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Boulez and Cage:

A Look at Serialism and Chance


Randy Kingery
Footnote references to die Reihe are abbreviated as dR followed by the volume number in
Roman numerals. Other abbreviations are as follows:

Correspondence Nattiez, Jean Jacques (ed.). The Boulez-Cage Correspondence, English


trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

Grant Grant, M.J. Serial Music, Serial Aesthetics (Cambridge: Cambridge


University Press, 2001).

Kostelanetz Kostelanetz, Richard (ed.). John Cage: an Anthology (New York: Da


Capo Press, 1991).

Orientations Boulez, Pierre. Points de repère (Paris: Bourgois, 1981), English trans.
Orientations. (Harvard University Press: Faber & Faber, 1986).

Silence Cage, John. Silence: Lectures and Writings (Middletown CT: Wesleyan
University Press, 1973).

Stocktakings Boulez, Pierre. Relevés d’apprenti (Paris: Seuil, 1966), English trans.
Stocktakings of an Apprenticeship (Oxford University Press,
1991).
INTRODUCTION

This study was initially begun from the presumption that because large amounts of serial

and chance music1 sound very much alike, either method of composition might be used to

explain music derived the other way; one only needs to devise a system to fit the notes. In other

words, there must be a relationship that allows serial methods to create chance music, or the

flexibility of serial methods is so vast, to the point of being arbitrary, that a serial method could

be invented to account for a chance method.

After some research, it became apparent that I was working with many levels of

misunderstanding, not least of which is that methods of composition don’t necessarily have to

have anything at all to do with the listening experience. In fact, it might be argued that serialism

is not a method at all, but a conception of music containing many methods, including chance.

I came to believe that the reception of these musics is one of similar misunderstandings

which were often inadvertently, but sometimes willingly, perpetuated by the composers

themselves, never mind its outspoken opponents. A famous example of this is Milton Babbitt’s

article “Who Cares if You Listen.” Babbitt insists that the study of music is a specialized field

and the layman should be as incapable of comprehending advanced music as he would be of

advanced physics. He therefore proposes that composers of advanced music should “pursue a

private life of professional achievement, as opposed to a public life of unprofessional

compromise and exhibitionism,” and advocates withdrawing into the “ivory towers” of the

university. Ironically, by his own admission, Babbitt truly does care if you listen.

The question of how serial and chance composers view their music became important in

sifting through the hyperbole in order to determine why they developed the way they did. But

1
Only the method of chance is of any importance in the current essay. Specific differences between forms using
chance procedures such as aleatoric and indeterminate music will be ignored and collectively described simply as
chance music.

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this doesn’t necessarily lead one to an appreciation of their music; an additional look at the

composer’s cultural environment and their relationship to other contemporary artists seemed

necessary for this.

Examining the gulf between what are ostensibly contradictory aesthetic principles – the

serialism of the Darmstadt school and the chance methods of the New York experimentalists - is

a huge undertaking given the large number of composers in question, and maybe even

impossible given the nuances of thought between composers within the same school. The

narrower scope I provide by tracing the interaction of two composers, Pierre Boulez and John

Cage, within the contexts in which they were working, seems to be a useful way to view in

microcosm what might be contained in this gulf.

The choice of these two composers is obvious given that each can be seen as a leader in

their respective school, and that they had an extended friendship and preserved correspondence -

a convenient example of the two schools talking to each other. But a web of influences also

emerges when examining these two composers which, on a fundamental level, can be used to

understand what drew the composers together and what ultimately caused their parting of ways.

While both composer’s aesthetic can be traced from Webern, an indispensable progenitor of both

schools, the influence of Debussy on Boulez and Satie on Cage marks an aesthetic divide, the

effects of which can be seen throughout the works of each school.

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PART 1: SOME HISTORY

The cultural complexion of Europe and the United States were very different in the years

leading up to and following World War II. While Europe was marked by tremendous upheaval

and then construction, the U.S. emerged from its isolationism as a world superpower and

experienced great economic prosperity. This in part helps to explain the European phenomenon

of serialism,2 and the development of chance music in the United States.

Europe:

The devastating effect of World War II, which left Europe in ruins, is easy to

underestimate when investigating the postwar cultural and artistic developments. The generation

that came of age just after the war brought with it a new idealism and an intense need to rebuild

everything from scratch. The horrors of the war provided evidence that previous generations had

gone horribly wrong and that it was the new generation’s duty to correct the mistakes. This does

not imply that suddenly there was a new world order; certainly, some of the achievements

alluded to before the war, were realized after and even during the war. Still, the war had created

somewhat of a cultural caesura that necessitated, for young artists, the development of entirely

new modes of expression with little regard for tradition.3

This generation was further propelled by a confluence of technological and scientific

advances that influenced and gave impetus to much of their artistic investigations. Physicists in

particular were making discoveries that raised questions about our understanding of the universe

and our existence in it. With Heisenberg’s work the idea of an objective reality was no longer

the domain of philosophical speculation, but was now a scientific problem. 4 The resulting

2
The American brand of serialism is quite a different phenomenon than European serialism and will not be given
any treatment in this essay.
3
M.J. Grant describes this cultural caesura as the “Stunde Null” or Year Zero in German culture.
4
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle showed that at the subatomic level a particle’s velocity cannot be measured
without taking steps that would alter the exactness of measurements of its position.

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quantum theory suggested that the scientist had become a factor in the experimentation.

Advances in the theories of electromagnetism and gases began to stress energy rather than matter

as the focus of research, and further confirmed the shift away from a directly perceived reality.

In general, the new physics necessitated a shift in scientific inquiry from an objective and

directly perceived reality to a subjective reality. This proved to be hugely influential on the

young rebuilders of European culture. It put new emphasis on the role of the observer, it was

dialectical and open in nature, relied on intangible concepts such as probability and entropy, and

put more stress on the concept of time. 5 But it was the budding science of information theory

that was to be more directly linked to serialist methodology. Communication itself had become

the subject of scientific investigation, and this was to profoundly influence the rebuilding of a

new theory of musical composition.

Information theory is essentially the mathematical representation of communication. It

aims to find the optimal channels and means for the transmission of messages.

