism " posited
5508-690: The nous emerges the world soul , which gives rise to the manifest realm. Neoplatonic gnosticism goes on to say the Godhead is the Father, Mother, and Son (Zeus). In the mind of Zeus, the ideas are distinctly articulated and become the Logos by which he creates the world. These ideas become active in the Mind ( nous ) of Zeus. With him is the Power and from him is the nous . This theology further explains that Zeus
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#17327797818845616-430: The spiritual world permeates the mundane . It is often contrasted with theories of transcendence , in which the divine is seen to be outside the material world . Major faiths commonly devote significant philosophical efforts to explaining the relationship between immanence and transcendence but do so in different ways, such as: Another meaning of immanence is the quality of being contained within, or remaining within
5724-546: The "Father of Electronic Music" whilst Henry Miller described him as "The stratospheric Colossus of Sound". Varèse actively promoted performances of works by other 20th-century composers and founded the International Composers' Guild in 1921 and the Pan-American Association of Composers in 1926. Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse was born in Paris; when he was a few weeks old, he was sent to be raised by his maternal great-uncle and other relations in
5832-556: The Father only reveals himself immanently vicariously through the Son and Spirit, and the divine nature, the Godhead is wholly transcendent and unable to be comprehended. This is expressed in St. Paul 's letter to the Philippians, where he writes: who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of
5940-581: The Scriptural narrative to Moses, says "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." This declaration combines different divine names, and themes of immanence and transcendence. Perhaps the most personal example of a Jewish prayer that combines both themes is the invocation repeatedly voiced during the time in the Jewish calendar devoted to Teshuva (Return, often inaccurately translated as Repentance), Avinu Malkeinu ("Our Father, Our King"). Much of
6048-559: The USA Varèse commonly used the form 'Edgar' for his first name but reverted to 'Edgard', not entirely consistently, from the 1940s. In 1928, Varèse returned to Paris to alter one of the parts in Amériques to include the recently constructed ondes Martenot . Around 1930, he composed Ionisation , the first Classical work to feature solely percussion instruments . Although it was composed with pre-existing instruments, Ionisation
6156-566: The age of 15 Zappa talked to Varèse by phone and received a personal letter, but the two were not able to meet in person. Zappa framed this letter and kept it in his studio for the rest of his life. Zappa's final project was The Rage and the Fury , a recording of the works of Varèse. This album has remained in the Zappa private collection. Henry Threadgill details Varèse's influence in his 2023 autobiography. On several occasions, Varèse speculated on
6264-571: The bars which follow it." Nattiez counters that if compositional intent were identical to perception, "historians of musical language could take a permanent nap.... Scruton sets himself up as a universal, absolute conscience for the 'right' perception of the Pélleas et Mélisande . But hearing is an active symbolic process (which must be explained): nothing in perception is self-evident ." Thus Nattiez suggests that analyses, especially those intending "a semiological orientation, should ... at least include
6372-529: The boundaries of a person, of the world, or of the mind. This meaning is more common within Christian and other monotheist theology, in which the one God is considered to transcend his creation. Pythagoreanism says that the nous is an intelligent principle of the world acting with a specific intention . This is the divine reason regarded in Neoplatonism as the first emanation of the divine. From
6480-483: The boundaries of electronic music. It was also about this time that Varèse began work on his first composition in the United States, Amériques , which was finished in 1921 but would remain unperformed until 1926, when it was premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski (who had already performed Hyperprism in 1924 and would premiere Arcana in 1927). Virtually all
6588-405: The combined orchestral and tape sound composition came as part of an ORTF broadcast concert, between pieces by Mozart and Tchaikovsky and received a hostile reaction. Le Corbusier was commissioned by Philips to present a pavilion at the 1958 World Fair and insisted (against the sponsors' resistance) on working with Varèse, who developed his Poème électronique for the venue, where it
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#17327797818846696-469: The compositional process. But whatever he [or she] aims, he often fails—most notably in twentieth-century music—to illuminate our immediate musical experience," and thus views analysis entirely from a perceptual viewpoint, as does Edward T. Cone , "true analysis works through and for the ear. The greatest analysts are those with the keenest ears; their insights reveal how a piece of music should be heard, which in turn implies how it should be played. An analysis
