Marek Dolewka

The Role of Silence in the Aesthetics of Wandelweiser on the Example of Melody, Silence for Guitar Solo by Michael Pisaro

Wandelweiser, founded in 1992, is an international group of composers who are creatively developing John Cage's aesthetic and artistic ideas, first of all his concept of silence in music. One of the members of the group, who joined it in the first years of its existence, is the American composer and guitarist Michael Pisaro (born 1961). His intense communion with silence, as a compositional tool, is combined with extensive reflection. The article systematizes and comments on Pisaro’s statements on the phenomenon of silence, relating to the silence-music, silence-sound, silence-chance relationship. The qualitative features of silence (refuting the stereotype of emptiness and neutrality of silence), its typology (with absolute silence of the mind as the highest form) and the ways of influencing on composer, performer and listener are also distinguished. Then, the role of silence in Melody, Silence (2012) for guitar solo has been analyzed, taking into account the composer’s commentary in the introduction to the score. As it has been shown, silence relates to the aleatory form of the cycle itself and to the lapidary structure of each of its 12 elements. The dimension of silence is also created by the elements of the musical work and the texture. Importantly, the multitude of manifestations of silence in Melody, Silence takes place with only three pauses written by the composer in the score. The article also describes how faithfully the composer’s intentions were realized by one of the performers of the analyzed work, Cristián Alvear.

SŁOWA KLUCZOWE: Wandelweiser, Pisaro Michael, cisza, Cage John, 4′33″, aleatoryzm, muzyka eksperymentalna, gitara

KEYWORDS: Wandelweiser, Pisaro Michael, silence, Cage John, 4′33″, aleatoric/aleatory music, aleatoricism, aleatorism, experimental music, guitar

The link between silence and death has been a recurring theme of human thought and can often be found in reflections on music. Among many attempts to approach this problem, the author of this paper focuses on those done by GisèleBrelet and Tōru Takemitsu. The “faithful companion” of music which “perpetually is born, dies and is born again” – this is one of the ways in which French musicologist describes silence. “For a human being, there is always the duality of life and death. Music as an art form always has to connect vehemently with both” – notices Japanese composer, who in another statement combines silence with “the dark world of death”. Interestingly, both Brelet and Takemitsu arrive at the conclusion that such connotations may well be the source of the fear of silence that affects some composers or performers. Despite different contexts, some analogies to their thought – like connecting silence with nothingness and loneliness – may be also found in the Canadian composer Raymond Murray Schafer’s writings, presented fragmentarily in the last subsection. The differences in the notion of the problem between the authors are, moreover, discussed in this paper.

The article constitutes an attempt at exploring the elements of the late style in the works of Tomasz Sikorski (1939–1988) in the context of the concepts developed by Joseph N. Straus and Ryszard D. Golianek. This exploration is focused primarily on the issue of silence in Sikorski’s music, which has been remarked upon by numerous scholars. On the basis of literature review, the author enumerates the functions fulfilled by silence in Sikorski’s works and discusses them in a case study of one of Sikorski’s pieces, For Strings (1970). Due to the fact that silence, as well as the other features of the late style, are present throughout the entirety of Sikorski’s mature oeuvre, it is difficult to determine whether it is possible to talk about the late style in his case. On the one hand, it is a testament to the originality of Sikorski’s works, but on the other hand, it testifies to the numerous problems connected with attempts at describing the characteristic features of the late style.

The goal of this paper is to present musical threads in dreams of selected 20th century leading classical music composers. Musical dreams may come during the period of writing the piece, affecting its shape (Edgar Varèse, Igor Stravinsky), or appear totally unexpectedly, giving an impetus to compose a new work (Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel). Dreams are a potential answer to the concerns of composer (Threni) or a source of inspiration for a short fragment of musical material (Arcana, Histoire du soldat), instrumentation (Octet), some specific features of the piece (The Rite of Spring, Musik im Bauch, Tierkreis, Helikopter-Streichquartett, Himmels-Tür), or even a course of the whole composition (Trans, Match). It is also interesting to observe the occurrence of musical dreams featuring intensive colours.
The examples are referred to the current state of research on links between music and dreams. The studies of a group of scholars from the University of Florence, working under Valeria Uga, or Irving Massey, American working in neuroaesthetics, present the statements of composers concerning the pieces inspired by the music heard in a dream in new light. These results provide further evidence that making use of this alternative source of work is possible.

In conversation with Arvo Pärt Enzo Restagno rightly noted: ‘I believe that a real point of contact between Japanese musical tradition and your music is to be found in the role that silence plays in both.’ Indeed, the comparison of musical aesthetics of Pärt and Toshio Hosokawa, who represents the musical tradition of Japan, do exhibit many surprising similarities. Neither of them would see silence as absence of sound. It constitutes an important element of thinking about music and creating the pieces. For both of them silence may be connected with the sphere of the sacred, the non-linear model of time, the practice of meditation (metaphors of breath) and concentration. The last one is something they practice as composers while writing music, and something they expect from performers and listeners of their pieces. Both artists entitled their entire works or parts of some compositions making some references to silence. It is important, however, to remember the difference in perception of silence by the traditions to which the composers ascribe to (Hesychasm and Zen Buddhism).

The work of Toshio Hosokawa (born 1955 in Hiroshima) exemplifies a connection between silence and the sphere of the sacred which is characteristic of Far East cultures. The goal of this paper is to determine the role of silence in the work of Hosokawa in the light of Japanese tradition, with particular reference to Zen Buddhism. The article discusses chosen aspects of the composer’s oeuvre already mentioned in the research, but present also in theoretical and aesthetic texts, interviews and commentaries provided by the composer himself. These elements are, inter alia, traditional Japanese music (gagaku, shōmyō, shakuhachi music), calligraphy, dō arts, ma principle, breath, and the nonlinear model of time or the concept of emptiness.

In the years 2005 – 2010 Arvo Pärt’s music was used in at least 19 foreign and 8 Polish movies. The key to its popularity might be the fact that when properly used, this music can easily fit to the character of given scene, often enhancing its expressiveness. In this paper the role of Arvo Pärt’s music in two Polish movies has been analyzed: "Chłopiec na galopującym koniu" by Adam Guziński (2006) and "Gościem u siebie" by Arkadiusz Biedrzycki (2009). They show two types of functions that Pärt’s works can fulfil when used in movies: a tool of creating dramaturgy and a background sound.

In the preface to his book „Philosophy of Chance”, Michael Heller writes that „the structure of the universe is twined with chances”. An analogical structure can be found in classical music, e.g. in the most of works written after 1960 by Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994) – „the biggest Polish composer of the second half of the 20th century, or maybe even the whole century” (Tadeusz Kaczyński). The goal of this paper is to describe in rough the role of indeterminacy in Witold Lutosławski’s controlled aleatoric music and to show analogies between the ways indeterminacy is presented in Lutosławski’s music and Heller’s thought.