5
As Grant has pointed out, philosophers such as Henri Bergson began to argue against the Newtonian emphasis on
space over time.

6
A simple model starts with an information source which sends the message by way of a

transmitter to a receiver, which in turn sends the information to its destination. It also shows the

possibility of noise entering the communication channel.

One of the main objectives of information theory is to minimize redundancy, or those

parts of communication which are non-informative in order to construct communication systems

which function on the transmission of minimal amounts of information. Grant sums this up well:

“information is related to the range of choice available when constructing a message – not so

much what is said, as what could be said, since it is the element of choice which allows the

message to be informative.”6 Messages are measured in bits, or binary units, for example, the

message 1111111111 contains very little information due to redundancy while the message

1001011100 contains much more information. To put this in terms of probability: the more

likely an event, the less information is contained in the event. It is important to note that

information does not imply anything about meaning.

What was the significance of information theory on serial music? First, it allows for a

description of music in the mathematical terms of information units. For example, in describing

how one experiences time in music, Stockhausen explains “the degree of information is thus

greatest when at every moment of a musical flow the momentum of surprise is greatest: the

music constantly has ‘something to say.’ But this means that the experiential time is in a state of

flux, constantly and unexpectedly altering.”7 Stockhausen relates an increase in the speed of

musical time to an increase in musical information. Information theory, by its very existence,

also showed that the classical ‘laws’ of music theory were merely conventions; that other modes

6
Grant p. 32
7
dRII p. 64 (emphasis original)

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of thought were available. The problem with serialism’s reception generally lies with this other

mode of thought.

America:

There might be some truth to the idea that the pioneering spirit required to settle the New

World also exists in America’s artists, and might partially explain its unique brand of

experimentalism. Early American experimentalists were typically colorful personalities

characterized by a strong individualism and a blatant disregard for institutional musical

‘correctness.’ But until the end of World War II, American composers weren’t considered

sufficiently trained until they had studied with a master in Europe. Original American

composers who tried to support themselves without study abroad had to struggle against a

European aesthetic that was constantly being reenergized by so called ‘polished’ composers

returning from Europe. Essentially a rift in American music was created. On one side, were

composers of European sensibilities and on the other were those who believed in more

indigenous American music. Often, those composers who didn’t study in Europe were not taken

seriously, but perhaps this is what allowed them to push the boundaries of music as they did

relatively unchecked.

It wasn’t until the 1920’s that American experimentalism finally fully flourished. All

composers, including experimentalists, began to organize themselves according to musical and

social ideals for the purpose of promoting contemporary music. The Eurocentric composers

generally aligned themselves with Copland and the League of Composers, most of who had

studied in Paris or Fontainebleau with Nadia Boulanger and were mostly supported by rich

patrons of the arts. By contrast, the so called ‘ultramodernists’ were more interested in

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eschewing European standards and forming an indigenous American music. This latter group

was initially led by Varese, and later Cowell, through the Pan American Association of

Composers, and was largely funded by their musical patriarch Charles Ives. A typical drama of

the rich kids versus the poor kids might be imagined as an apt narrative for the clash that ensued.

In their search for a uniquely American music, the ultramodernists encouraged any and all

sounds, noises, or musical effects their fertile imaginations might dream up. Leo Ornstein,

George Antheil, and many others, were to achieve a successful cult following, a possible

precursor of the ‘cult of the individual’ of modern-day popular music – the music that would

eventually supplant all public interest in the avant-garde.

The stock market crash in 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression completely

destroyed the healthy avant-garde culture of the previous decade. Even the popular hot-jazz

scene was temporarily silenced. Art for the sake of art was no longer economically feasible.

Government social programs such as the Federal Music Project of the Works Progress

Administration created public art projects that allowed musicians to be paid for their work by

sponsoring concerts and radio broadcasts; composers, however, in contrast with other artists,

were not allowed free reign in composition when working for such programs. Some composers

found work in other non-traditional areas. Virgil Thomson, for example, found work writing

scores for government-sponsored documentaries, and even scored a wartime propaganda film for

the Office of War.8 Copland, as part of Roosevelt's 'good neighbor' policy, was hired to study the

music of South America and find promising composers who might benefit from U.S. sponsored

university study.9

8
Hitchcock p. 224
9
Struble p. 197

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The Depression saw a proliferation of music unions aiming to protect the musician’s

financial interests. But programming of new American music plummeted as the country’s

orchestras turned to European standards in an effort to keep subscription sales up. The

Philadelphia Orchestra, for example, announced in its 1932 season that it would not program

“debatable” new music.10 Much of the music of preeminent composers such as Copland and

Thomson took a drastic conservative step as they struggled to find a way to support themselves.

Copland’s more abstract works such as the Piano Concerto (1926) and Piano Variations (1930)

gave way to the ‘popular’ works that incorporated vernacular music and programmatic themes,

such as Billy the Kid (1938), in order to make his music more accessible. Similar movements by

large numbers of other composers ushered in a whole era of 'populist' music in mainstream

America.

As in Europe, Marxism became highly influential on artists of the 1930’s. Many

composers became engaged in social agendas and even became affiliated with the communist

party; a notable example being that of Elie Siegmeister, an ultramodernist who became a very

outspoken leftist and strove to bring classical music to the working class.11 Many ultramodernist

composers voluntarily placed themselves under similar restrictions of post-Bolshevik Russia by

renouncing ‘perversions’ such as dissonant counterpoint, complex harmonies and rhythms, and

influences from jazz, effectively ending an era of experimentalism on the east coast.