6804-604: The death of his mother in 1900, until 1903 when Varèse left home for Paris. In 1904, he commenced his studies at the Schola Cantorum (founded by pupils of César Franck ), where his teachers included Albert Roussel . Afterwards, he went to study composition with Charles-Marie Widor at the Paris Conservatoire . In this period, he composed a number of ambitious orchestral works, but these were only performed by Varèse in piano transcriptions . One such work
6912-479: The effort otherwise exhausts him to the verge of dullness (as in the slow movement of the otherwise great A minor Quartet). Hence, in his most inspired works the transition is accomplished by an abrupt coup de théâtre ; and of all such coups , no doubt the crudest is that in the Unfinished Symphony. Very well then; here is a new thing in the history of the symphony, not more new, not more simple than
7020-461: The end of the 1930s, Varèse's principal creative energies went into two ambitious projects which were never realized, and much of whose material was destroyed, though some elements from them seem to have gone into smaller works. One was a large-scale stage work called by different names at different times, but principally The One-All-Alone or Astronomer ( L'Astronome ). This was originally to be based on North American Indian legends; later it became
7128-420: The essence of an epoch's style; Meyer's analysis of Beethoven's Farewell Sonata penetrates melody from the vantage point of perceived structures." He gives as a last example the following description of Franz Schubert 's Unfinished Symphony : "The transition from first to second subject is always a difficult piece of musical draughtsmanship; and in the rare cases where Schubert accomplishes it with smoothness,
7236-599: The final, feminine Sefirah with the earlier, traditional Jewish concept of the Shekhinah (immanent divine presence). This gave great spirituality to earlier ideas in Jewish thought, such as the theological explanations of suffering ( theodicy ). In this example, the Kabbalists described the Shekhinah accompanying the children of Israel in their exile, being exiled alongside them, and yearning for Her redemption. Such
7344-505: The immanence of the divine in nature, history and man. Clement Charles Julian Webb explained that "Carlyle had done more than any other nineteenth-century writer to undermine belief in the transcendence of God and the origin of the material world in an act of creation in time, and to put in its place an 'essentially immanentist' theology, drawn largely from the writings of the German Idealists ." Carlyle's "Natural Supernaturalism"
7452-403: The intelligence that is in sounds.' It was a new and exciting conception and to me the first that started me thinking of music as spatial—as moving bodies of sound in space, a conception I gradually made my own." Varèse began his music studies with Vincent d'Indy (conducting) at the Schola Cantorum de Paris from 1903 to 1905. While he was in Paris, Varèse had another pivotal experience during
7560-465: The later Hebrew Biblical narrative recounts the reciprocal relationship and national drama of the unfolding of themes of immanence and transcendence. Kabbalistic, or Hasidic Jewish thought and philosophy describe and articulate these interconnected aspects of the divine-human relationship. Jewish mysticism gives explanations of greater depth and spirituality to the interconnected aspects of God's immanence and transcendence. The main expression of mysticism,
7668-414: The mind wander as it will until a subtle sense of immanence dawns. Vipassana , or insight, is the integration of one's 'presence of awareness' with that which arises in the mind. Non-duality or rigpa is said to be the recognition that both the quiet, calm, abiding state as found in samatha and the movement or arising of phenomena as found in vipassana are not separate. According to Christian theology,
7776-533: The natural phenomenon of crystallization . Varèse thought that "to stubbornly conditioned ears, anything new in music has always been called noise ", and he posed the question, "what is music but organized noises?" Although his complete surviving works only last about three hours, he has been recognised as an influence by several major composers of the late 20th century. Varèse saw potential in using electronic media for sound production, and his use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his being known as
7884-482: The new things which turned up in each of Beethoven's nine. Never mind its historic origin, take it on its merits. Is it not a most impressive moment?". Formalized analyses propose models for melodic functions or simulate music. Meyer distinguishes between global models, which "provide an image of the whole corpus being studied, by listing characteristics, classifying phenomena, or both; they furnish statistical evaluation," and linear models which "do not try to reconstitute
7992-694: The nonrational soul ( alogia ), responsible for the senses, appetites, and motion. Zeus thinks the articulated ideas ( logos ). The idea of ideas ( eidos - eidôn ), provides a model of the Paradigm of the Universe, which the Demiurge contemplates in his articulation of the ideas and his creation of the world according to the Logos. Tantric Buddhism and Dzogchen posit a non-dual basis for both experience and reality that could be considered an exposition of
