Public Radio Interview with Anthony BrandtIn the classic cartoon, Road Runner and his nemesis, Wile E. Coyote, are marvels of endurance. No matter how violent their confrontations, both are impervious to harm. "Beep, beep"--and the two adversaries are ready to renew their struggle afresh. Time has no lasting effect on either of them.
Similarly, we rely on computer memory being absolute: no matter how we alter a document, unsaved it returns to its original form; our applications are intended to boot up intact. Movies and recordings create permanent records of otherwise perishable performances. Symbols and monuments such as the bald eagle and the Lincoln Memorial stand as enduring emblems of liberty. We turn to timeless spiritual ideas for consolation and inspiration.
But for so much else in our experience, time's force is perpetual and relentless: It is constantly chiseling away, creating new forms. Transformation may be sudden or slow, obvious or hidden, but it is inexorable. Cloud watching is a testimony to nature's restless inventiveness. "Planned obsolescence" is built into many consumer items. Living things are particularly vulnerable: Our bodies are in a continual state of transformation. Even human memory is not absolute, but a recreation that conjures up the past for us with inevitable distortions, evasions, substitutions and changing emphases. Try as we might to hold on to the past, it flees -- that is a fundamental condition of living.
Whether time has an effect on the material is a crucial issue explored in a piece of music. Is the musical material able to recuperate itself exactly? Does it ever return in its original form? Or is it destined to be continually impermanent and volatile?
Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray is a powerful allegory about time's effect. The title character is able to hold off the ravages of time, outliving lovers, rivals and friends without the slightest hint of aging. His secret is a portrait, painted by a diabolical artist and kept hidden in a locked room. The portrait grows old in his stead, enabling Dorian Gray to survive unchanged. When the painting is finally discovered, its image has become horrifically decrepit and menacing. Once the painting has been destroyed, time's effect catches up with Dorian Gray: He is reduced to a pile of ash.
When musical material returns with little or no change, it speaks to the material's persistence and durability. The material is not vulnerable to time: No matter what has happened in the interim, the music is able to reconstitute itself exactly. It is stable enough to endure. The longer the passage that is restored unchanged, the greater the effect of stability.
Example 1
Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 opens with a confident thematic statement by the orchestra.
The movement gradually builds in intensity, culminating in a wild, flamboyant harpsichord solo.
The harpsichord seems to bring the music to a precarious cliff, ready to fall off. But it rescues itself and leads back to a return of the main theme.
In spite of the tension of the harpsichord solo, the music has managed to regain its equilibrium. Time has not caused lasting damage: in a moment of great affirmation, the opening music is reclaimed in its original form.
Example 2
Stravinsky's Elegy for JFK, with text by W.H. Auden, offers a more unexpected and subtle example. The piece opens with the line of text, "When a just man dies,/Lamentation and praise/Sorrow and joy, are one."
The music then continues with little exact repetition, in brief, haiku-like statements.
At the work's close, Stravinsky reprises the opening line exactly.
The musical return is striking; it adds an undeniable emphasis and a timeless quality to Stravinsky's eulogy. Framing the piece with the text repetition was the composer's decision; in Auden's manuscript, this line of text occurs only at the end.
Because music is a performance art, even an "exact" return is an idealization. On paper, the music's content may be identical. But even the most expert musician cannot precisely duplicate his or her performance identically; inevitably, there will be subtle variations.
Furthermore, you, the listener have changed. You have experienced the intervening music; just the fact that the return is already familiar, rather than something fresh, gives it a different quality. Viewing the fateful Game 6 of the 1986 World Series on videotape is not the same as seeing it the night it happened. The events may be identical, but they have a different significance when viewed in retrospect. Nevertheless, these nuances of performance and perception are subsumed within the identity of content and design. When a musical passage returns exactly, the emphasis is on the material's endurance and transcendence.
On the other hand, if the musical material returns with significant changes, then time has had an effect. The music is not stable enough to reconstitute itself exactly: It is evanescent, transitory, and elusive. It participates in time: the intervening action "weathers" the material, propelling it in new directions. It is a music of becoming, of irreversible change and progress.
Example 3
Please listen to the opening of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. The excerpt fades out at the arrival of a contrasting, more lyrical section.
About five minutes later, this opening passage is reprised. The excerpt once again fades out at the arrival of the contrasting section.
This time, time has had an effect: Instead of a gradual buildup, the return begins at once with the full orchestra at a very loud dynamic. The harmonic tension is intensified. Most interestingly, the return is compressed: It takes exactly half the amount of time as the original. This is an inescapable fact, verifiable by the clock. Yet many listeners, even professional musicians, do not recognize this consciously at first. This is the benefit of analysis: It helps make us more aware of what we are all hearing.
Example 4
Morton Feldman’s Coptic Light for orchestra begins with a static, very repetitive passage. Its sounds and musical rhetoric are far removed from Beethoven’s.
Nearly twenty minutes later, the opening is revisited.
Once again, time has had an effect. At the reprise, the upper strings revive the two-note pattern that they played at the opening: This is what creates the impression of return. However, the winds originally played similar patterns to the strings. At the return, their music consists only of isolated single attacks. There is also a murmuring underlying rhythm that was not present at the opening. The overall result is of an incomplete reminiscence, because there are more disconnected attacks and “bubbling” activity underlying the upper strings.
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