America’s entrance into the war sparked a host of patriotic works. Many composers

turned to folk songs and hymns for sources of material; a famous example being Cowell’s series

of Hymn and Fuguing Tunes. The works of early American composers such as William Billings

were also used as sources of inspiration and subject matter. Even though Americans were

10
Hitchcock p. 217
11
Gann p. 60

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generally uneasy about European (especially German and Italian) music, most orchestras still did

not program American music and instead performed non-Germanic European classics. But the

war, as Kyle Gann suggests, may have had a liberating effect on American music. The absence

of patronage and support forced composers to find alternate and sometimes very creative ways to

make music.12

Some composers, especially those who tried to maintain true to their art, sought

patronage by the country’s universities. But unlike Europeans, American composers seem to

have been maladapted for the academic life. Historically, there is a trend where American

composers are uncomfortable in professorships and/or these posts are retained for only brief

periods.13 Many professorships were ultimately given to Europeans who flooded to the U.S. to

escape Nazism and the war. Established European composers such as Stravinsky, Schoenberg,

Hindemith, and Bartók, took posts at various universities across the country. These elder

composers taught a generation of younger composers who grew from a more conservative style;

many of whom became obsessed with writing the ‘great American symphony.’ The typical

American style came to be associated with wide melodic intervals and a slow moving rich

harmony that was almost exclusively diatonic; presumably to suggest the majestic expanse of the

American landscape.

But there were notable exceptions to this rule. Where more 'popular' American

composers such as Copland and Thomson did not have any considerable success in academia,

'unpopular' or technical composers such as Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt were much more

successful. This may have been due to the more scientific approach they took to composition.

Both of these latter two came to represent the quintessential 'ivory tower' composer in the

12
Ibid. p. 77
13
Struble p. 149

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university. Probably due to the easily quantifiable nature of music theory, composition classes

were largely forays into theoretical principles. This was especially suited for 12-tone music,

which came to be the dominant technique taught in universities across the country during the

middle decades of the twentieth century.

Also well adapted to the academic setting because of heady theoretical possibilities was

the field of electronic music. Improvements in recording technology and manufacturing made

the record a useful medium for new music. Finally, in 1952, Luening and Ussachevsky

programmed the first all tape-music concert in the U.S. beginning a trend where a composers

success started to become based on record sales rather than on score publications; a definite plus

for experimental and self-financed composers.

During the war, many composers were caught under the spell of the recent war refugee

Stravinsky. The highly influential composition teacher Nadia Boulanger, a devoted follower of

Stravinsky, released a host of neoclassical composers into the American mainstream. The only

strong avant-garde impulse came from the west coast and included among others Henry Cowell

and his student John Cage. Cage, who had a natural gift for invention, suffered from what he

saw was a lack of musical experimentation: “The great trouble with our life here is the absence

of an intellectual life. No one has an idea.” 14 But this trend of apathy may have been what

allowed Cage to experiment as he did unchecked by popular opinion. But to be sure, his

negative outlook on American musical culture carried through the end of the war and on into the

50’s.

After World War II, American artists didn’t share the same need for cultural revolution as

their European counterparts. The end of the war brought a rising prosperity, and with it,

increased patronage of American music. The 50’s saw an explosion in the number of orchestras
14
Correspondence p. 50 (Letter from Cage to Boulez)

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and performing ensembles in the U.S. Money from art organizations began to flow again. An

interesting statistic shows that the 50’s brought more Americans to the concert hall than even the

baseball stadium!15

15
Hitchcock p. 243

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PART 2: WEBERN

Despite the cultural and economic differences between composers on either side of the

Atlantic, the music of Anton Webern was to become a pervasive influence and transform the

musical landscape of both continents. More importantly, Webern’s music was to become the

foundation on which serialism was built as well as a major influence on John Cage and the New

York experimentalists.

The serialists and Leibowitz:

“The fact that everyone discovers something different in his [Webern’s] music and

wishes to demonstrate it to others throws a useful light on the manifold ideas about Webern; and

that, above all, his music allows of interpretation from the most varied points of view, speaks

only for its vitality.”16 This insightful remark from Stockhausen is, for the most part, very true,

but there was definitely more than just a little consensus on what the interesting or important

aspects of Webern’s music are; the disagreements happening between the serialists and those

more aligned with Schoenberg. A quick discussion of the different treatments Webern gets from

the serialists in die Reihe and from Rene Leibowitz (generally regarded as a Schoenbergian by

the serialists) in his quick study of Webern in Schoenberg and His School should demonstrate

what these differences are.

The most obvious ‘global’ difference between the two schools is one of perspective.

Where Leibowitz repeatedly emphasized Webern’s connection to tradition via Schoenberg, the

serialists saw him more as a break from tradition and/or pointing the way for a new music. It

must be understood that the serialists not only saw Schoenberg as the inventor of ‘the path to the

new music,’17 but also as the last dying breath of the decadent monster that was romanticism.

16
dRII p. 38
17
The title of a series of lectures, and subsequently a book, by Webern.

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Although a certain reverence for his work remained, they nonetheless saw him as part of the old

way that must be obliterated in order for the new music to be born, an attitude that can be seen

from such announcements as ‘Schoenberg is dead.’18 Leibowitz’s connection with Schoenberg is

then naturally seen as reactionary and his writings drew aggressive objections, especially when

his commentary was somewhat reckless. A good example of this is Eimert’s protest that “even

in the early op. 9 not a bar could possibly have been written by Schoenberg” in response to

Leibowitz’s “slightly exaggerated” comment that Webern’s work up to op. 21 could have indeed

been authored by Schoenberg.19 Leibowitz does, however, admit that Webern “represents the

greatest advancement in the evolution of the art of music.”20 But even here, “advancement”

implies a tie to tradition. By contrast, Boulez describes Webern as “the threshold,” implying that

a certain limit has been reached with regards to tradition and that just beyond his music

“impossibilities are abolished.”21

Leibowitz, no doubt holding on to romanticism and the desire to show the direct

relationship to tradition, spoke of Webern’s accomplishments in terms of an organicism and

psychological impact completely missing from serialist rhetoric. In addition to the ‘row

counting’ style of his analyses, nearly all of them approach Webern’s works in terms associated

with tradition, such as ternary form, variation, counterpoint, accent displacement, etc. and he still

makes certain common distinctions such as melody vs. harmony or rhythm vs. meter that were

eventually abandoned by many serialists. The serialists on the other hand, tended to think in

non-organic and objective terms. Eimert’s essay patently states that Webern “never proceeds by

motivic, psychological paths but builds out of reflecting motivic cells a proportioned structure.”