8100-506: The only work that had appeared from his pen for over ten years when it was premiered in 1947. According to Chou Wen-chung , Varèse made various contradictory revisions to Étude pour espace which made it impossible to perform again, but the 2009 Holland Festival , which offered a 'complete works' of Varèse over the weekend of 12–14 June 2009, persuaded Chou to make a new performing version (using similar brass and woodwind forces to Déserts and making use of spatialized sound projection). This
8208-717: The part for ondes Martenot . This new version was premiered in 1961. ( Ecuatorial has been performed again with fingerboard theremins in Buffalo, New York, in 2002 and at the Holland Festival, Amsterdam, in 2009.) While living with his father, an engineer, Varèse was pushed to further his scientific understanding at the Institute Technique, a high school in Italy that specialized in teaching mathematics and science. Here, Varèse became particularly interested in
8316-447: The phrase so much, render it so fluid, that it escapes all arithmetical rigors. It floats between heaven and earth like a Gregorian chant ; it glides over signposts marking traditional divisions; it slips so furtively between various keys that it frees itself effortlessly from their grasp, and one must await the first appearance of a harmonic underpinning before the melody takes graceful leave of this causal atonality ". Paraphrases are
8424-419: The progression I–II an "unreal" progression in keeping with his " dialectic between the real and the unreal" used in the analysis, while Christ explains the chord as an augmented eleventh with a bass of B ♭ , interpreting it as a traditional tertian extended chord . Not only does an analyst select particular traits, they arrange them according to a plot [intrigue].... Our sense of the component parts of
8532-538: The proposed connections. We actually hear how these songs [different musical settings of Goethe's "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt"] resonate with one another, comment upon and affect one another ... in a way, the music speaks for itself". This analytic bent is obvious in recent trends in popular music including the mash-ups of various songs. Analysis is an activity most often engaged in by musicologists and most often applied to western classical music , although music of non-western cultures and of unnotated oral traditions
8640-418: The second measure as an ornament , and both van Appledorn and Christ analyses the succession as D:I–VII. Nattiez argues that this divergence is due to the analysts' respective analytic situations, and to what he calls transcendent principles (1997b: 853, what George Holton might call "themata"), the "philosophical project[s]", "underlying principles", or a prioris of analyses, one example being Nattiez's use of
8748-470: The specific ways in which technology would change music in the future. In 1936, he predicted musical machines that would be able to perform music as soon as a composer inputs his score. These machines would be able to play "any number of frequencies," and therefore the score of the future would need to be "seismographic" in order to illustrate their full potential. In 1939, he expanded on this concept, declaring that with this machine "anyone will be able to press
8856-418: The term of "developmental motif" . Rudolph Réti is notable for tracing the development of small melodic motifs through a work, while Nicolas Ruwet 's analysis amounts to a kind of musical semiology . Musicologists associated with the new musicology often use musical analysis (traditional or not) along with or to support their examinations of the performance practice and social situations in which music
8964-461: The text ( explications de texte ). Impressionistic analyses are in "a more or less high-literary style, proceeding from an initial selection of elements deemed characteristic," such as the following description of the opening of Claude Debussy 's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun : "The alternation of binary and ternary divisions of the eighth notes, the sly feints made by the three pauses, soften
9072-530: The theremin in his Western travels, and demonstrated one at a lecture at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque on November 12, 1936. (The university has an RCA theremin in its archives which may be the same instrument.) By the time Varèse returned to New York in late 1938, Theremin had returned to Russia. This devastated Varèse, who had hoped to work with him on a refinement of his instrument. He
9180-733: The time. He also gained the friendship and support of Romain Rolland and Hugo von Hofmannsthal , whose Œdipus und die Sphinx he began setting as an opera that was never completed. On 5 January 1911, the first performance of his symphonic poem Bourgogne was held in Berlin. After being invalided out of the French Army during World War I , he moved to the United States in December 1915. In 1918, Varèse made his debut in America conducting
9288-609: The transcendent God , who cannot be approached or seen in essence or being, becomes immanent primarily in the God-man Jesus the Christ , who is the incarnate Second Person of the Trinity . In Byzantine Rite theology the immanence of God is expressed as the hypostases or energies of God, who in his essence is incomprehensible and transcendent. In Catholic theology, Christ and the Holy Spirit immanently reveal themselves; God
