Disclaimer: this is a thread for serious discussion of contemporary music. Comments related to how bad you think contemporary music is will be considered off topic and informed to the moderators.
In the 20th century, we witnessed how each of the classical conceptions on music were analysed with a critical eye. Traditional conceptions of melody, harmony, and form were reinvented or replaced.
But, despite all these changes, in the 50's a key conception of western classical music was alive like never before.
What was this conception?: a way of thinking about the role of sound in music.
In this conception there's an identification: sound=pitch (of course, I'm exaggerating a little in order to make the point)
Harmony consists in a set of rules for organizing these building blocks, pitch.
For example, we have an ordered set of twelve different notes, {Pi}, then the twelve tone method tells you how you can combine these notes in order to produce music. The key here is that these notes are thought as some kind of absolute entities; once we consider the concept abstractly, some of its other properties (like timbre) are discarded. There's an idealization of sound as pitch, and of music as the art of organizing pitches, i.e., given these fundamental pitches (the chromatic scale), music is like the study of the combinatorial properties of this set.
The chromatic scale is an ideal thing, which is realized in different instruments.
This is a very mathematical (and western) way of thinking. For example, in mathematics you can define the concept of a vector space as an abstract set equiped with certain rules which tell you how to add two elements and how to multiply them by a scalar. You don't care very much for the nature of the elements of the set; if they satisfy the axioms of the definition of a vector space, then you can apply the theorems of vector spaces to the set. Vector spaces can be realized in very different ways, as a set of n-tuples of numbers, as a set of matrices, as a set of functions, and even as a set of differential operators. I hope you can see the analogy with music working here.
In spectralism this notion is completely abandoned in favor of taking sound (in all of its complexity) as the building block and music as the art of manipulating sound. In this way, timbre takes a prominent role here. The chromatic scale is abandoned, the variable is now the frequency of the sound wave and its range is a continuum.
The key aspect to appreciate in this music is the final texture of the sound, which is often very complex. And also the way in which this texture evolves in time.
According to Tristan Murail, "music is ultimately sound evolving in time". In this interview Grisey gives interesting insights http://www.angelfire.com/music2/davi...er/grisey.html.
Historically, in the origins of spectralism is the music Ligeti composed in the 60's (Atmospheres, Lontano, etc.), pieces composed as a response to serialism and in which we can see some these new ideas about the role of sound in music.
In the 70's, all this was taken to an extreme level of sophistication when composers at IRCAM started to use tools from physics (like Fourier analysis) in order to study sound with a scientific precision, in order to use its properties in a more informed, and then effective, way.
Examples:
-Very early precursors:
Composers of the Second Viennese School paid special attention to timbre. Also the Impressionists. Varese's new conceptions of the role of sound.
Schoenberg - Farben (#3 of Five Pieces for Orchestra, also called "Summer Morning by a Lake: Chord Colours"; 1908): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpze1UEF30c#t=101
-The birth of modern spectralism - proto spectralism:
Ligeti - Atmosphères:
Ligeti - Lontano:
-Spectralism:
Nørgård - Voyage into the Golden Screen:
Grisey - Partiels:
Grisey - Vortex Temporum:
Murail - Gondwana:
Murail - Bois flotté:
Haas- In Vain:
Horatiu Radulescu - Khufu's Serpent IV for ensemble:
-Spectralism today:
Haas - limited approximations (2010):
Murail - Les Sept Paroles (2010):
Also of interest (timbre and rhythm):
Ligeti - violin concerto:
Furrer - piano concerto:
Fell free to make any contribution, and particularly to introduce any other composer of this style.
In the 20th century, we witnessed how each of the classical conceptions on music were analysed with a critical eye. Traditional conceptions of melody, harmony, and form were reinvented or replaced.
But, despite all these changes, in the 50's a key conception of western classical music was alive like never before.
What was this conception?: a way of thinking about the role of sound in music.
In this conception there's an identification: sound=pitch (of course, I'm exaggerating a little in order to make the point)
Harmony consists in a set of rules for organizing these building blocks, pitch.
For example, we have an ordered set of twelve different notes, {Pi}, then the twelve tone method tells you how you can combine these notes in order to produce music. The key here is that these notes are thought as some kind of absolute entities; once we consider the concept abstractly, some of its other properties (like timbre) are discarded. There's an idealization of sound as pitch, and of music as the art of organizing pitches, i.e., given these fundamental pitches (the chromatic scale), music is like the study of the combinatorial properties of this set.
The chromatic scale is an ideal thing, which is realized in different instruments.
This is a very mathematical (and western) way of thinking. For example, in mathematics you can define the concept of a vector space as an abstract set equiped with certain rules which tell you how to add two elements and how to multiply them by a scalar. You don't care very much for the nature of the elements of the set; if they satisfy the axioms of the definition of a vector space, then you can apply the theorems of vector spaces to the set. Vector spaces can be realized in very different ways, as a set of n-tuples of numbers, as a set of matrices, as a set of functions, and even as a set of differential operators. I hope you can see the analogy with music working here.
In spectralism this notion is completely abandoned in favor of taking sound (in all of its complexity) as the building block and music as the art of manipulating sound. In this way, timbre takes a prominent role here. The chromatic scale is abandoned, the variable is now the frequency of the sound wave and its range is a continuum.
The key aspect to appreciate in this music is the final texture of the sound, which is often very complex. And also the way in which this texture evolves in time.
According to Tristan Murail, "music is ultimately sound evolving in time". In this interview Grisey gives interesting insights http://www.angelfire.com/music2/davi...er/grisey.html.
Historically, in the origins of spectralism is the music Ligeti composed in the 60's (Atmospheres, Lontano, etc.), pieces composed as a response to serialism and in which we can see some these new ideas about the role of sound in music.
In the 70's, all this was taken to an extreme level of sophistication when composers at IRCAM started to use tools from physics (like Fourier analysis) in order to study sound with a scientific precision, in order to use its properties in a more informed, and then effective, way.
Examples:
-Very early precursors:
Composers of the Second Viennese School paid special attention to timbre. Also the Impressionists. Varese's new conceptions of the role of sound.
Schoenberg - Farben (#3 of Five Pieces for Orchestra, also called "Summer Morning by a Lake: Chord Colours"; 1908): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpze1UEF30c#t=101
-The birth of modern spectralism - proto spectralism:
Ligeti - Atmosphères:
Ligeti - Lontano:
-Spectralism:
Nørgård - Voyage into the Golden Screen:
Grisey - Partiels:
Grisey - Vortex Temporum:
Murail - Gondwana:
Murail - Bois flotté:
Haas- In Vain:
Horatiu Radulescu - Khufu's Serpent IV for ensemble:
-Spectralism today:
Haas - limited approximations (2010):
Murail - Les Sept Paroles (2010):
Also of interest (timbre and rhythm):
Ligeti - violin concerto:
Furrer - piano concerto:
Fell free to make any contribution, and particularly to introduce any other composer of this style.