He even assigns the adjective ‘metallic’ to these “structures”. Eimert later continues: “there
18
The title of a famous essay by Boulez.
19
dRII p. 32
20
Leibowitz p. 251
21
dRII p. 41

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appeared in Webern’s work...this will to an impersonalizing objectivity; it is as if the flow of

merely affective happenings had been broken against the firmly-driven pillars of his note

objects.”22 Again we can see the desire to destroy tradition in favor of a highly prized objectivity

in music. But this objective approach definitely was a means to an end. In Webern’s own words

his method was “a matter of creating a means to express the greatest possible unity in music...

Unity is surely the indispensable thing if meaning is to exist.” 23 Heinz-Klaus Metzger, another

author in die Reihe, even describes a difference of perspective between the composers

themselves: “Schoenberg, after renouncing the form building potentialities of tonality, had to

look for ‘new formal principles,’ which soon slipped back into the line of tradition, the opposite

was true in Webern’s work; it was the new formal principles which forced him to abandon

tonality.”24

This leads to the second global difference between the two schools. While Leibowitz

seems understandably concerned with the methods employed in an effort to show their relation to

traditional canon (also a preoccupation of Schoenberg in an effort to legitimize his system), the

serialists are nearly obsessed with the ‘hows and whys’ behind the development of these

methods. Stockhausen quite plainly describes this difference: “the essential is not what methods

he [Webern] used, but how and to what end he sought and worked them out.” 25 The reason for

this difference seems obvious enough: again we have Leibowitz’s emphasis on the connections

with the past, but the serialists wanted to construct an entirely new music from the potential that

the “emancipation of the dissonance” left. They wanted to find out where “the path to the new

music” was going. Building a new grammar for music required the utmost objectivity and meant

stripping music completely free of all ornamentation. This could explain why in their study of
22
Ibid. p. 33
23
Webern p. 42
24
dRII p. 43
25
Ibid. p. 39

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Webern’s methodology, the serialists give sparse treatment to the phenomenon of

Klangfarbenmelodie, a decidedly important part of his compositional style, but one given much

more gravity by Leibowitz than the serialist, again, probably due to its comparable weight in

Schoenberg’s works.

Intervals and cells:

More specifically, the serialists concentrated on two aspects of Webern’s work that they

suggested strongly distinguished it from the work of Schoenberg. Probably the most important

of these is the functional use of intervals rather than notes. Where Schoenberg worked with 12-

tone rows, Webern, they suggested, worked with the intervals comprising the relationships

between the notes in his rows. In his analysis of the string quartet (first movement), Eimert uses

a statistical analysis of the various intervals used and found that of the 95 occurrences of a

seventh, not a single one was a literal repetition. Each form of the seventh had a different

“shape”. The few repetitions he found in the work were treated to variations of dynamics or

timbre.26 This would seem to indicate that Webern had indeed used an intervallic proportioning

that had overridden any thematicism suggested by a 12-tone row. Instead the row is used as a

reservoir of interval-motives.

Webern’s construction of his rows was very meticulous and logic driven. His notebooks

that show the pre-compositional process indicate that a row underwent many revisions before

achieving its definitive form.27 The rows used in the early works (prior to Op. 20) show a

concern for the intervallic content of his rows and a tendency to limit the amount of intervals

used, probably in the effort to create structural unity. These earlier rows have a preponderance

of semitones and its transpositions, major sevenths and minor ninths. Starting with Opus 21,

26
Ibid. p. 94
27
Bailey in the introduction to part I.

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Webern shifted his logic to constructions of symmetry and palindrome and showed much more

concern for invariance among permutations of his rows.28 Often his rows were derived by

stringing trichords and tetrachords of various permutations together. An interesting example of

techniques of both periods is the row from the Trio Op. 20. It consists of a string of pairs of

semitones where the third tetrachord is an inversion of the second:

Additional invariance also occurs among the permutations of the row. For instance, the second

hexachord of the prime row is nearly identical to the first hexachord of the inversion of

transposition 1 and vice versa:

Webern’s use of rhythm, and in particular, silence, also captured the imagination of the

serialists and John Cage in ways that couldn’t have been suggested by the music of Schoenberg.

The ‘silence’ they spoke of is not the traditional absence of sound or merely rests, but more of an

active or energized silence. Schnebel insisted that “the rests sound, they merely lack the

characteristics of physical tones.”29 This revelation is described in some way by nearly all the

contributors to the second volume of die Reihe. Boulez declared it a “most irritant and

provocative” feature in his work and that music “is not just ‘the art of sound’ – that it must be

28
This concept is demonstrated in detail in Bailey chapter 1.
29
Grant p. 107

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defined rather as a counterpoint of sound and silence.”30 In a bit of sarcasm that continued a

reevaluation of Schoenberg, Metzger refers to an “emancipation of the rest.”31 And although the

American experimentalists were already working with alternate notions of ‘silence,’ it was with

the same sense of discovery that Christian Wolff observed: “With Webern one has come to

notice that music is sound and silence...”32 This new notion of time in music was to suggest new

methods of temporal organization for both the serialists and John Cage.

Webern had also developed a cellular style of rhythmic organization that corresponded to

the logic of his pitch organization that the serialists, in particular, found interesting, but may have

also contributed to what Cage referred to as “prismatic”33 rhythmic structuring in his own music.

Part of what was interesting to the serialists was the fact that Webern had seemingly separated

the rhythmic aspect of his compositions from the pitch content while still allowing the row to

dictate the rhythmic material. In the creation of rhythmic cells, Webern had created a unit of

organization that itself could be subjected to what Boulez called “a series of transformation.”34

For example, in a simple motive taken from Webern’s Op. 30, the following transformations can

be detected:35

30
dRII p. 40
31
Ibid. p. 44
32
Ibid. p. 62 (emphasis mine)
33
A term Cage used to describe a technique where the same numerical durational proportioning is repeated in both
the macrocosmic and microcosmic layers of the music.
34
The seven series of transformation are outlined in his essay Possibly... in Stocktakings pp. 111-40. See below in
Part 4 under “New Approaches to Rhythm.”
35
Example derived from Bailey, table 5.2

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2
PART 3: DEBUSSY AND SATIE

As Boulez suggests, the influence of Debussy on serialist thought may have been second

only to Webern. The fact that the fourth edition of die Reihe was originally slated to be

dedicated to him would indicate such an importance.36 Boulez certainly admired Debussy’s

music, but the rest of the serialist response isn’t as direct, and the influences ascribed to Debussy

are far from homogenous. On the other hand, the influence of Satie, through Cage, on the New

York experimentalists seems easier to follow given Cage’s well documented infatuation with the

composer and his disproportionately large influence over the group.