9396-480: The transformational analysis by Herndon, and the 'grammar for the soprano part in Bach's chorales [which,] when tested by computer ... allows us to generate melodies in Bach's style' by Baroni and Jacoboni. Global models are further distinguished as analysis by traits, which "identify the presence or absence of a particular variable, and makes a collective image of the song, genre, or style being considered by means of
9504-447: The tripartitional definition of sign , and what, after epistemological historian Paul Veyne, he calls plots . Van Appledorn sees the succession as D:I–VII so as to allow the interpretation of the first chord in measure five, which Laloy sees as a dominant seventh on D (V/IV) with a diminished fifth (despite that the IV doesn't arrive till measure twelve), while van Appledorn sees it as
9612-670: The triune God is celebrated in the Catholic Church, traditional Protestant Churches, and Eastern Churches during the liturgical feast of the Theophany of God , known in Western Christianity as the Epiphany . Pope Pius X wrote at length about philosophical-theological controversies over immanence in his encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis . According to Latter Day Saint theology, all of material creation
9720-502: The validity of relationships not supported by the text." Analysis must, rather, provide insight into listening without forcing a description of a piece that cannot be heard. Many techniques are used to analyze music. Metaphor and figurative description may be a part of analysis, and a metaphor used to describe pieces, "reifies their features and relations in a particularly pungent and insightful way: it makes sense of them in ways not formerly possible." Even absolute music may be viewed as
9828-417: The verbal analyses. These are in contrast to the formalized models of Milton Babbitt and Boretz . According to Nattiez, Boretz "seems to be confusing his own formal, logical model with an immanent essence he then ascribes to music," and Babbitt "defines a musical theory as a hypothetical-deductive system ... but if we look closely at what he says, we quickly realize that the theory also seeks to legitimize
9936-562: The village of Le Villars in the Burgundy region of France. There he developed a very strong attachment to his maternal grandfather, Claude Cortot (also grandfather to the pianist Alfred Cortot , a first cousin of Varèse ). His affection for his grandfather outshone anything he felt for his own parents. After being reclaimed by his parents in the late 1880s, in 1893 young Edgard was forced to relocate with them to Turin , Italy, in part, to live amongst his paternal relatives, since his father
10044-496: The whole melody in order of real time succession of melodic events. Linear models ... describe a corpus by means of a system of rules encompassing not only the hierarchical organization of the melody, but also the distribution , environment, and context of events, examples including the explanation of 'succession of pitches in New Guinean chants in terms of distributional constraints governing each melodic interval' by Chenoweth
10152-644: The work and 'genius'." Again, Nattiez argues that the above three approaches, by themselves, are necessarily incomplete and that an analysis of all three levels is required. Jean Molino shows that musical analysis shifted from an emphasis upon the poietic vantage point to an esthesic one at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Nattiez distinguishes between nonformalized and formalized analyses. Nonformalized analyses, apart from musical and analytical terms, do not use resources or techniques other than language. He further distinguishes nonformalized analyses between impressionistic, paraphrases, or hermeneutic readings of
10260-499: The works he had written in Europe were either lost or destroyed in a Berlin warehouse fire, so in the U.S. he was starting again from scratch. The only surviving work from his early period appears to be the song Un grand sommeil noir , a setting of Paul Verlaine . (He still retained Bourgogne , but destroyed the score in a fit of depression many years later.) At the completion of this work, Varèse, along with Carlos Salzedo , founded
10368-503: The works of Leonardo da Vinci . It was through Varèse's love of science that he began to study sound, as he later recalled: When I was about twenty, I came across a definition of music that seemed suddenly to throw light on my gropings toward music I sensed could exist. Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński , the Polish physicist, chemist, musicologist and philosopher of the first half of the nineteenth century, defined music as 'the corporealization of
10476-403: The “fullness” of this spirit within God's being. Similarly, mankind can incorporate this spiritual light or divine mind and thus become one with God. This immanent spirit of light bridges the scientific and spiritual conceptualizations of the universe. Traditional Jewish religious thought can be divided into Nigleh ("Revealed") and Nistar ("Hidden") dimensions. Hebrew Scripture is, in
