Moment shape

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Momentform describes a musical composition technique that is particularly associated with the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen . A piece written in the form of a moment is, so to speak, composed of a mosaic of moments ; a moment is an "independent (quasi) independent section that is separated from other sections by breaks."

Explanation

The concept of the moment form - and the name itself - go back to the composition Kontakt by Karlheinz Stockhausen (1958–60)

In Stockhausen's terminology, a moment is “any unit of form in a certain composition that can be recognized by a personal and unmistakable characteristic” “A moment can - formally speaking - be a shape (individual), a structure (individual) or a mixture of both; and in terms of time it can be a state (static) or a process (dynamic) or a combination of both. ”“ So, depending on the characteristics, moments can be of any length or short. ”

When forming moments into musical works, a comprehensive line, a “narrative red thread” is deliberately avoided. The moments that make up such a composition are related to one another through a non-linear system of proportions. When this system of proportions exhausts a given set of possibilities, a form is called closed ; if not, or if the series of proportions is not finite, then the form is open .

The moment shape does not necessarily have to avoid recognizable, targeted processes. “They simply refuse to participate in a globally oriented narrative curve, which of course is not their purpose.” In Stockhausen's words, such works have the quality that they

aim neither on the climax nor on prepared and thus expected several climaxes and do not represent the usual stages of initiation, increase, transition and decay in a development curve related to the entire duration of the work; Rather, they are immediately intense and - constantly present at the same time - seek to hold out the level of continued 'main things' to the end; in which one can expect a minimum or a maximum at every moment and cannot predict any direction of development with certainty from the present; which have always started and could go on indefinitely; in which either everything present counts or nothing at all; in which nothing is restlessly viewed every now as a mere result of what has gone before and as a prelude to what is to come, which one hopes for, but as something personal, independent, centered that can stand for itself; Forms in which a moment does not have to be a piece of a timeline, a moment does not have to be a particle of a measured duration, but in which the concentration on the now - on every now - makes vertical cuts, as it were, which penetrate a horizontal conception of time into timelessness, which I call eternity: an eternity that does not begin at the end of time, but can be reached at any moment. I am speaking of musical forms in which apparently no less attempt is being made than to break the concept of time - more precisely: the concept of duration - to even overcome it.
...
with such works the beginning and the end are open.

In addition to contacts , the works that are particularly associated with the moment form include the slightly earlier Gesang der Jünglinge (1955–56), and the later works Carré (1960), Momente (1962–64 / 69), Mixtur (1964), Microphone I (1964), Microphone II (1965), Telemusik (1967), Mood (1968), and from the late work Saturday from Light (1981-83), Michaelion from Wednesday from Light , and Joy (2005) .

The concept of the moment form has often been confused with mobile or (in Stockhausen's name) "ambiguous" forms of aleatoric , as the moments can be arranged differently in four of these compositions ( moments , mixture , microphony I and mood ). Various other works by Stockhausen have this mobility property without falling into his category of momentary form, for example Piano Piece XI (1956), Refrain (1956), Cycle (1959) and Sirius (1975-77).

Some works by other composers, both earlier and contemporary, were named as examples of the moment form, such as István Anhalt , Earle Brown , Elliott Carter , Barney Childs , Roberto Gerhard , Michael Gielen , Hans Werner Henze , Charles Ives , Witold Lutosławski , Olivier Messiaen , Morgan Powell , Roger Reynolds , Roger Sessions , Igor Stravinsky , Anton Webern , Stefan Wolpe , Yehuda Yannay and Frank Zappa .

Single receipts

  1. ^ Kramer: The Time of Music. 1988, p. 453.
  2. ↑ Stockhausen: Momentform 1963, p. 189.
  3. ↑ Stockhausen: Invention and Discovery. 1963, p. 250.
  4. ↑ a b Stockhausen: Momentform. 1963, p. 200.
  5. ^ Stockhausen: Momentform. 1963, p. 201.
  6. ^ Dack: Contacts. 1999.
  7. ^ Stockhausen: Momentform. 1963, pp. 198-199.
  8. ↑ Stockhausen: Invention and Discovery. 1963, p. 250.
  9. ^ Stockhausen and Kohl: Stockhausen on Opera. 1985, p. 25.
  10. ^ Stockhausen: Michaelion. 2002, pp. Xii and xx.
  11. ^ Stockhausen: Kürten courses. 2007, p. 3.
  12. ^ Clarkson: Wolpe, Stefan.
  13. ↑ Kramer: Moment Form. 1978, p. 178.
  14. ^ Kramer: The time of Music. 1988, pp. 50-52 and 61-62.

literature

  • John Dack: Contacts and Narrativity. In: eContact 2, no.2 , 1999.
  • Holger Kaletha: Decomposition of the Sound Continuum: Serialism and Development from a Genetic-Phenomenological Perspective. In: Perspectives of New Music. 42, no. 1 (Winter) 2004, pp. 84–128.
  • Jerome Kohl: Serial and Non-Serial Techniques in the Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen from 1962–1968. Dissertation. University of Washington, Seattle 1981, OCLC 10212405 .
  • Jonathan Kramer: Moment Form in Twentieth Century Music. In: The Musical Quarterly. 64, 1978, pp. 177-94.
  • Jonathan Kramer: The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies . Schirmer Books, New York 1988, ISBN 0-02-872590-5 . (also: Collier Macmillan, London 1988, ISBN 0-02-872590-5 )
  • Robert Morgan: Stockhausen's Writings on Music. In: The Musical Quarterly 61, no. 1 (January) 1975, pp. 1-16. (Reprinted in: The Musical Quarterly. 75, no. 4 (Winter 1991), pp. 194–206)
  • Jean-Paul Sartre: Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology . English translation by Hazel E. Barnes. Methuen & Co., London 1957, OCLC 3285832 .
  • Karlheinz Stockhausen: Momentform: New relationships between performance duration, work duration and moment. In: Texts on Music. vol. 1, DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1963, OCLC 715815242 , pp. 189-210.
  • Karlheinz Stockhausen: Invention and Discovery. In: Texts on Music. vol. 1, DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1963, OCLC 715815242 , pp. 222-58.
  • Karlheinz Stockhausen: Michaelion: 4th scene from Wednesday made of light. (Score). Stockhausen-Verlag, Kürten 2002, DNB 358732646 .
  • Karlheinz Stockhausen: Stockhausen Courses Kürten 2007: Composition course on KLANG, the 24 hours of the day, Second hour: FREUDE for 2 harps, 2005 / Stockhausen Courses Kuerten 2007: Composition Course on KLANG / SOUND, the 24 Hours of the Day, Second Hour: FREUDE for 2 Harps, 2005, Work no.82 . Stockhausen-Verlag, Kürten 2007, OCLC 234136942 .
  • Karlheinz Stockhausen, Jerome Kohl: Stockhausen on Opera. In: Perspectives of New Music. 23, no. 2 (Spring) 1985, pp. 24-39.
  • Viktor von Weizsäcker: Shape and Time . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1960, DNB 455444617 .

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