In many ways, the relationship of Debussy and Satie mirrors that of Boulez and Cage.

Like Satie, one gets the sense that Cage plays the role of the student, or that Boulez is the

dominant personality. Both Satie and Cage have been regarded by many critics as amateurish

dilettantes hiding their lack of skill behind facades of wit and satire. And even though Debussy

and Boulez were considered ‘cutting edge’, they still fit well into tradition whereas Satie and

Cage went a step beyond, and were more overtly experimental. To take this point a bit further,

the experiments of Debussy and Boulez are of two composers attempting, with varying degrees

of success, to develop a new musical language. On the other hand, Satie and Cage were actually

exploring, in a more philosophical sense, what music is or can be.

Debussy and Boulez:

Debussy is often stereotypically pitted against Wagner as the antidote to romanticism, but

the truth is in fact more complicated. Debussy’s position with Wagner should be seen more from

the standpoint of a convert than iconoclast. Debussy, by his own admission, was a Wagnerian in

his student days.37 Later in life, Debussy detested this sort of Wagner worship. But this fact

36
Grant p. 120
37
Debussy p. 15

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should not be confused with detesting Wagner’s own work. Debussy’s distaste stemmed instead

from the institutionalization of art which catered to imitation and mediocrity. The possibility of

similarly becoming the object of ‘worship’ caused fiery reactions: “There is no school of

Debussy! I have no disciples! I am I!”38 It should therefore be no surprise that the serialist

connection to him would involve an opposition to romanticism and the dissolution of traditional

forms. But the change was gradual, and by no means complete. Boulez even suggested that

Pelléas et Mélisande (1902) took some of its material from Wagner, namely Parsifal,39 an opera

he claimed that Debussy found free in its invention and avoidance of a formula,40 almost as if

paying homage to his former icon. Wagner was an original and Debussy held originality in very

high regard: “To be unique, faultless!”41

Debussy was a huge lover of nature as well as music, and dreamt of music’s liberation by

nature. He found a certain parallel between the two and was prone to such prosaic declarations

as: “There is nothing more musical as a sunset.”42 He was very much in favor of a certain

freedom in music that disregarded tradition. Further yet, he advocated removing the ego from

the compositional process as expressed: “I did my best to write music for its own sake and

disinterestedly,”43 a characteristic that can also be seen in serialist’s “non-aesthetic choices.” As

a result, Debussy tended to write what he heard regardless of what form it took, if any. He

composed sound for the sake of sound; the rhetoric of the classical sonata had been liquidated.

In general, with a few exceptions, the serialists saw in Debussy a clear break from the

thematicism which was brought to its ultimate conclusion in the operas of Wagner, a

characteristic in Debussy’s music that serialists agreed was shared with Webern’s.
38
Vallas p. 20
39
Orientations pp. 312-13
40
Orientations pp. 245-46
41
Debussy p. 8
42
Ibid.
43
Ibid. p. 12

2
Debussy’s music is often described as ‘fragmented,’ as if the music had been shattered

into a thousand different shards with each piece held up to show how the light reflects off of it.

This play of color or light is the essence of what is termed “impressionism,” a term that Debussy

hated but does seem aptly applied (admittedly, impressionism does have larger implications than

just those of color or shade). The term could also be appropriately applied to Schoenberg’s

Klangfarbenmelodie, as well as Webern’s imaginative orchestral colorings as inherited from

Klangfarbenmelodie. In this sense, impressionism amounts to the structural use of timbre or

what Boulez would call “treating the orchestra ‘acoustically’”44 and much has been written by

serialists with regards to Debussy’s use of timbre, or more appropriately, his integration of

timbre into the formal structure. For example, Eimert described the integration this way: “And

the motives no longer ‘work’, they play their part in the ornamental linear coloratura, which

combines with the play of timbre to form a most perfect unity.” 45 Schnebel describes a similar

phenomenon: “Debussy composes the ‘partials’. He juxtaposes selections from spectra of

partials. The result is formant-composition, composed timbre-change, the organisation of sound-

movements. Debussy is tending towards composition with sounds.”46 But, possibly more

important were the innovations Debussy made with form and rhythm.

The serialist response to Debussy, with notable exceptions, was largely a response to a

single work: the ballet Jeux (1913). The premiere of Jeux met with only lukewarm reception, a

fact that may have to do with confusion based on its innovation, compounded with its introverted

character. The late arrival of the importance of this piece, it has been suggested, probably has

something to do with being overshadowed by the more extroverted The Rite of Spring which

premiered only two weeks later and in Debussy’s home town of Paris. It seems that it was

44
Stocktakings p. 281
45
dRV p. 4
46
dRVI p. 36

2
Messiaen who finally dusted off the piece and presented it to his students, kindling a fascination

that was to last for some time.

Eimert’s essay on Jeux47 provides some insight into what these composers were

fascinated with in this piece. Eimert starts by stating how seemingly unextraordinary the piece is

in Debussy’s development. It lacks the sensation of a Rite or Pierrot; its innovations instead lie

below the radar. Eimert describes a “delicacy” and “gentleness” that is in keeping with

Debussy’s normal style. His language sets Debussy apart from not only Wagner, but also from

“the merely muffled sound of impressionist music.”48 Eimert’s description of an “endless

variation” is reminiscent of Schoenberg, but has some important differences. He employs

Debussy’s notion of ‘arabesque’ and describes not melody, but ornament; something less than

thematic where phrase structure can no longer be described as antecedent and consequent, but

perhaps as only antecedents. The various ornaments are partly dismantled and then varied and

run back together. Inexactness is emphasized as important to maintain a melodic mobility and

suppleness. Instead of transposition of melodic shapes, motives are linked by association. (To

show this idea of ‘ornament’ Eimert uses an example that is not unlike a Schenkerian graph to

reveal a ‘wave’ underfigure that links the ornamentation!) This particular method of composing

creates a structure that is in constant “flux” and “self-renewal.” The implications for form were

particularly interesting to serialists.