10584-448: Was a French composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm ; he coined the term " organized sound " in reference to his own musical aesthetic. Varèse's conception of music reflected his vision of "sound as living matter" and of "musical space as open rather than bounded". He conceived the elements of his music in terms of " sound-masses ", likening their organization to
10692-1035: Was also impressed by the ideas of Busoni, who christened him L'illustro futuro in a signed copy of his orchestra work Berceuse élégiaque . Varèse taught many prominent composers including Chou Wen-chung , Lucia Dlugoszewski , André Jolivet , Colin McPhee , James Tenney , and William Grant Still . See: List of music students by teacher: T to Z#Edgard Varèse . Composers who have claimed, or can be demonstrated, to have been influenced by Varèse include Milton Babbitt , Harrison Birtwistle , Pierre Boulez , John Cage , Morton Feldman , Brian Ferneyhough , Roberto Gerhard , Olivier Messiaen , Luigi Nono , John Palmer , Krzysztof Penderecki , Silvestre Revueltas , Wolfgang Rihm , Leon Schidlowsky , Alfred Schnittke , William Grant Still , Karlheinz Stockhausen , Iannis Xenakis , and Frank Zappa . The modern music conductor Robert Craft recorded two LP's of Varèse music in 1958 and 1960 with percussion, brass, and wind sections from
10800-509: Was an exploration of new sounds and methods to create them. In 1928, when he was asked about jazz, he said it was not representative of America but instead was, "a negro product, exploited by the Jews. All of its composers here are Jews," meaning Gruenberg and Boulanger students including Copland and Blitzstein . In 1931, he was the best man at the wedding of his friend Nicolas Slonimsky in Paris. In 1933, while still in Paris, he wrote to
10908-711: Was approached by music producer Jack Skurnick resulting in EMS Recordings #401. The record was the first release on LP of Integrales , Density 21.5 , Ionisation and Octandre and featured René Le Roy , flute, the Juilliard Percussion Orchestra and the New York Wind Ensemble conducted by Frederic Waldman . Ionisation had also been the first work by Varèse to be recorded in the 1930s, conducted by Nicolas Slonimsky and issued on 78rpm Columbia 4095M. Likewise, Octandre
11016-406: Was heard by an estimated two million people. Using 400 speakers separated throughout the interior, Varèse created a sound and space installation geared towards experiencing sound as it moves through space. Received with mixed reviews, this piece challenged audience expectations and traditional means of composing, breathing life into electronic synthesis and presentation. In 1962, he was asked to join
11124-419: Was highly influential on American Transcendentalism and British Idealism . Giovanni Gentile 's actual idealism , sometimes called "philosophy of immanence" and the metaphysics of the "I", "affirms the organic synthesis of dialectical opposites that are immanent within actual or present awareness". His so-called method of immanence "attempted to avoid: (1) the postulate of an independently existing world or
11232-628: Was his Rhapsodie romane , from about 1905, which was inspired by the Romanesque architecture of the Church of St. Philibert in Tournus . In 1907, he moved to Berlin, and in the same year, he married the actress Suzanne Bing , with whom he had a daughter. They divorced in 1913. During these years, Varèse became acquainted with Erik Satie and Richard Strauss , as well as with Claude Debussy and Ferruccio Busoni , who particularly influenced him at
11340-721: Was of Italian descent. It was there that he had his first real musical lessons, with the long-time director of the Turin Conservatory , Giovanni Bolzoni . In 1895, he composed his first opera , Martin Pas , which has since been lost. Now a teenager, Varèse, influenced by his father, an engineer, enrolled at the Polytechnic of Turin and started studying engineering, as his father disapproved of his interest in music and demanded an absolute dedication to engineering studies. This conflict grew greater and greater, especially after
11448-516: Was premiered at the Gashouder concert hall, Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam by Asko/Schönberg Ensemble and Cappella Amsterdam on Sunday 14 June, conducted by Péter Eötvös . By the early 1950s, Varèse was in dialogue with a new generation of composers, such as Pierre Boulez and Luigi Dallapiccola . When he returned to France to finalize the tape sections of Déserts , Pierre Schaeffer helped arrange for suitable facilities. The first performance of
11556-556: Was recorded and issued on 78rpm discs in the later 1930s, complete (New Music Quarterly Recordings 1411) and as an excerpt (3rd movement, Columbia DB1791 in Volume V of their History of Music). Le Roy was the soloist also on a 1948 (78rpm) recording of Density 21.5 (New Music Recordings 1000). When, in the late 1950s, Varèse was approached by a publisher about making Ecuatorial available, there were very few theremins—let alone fingerboard theremins—to be found, so he rewrote/relabelled
11664-455: Was thinking" we would still be lacking an analysis of the neutral and esthesic levels. Roger Scruton , in a review of Nattiez's Fondements , says one may, "describe it as you like so long as you hear it correctly ... certain descriptions suggest wrong ways of hearing it ... what is obvious to hear [in Pélleas et Mélisande] is the contrast in mood and atmosphere between the 'modal' passage and
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