Traditionally, Jeux is described as a ‘free’ rondo doesn’t really fit this model in the

traditional sense, although Eimert admits that it does hint at it. From bars 49-185 a rondo

structure can be uncovered in the form of A – B – C – A – D – E – A. In a more contemporary

analysis, Jann Pasler describes the form as something reminiscent of an arch form:49

47
dRV starting on p. 3
48
Ibid. p. 4
49
Pasler p. 73

2
As can be seen from this example, Pasler asserts a certain connection of the musical form to the

dramatic action of the stage. And indeed, Debussy does attach motivic ideas to certain actions

and characters of the stage. In this sense, the musical form is suggested by the dramatic form.

But also, instead of a formal product based on spatialization of the elements in the composition,

there is a formal principle at work giving rise to the structure. Eimert called it an “ornamental-

vegetative formal principle” due to its lack of rhetorical devices and the blossoming or growing

nature of the variation technique. Essentially, there is a form based on rhythmic organization

and interweaving of all the various formal constituents (motive/ornament, tempo, meter,

dynamics, and timbre); the horizontal and vertical aspects of the piece no longer have any

significance. Thus we arrive at the serial aspect of Jeux: all the parts of the form are given equal

weight. This seems to reflect Debussy’s own intentions when he said: “I would like to make

something inorganic in appearance and yet well ordered at its core.”50

Of the serialists, Boulez was to be the most influenced by Debussy, taking more interest

in the aesthetic cues left by his music and seeing him as an ancestor to serialism. Boulez even

goes so far as to suggest him as part of a triumvirate axis at the root of all modernism. 51 Boulez

saw in Debussy a master who questioned tradition and developed his own methods. In the last

works Boulez saw him working towards a simpler, less ornamented style where the structures

50
Pasler p. 69
51
Stocktakings p. 20. The other two members are the painter Cézanne and the poet Mallarmé.

2
were constantly variable but still guided by unifying developmental techniques. Specifically in

Jeux, Boulez admired a rich complexity of invention based on constant development and

“instantaneous self-renewal” not limited to the musical material but also applied to the

orchestration.52

Satie and Cage:

In contemplating the seeming paradox between the public’s love of originality and

disdain for imitation, and the necessity to have music that they can agree on and understand,

John Cage came to describe the function of music as the union of two disparate elements: “law

elements” or elements that can be agreed upon, and “freedom elements” or elements that cannot

and should not be agreed upon.53 These two ‘fields’ were then treated as endpoints on a

continuum that united the four parts of music: Structure, Method, Material, and Form. Structure

was defined as the parts in relation to the whole, Method as the continuity producing means or

syntax, Material as the sounds or language, and Form as “the morphological line of the sound-

continuity.”54 In all the fields except structure, it is desirable to have originality, or freedom

elements, but in structure it is necessary to maintain a sameness or law elements, although

method and material can also contain law elements, but this is not necessary.55

52
Stocktakings pp. 274-75
53
Defense of Satie, Kostelanetz p. 84
54
Ibid. p. 79. This is a confusing mix of terminology, but Cage possibly clears this up a bit by defining morphology
in Silence p. 9 as: “how the sound begins, goes on, and dies away.”
55
The following example is based on a similar graphic by Cage in Correspondence p. 39

2
According to Cage, there have been two principle approaches to structure since the time of

Beethoven. The first, and in Cages opinion, incorrect approach, is defining the parts of a

composition by harmony. Since lengths of time (rhythms) are more fundamental due to their

existence in both sound and silence, they provide the other, ‘correct’ approach to structure. The

only composers Cage credits with this discovery are Webern and Satie.56

Critics of Satie tended to disregard him as a musical clown suggesting that his humor was

a shield to hide his lack of talent (a critique that has also been applied to Cage). Humor was

definitely a large part of his talent and it may be correct to say that he lacked the compositional

technique associated with most masters, but the ideas expressed in his music are brilliant and

compelling. It might be then, that Satie did use humor as a shield, but only to hide his sensitive

ego from criticism of ideas he knew to be eccentric but nonetheless took completely seriously.

Some analysts even point to his ideas as a precursor of Dadaism and minimalism, possibly also

anticipating Muzak, and hugely influential on Cage and his followers.57

Satie’s music insolently includes folk tunes, musical clichés, cabaret music, and any and

all absurdities at his disposal. His so called ‘mosaic technique’ would incorporate all these and

more in a mixed bag of juxtapositions that entirely dispenses with the idea of dramatic

56
Defense of Satie, Kostelanetz p. 81
57
Gillmor (1988) p. 48

2
development. Each sound event exists free of all that comes before or after. The unresolved

tension and novelty in Satie’s harmony, or what some refer to as the ‘harmonic audacity’ of his

music, has been interpreted by Cage as an unpretentious disregard for the traditional function of

harmony. Take for example, the chains of unprepared and unresolved seventh and ninth chords

in the Sarabandes (1887):58

Cage took this concept to a new level with the composition of his Sonatas and Interludes; gone

is the rhetoric that infers movement and the passage of time. As Cage pointed out, “boredom

dropped when we dropped our interest in climaxes.”59 It is often said that one gets the feeling in

Satie’s music that it could go on forever in an endless repetition. It was Cage who raised this

notion of monotony to a dialectic in music between monotony and a subtle intensity.

Harmony is then relegated to a derivative position in a composition and ‘correctly’ placed

back in the field of method. In its place, Satie’s music uses rhythm to define structure. Like

Cage, Satie was always devising a new system of composition. Most of his compositions show

some type of rhythmic proportioning or numerological element. If Cage can be believed, unlike

Beethoven who worked out the keys and harmonic structure of a composition before he started

the writing proper, Satie would plan the length of its phrases and proportion its sections, 60 often

with built in incongruities to “confuse would-be followers.”61 Related to the liberation of sound

events are Satie’s attempts to blur the lines between music and the ‘real world’: his so called

58
Example is from the opening of Sarabande No. 1.
59
Nyman article p. 1229
60
Satie’s sketchbooks do in fact show complete pre-compositional rhythmic structures for some of his pieces.
61
Orledge p. 142

2
‘furniture music.’ The idea of ‘furniture music’ was to incorporate music into the environment

of everyday life (much like furniture); “a music which would be a part of the surrounding noises

and which would take them into account.” 62 One can pay attention or ignore it as one chooses; it

is unassuming and need not have special attention drawn to it. Orledge describes a colorful

scene during a ‘performance’ of his furniture music where Satie walked around shouting “Go on

talking! Walk about! Don’t listen!”63

In general, Satie concerned himself with the concepts of time and space and investigating

the effects of monotony and what he called boredom: “The public venerates boredom, for

boredom is mysterious and profound.”64 The most audacious example is the piano piece

Vexations (1893-95), possibly a precursor to Cage’s 4’33” (1952), where a short 52 beat motive

(the music is characteristically unbarred) comprised of four sections containing the same bass

theme (and other internal repetitions) is to be played a total of 840 times; a performance that took

over 18 hours at its premier. At first, the monotony of such repetition would produce boredom in

the listener, but boredom eventually gives way to interest in the subtleties. Or as Cage famously

describes the effect: “If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, try it

for eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on. Eventually one discovers that it’s not boring at all but

very interesting.”65 For Cage, the monotony of this experiment allows the most subtle aspects of

the performance, which might not otherwise be noticed, to come to the foreground. A performer

in such a situation would likewise begin incorporating subtle nuances in their playing. But it is

the idea of music existing as a fixture in space, so to speak, rather than time, and becoming part

of the sound-space it inhabits that was revolutionary.

62
Erik Satie: A Conversation. From Contact: A Journal of Contemporary Music No. 25 p. 26
63
Orledge p. 143
64
Shattuck p. 184
65
Erik Satie: A Conversation from Contact: A Journal of Contemporary Music No. 25 p. 26

2
PART 4: BOULEZ AND CAGE

As mentioned above, the relationship between Boulez and Cage is, in a way, an extension

of the relationship between Debussy and Satie. Both pairs exemplify the complex relationships

between a stream of avant-garde composers more rooted in technical advancements and a stream

of laissez faire experimentalists that characterized much of the musical discourse in the twentieth

century. During their brief friendship, Boulez and Cage had extended exchanges on a few

pivotal developments in their music starting with the aggregates of Cage’s prepared piano that

first brought them together, and ending with ideas about chance in music that would ultimately

bring the friendship to an end.

Aggregates and Sound Complexes:

Pivotal to the development of 20th century music is the acceptance of non-traditional

instruments and sounds, even noise, as part of the composer’s palette. For Boulez this included

studies, initially in Messiaen’s class, of music of other cultures and experiments in percussion

and electronics, namely the ondes martenot. Cage not only shared an interest in foreign musical

cultures, but also had been influenced by a number of American composers, led by his teacher

Henry Cowell, who were avid explorers of non-traditional and non-western music. Despite the

problematic differences in aesthetic aims, it is easy enough to see what drew the two composers

together, especially in regards to Cage’s prepared piano.

In 1949, at a lecture given in a friend’s salon prior to a performance of Cage’s Sonatas

and Interludes for prepared piano, Boulez warns that Cage’s prepared piano is not simply the

result of the tinkering of a dilettante, but more seriously, an inquiry into the traditional acoustic

system provided by western music, by which he must have meant the fundamental and its natural

harmonics, produced by “natural sounding bodies,”66 and organized into tempered scales of
66
Stocktakings p. 158

3
pitches. What must have initially drawn Boulez to Cage was Cage’s total abandonment of

tonality and chromaticism. After meeting Cage, Boulez admitted that even the very sounds used

in music (orchestral instruments) should be questioned in light of the emerging new music; “you

[Cage] are the only person who has added an anxiety about the sound materials I use,” and

“meeting you made me end a ‘classical’ period...”67 Boulez goes on to suggest that it is time for

a completely new era of exploration and discovery in music: “...everything remains to be looked

for... We have to achieve an ‘alchemy’ in sound.”68 Boulez eventually fully brings this idea to

fruition with the opening of IRCAM, another idea that he may have gotten from Cage who tried

early in his career to set up a similar center for acoustic research in L.A. But presently in Cage

he found someone who had created new “non-tempered sound spaces, even with existing

instruments.”69 This meant a primitive form of deriving new sounds presently rather than

waiting for the fledgling field of electro-acoustics to deliver the synthesizer.

Boulez saw the capabilities of the serial system not only as a way to control pitch-classes

but, more generally, as a way to regulate the “permutations of sound objects.” Cage’s term

“aggregates” suggests a clustering of defined elements while avoiding the historical harmonic

baggage of the term ‘chord.’70 Boulez takes Cage’s “aggregates” phenomenon a step further to

“sound complexes.” For Boulez “aggregates” seems to be a special case of “sound complexes”

involving just pure tones and their harmonics, whereas “sound complexes” is more universal to

the entire spectrum of frequency and timbral possibilities. By generalizing the phenomenon,

Cage’s prepared piano not only suggested to Boulez a method of deriving “non-tempered sound

67
Correspondence p. 45
68
Correspondence p. 45
69
Stocktakings p. 134
70
In Kostelanetz p. 103, Henry Cowell describes Cage’s notion of an aggregate as: “the relationship of
miscellaneous and apparently disparate objects established by their juxtaposition in space, as furniture and other
objects in a room are related by their simultaneous presence there. Similarly, different sorts of musical media may
be conceived as constituting an aggregate, and so used as a unit of building material for the creation of musical
forms.”

3
spaces” from existing instruments, but also the notion of giving each sound (or complex) its own

individuality independent of any hierarchy or extra-musical properties. Since he was no longer

dealing with the octave to create a framework for scales, there arises a single ‘scale’ containing

all the given sounds, which inevitably leads to a uniform neutrality or individuality of each

sound. Then, through the use of a tablature, the blocks of sound, separated from any function of

harmony, could either be deployed in the composition serially, or transformed into other forms of

various degrees of complexity using various methods of ‘transposition.’ For Boulez, this meant

serialism was not only a method for composing with these complexes, but could also be used to

derive them in order to maintain the composition’s structural integrity. For example, one method

Boulez uses to accomplish this in Le Marteau sans maître (1953-55) is to take the twelve-tone

row and distribute the notes into vertical aggregates, in this case five aggregates of three notes,

one note, two notes, four notes, and then two notes. What ensues is a sort of multiplication

process where the notes of one aggregate are transposed to each of the pitch levels of the second

aggregate. Then the remaining aggregates are all transposed to their respective pitch levels to

maintain the intervallic content of the original progression. Finally, all the new transpositions

are added together to create a new progression of aggregates. Thus the three note aggregate

times the four note aggregate makes, in theory, an aggregate progression of: twelve, four, eight,

sixteen, and then eight notes including any possible duplicate pitches.71

Boulez even proposed that in the electronic music studio the sound curves themselves can

be manipulated serially to form other related sound forms. As an example, he produced a graph
71
Example based on examples from Stocktakings p. 129

3
of a sound’s dynamics over time. Then five equal divisions were made (presumably five is not

arbitrary). The divisions could then be rearranged and/or treated with any number of

permutations, in this case he uses retrograde (bd = backward, fd = forward).72

It is difficult to surmise just how much Cage’s aggregates influenced Boulez’s work with

complex sounds. In letter number 6 in the correspondence however, Boulez writes: “I plan to

put into practice in it [Les soleil des eaux] some ideas derived from your pieces and what I

explained to you about complex sounds...”73 Much later in his career, Boulez still recalls his

fascination with the prepared piano and the possibilities it suggested: “I was fascinated by Cage’s

prepared piano and wrote about it early on – welcoming it, as it seemed to offer an artificial,

embryonic, but plausible solution to avoiding the clichés of the old tonal language.”74

As for Cage, it seems the prepared piano was very much an invention found by accident

and necessity. Being the only composer available at the time, Cage was obliged to help a young

dancer out by composing music for a stylized African dance she was scheduled to perform in less

than a week. The dance space however, was far too small to accommodate a percussion

ensemble and forced Cage to work with the piano. After some time attempting to form what he
72
Stocktakings p. 130, 134-35. The example is taken from p. 137 and is from his Étude de musique concrète.
73
Correspondence p. 43
74
Di Pietro p. 33

3
described was an “African” pitch set, Cage concluded that the results weren’t “primitive” and

“barbaric” enough. He decided that “what was wrong was the piano, not my efforts,” and

decided to change the piano. Remembering how Henry Cowell made certain sounds by running

his fingers or fingernails along the strings of the piano in The Banshee (1925) for example, or

how, in other pieces, he used objects inside the piano to achieve different sounds, Cage set about

inserting and wedging various objects inside the piano himself until he had effectively created a

one man percussion ensemble suited to the African style of the dance. Therefore it would seem,

and even Boulez admitted, that the prepared piano was “half by chance, half by necessity” a

product of trial and error, or even simply a deliberate attempt to make percussion sounds from

the piano (given the difficulty in organizing a percussion ensemble), but not necessarily a

rebellion against traditional acoustical designs.

Cage was, however, interested in acoustical ideas which lay outside those of the

traditional set of instruments and instrumental combinations. As far back as 1937 he proposed

(somewhat sarcastically) circumventing the “sacredness” of classical music by giving his art “a

more meaningful term: organization of sound;” a term more inclusive of sounds other than those

provided by the standard 18th and 19th century instruments. In fact, before he met Boulez, he

taught a course entitled Class in Experiments with Sound. He even went so far as to predict a

time when electronics will provide composers with “any and all sounds that can be heard”75 and

that new methods of composition will be developed which are “free from the concept of a

fundamental tone.”76 In practice, Cage did attempt to extend the acoustical properties inherent in

the prepared piano to other ensembles; not by ‘preparing’ them, but by composing out his sound

complexes. For example, in a ballet entitled The Seasons (1947), Cage composes for a

75
Kostelanetz “The Future of Music: Credo” p. 55
76
Ibid p. 56

3
conventional orchestra, but instead of notes he wrote sonorities that were devoid of any harmonic

function and as Boulez put it: “acting essentially as a resonance amalgam of superimposed

frequencies.” But ultimately, the prepared piano with its problems of being exactly duplicated

from piano to piano and even to other performers, led Cage to think more about things “as they

happen” rather than as they are “kept or forced to be” and contributed more towards his

experiments in indeterminacy than in sound itself.77

New approaches to rhythm:

Intellectually, the two friends couldn’t have led more similar paths in their research.

Boulez had tied his “sound complexes” to other aspects of his language. The rhythmic cells he

greatly admired in Webern, were used to analogously draw a connection to sound-complexes -

“it is possible to imagine a sort of correspondence with rhythmic cells and hence to arrive at the

notion of complex sounds, or sound-complexes.” He could have even called them “sound-cells”

to emphasize the relationship.78 For Cage, the structure of his music necessarily came from

rhythm as the harmonic element had been discarded by way of his aggregates. Here we arrive at

a curious departure of the two friends: while they both agreed on the importance of structures

based on rhythm, Boulez found it necessary to fit the idea of sound complexes into his methods

of serialism from the standpoint of rhythm, while Cage was eventually left with only rhythm.79

In order to see how the development of rhythm in the two composer’s work was influenced by

each other, it would be necessary to see where they were in their approaches prior to their

meeting.

Webern was their common ground. Both composers had a strong admiration for his

music on two levels: the first being his revolutionary use of silence, the second was his work

77
Empty Words “How the Piano Came to be Prepared” pp. 7-9
78
Stocktakings p. 128
79
See “Satie and Cage” above.

3
using structurally significant rhythmic cells.80 For Boulez, the silences surrounding the notes in

Webern’s compositions created an isolation that emphasized a note’s placement in the temporal

unfolding of the piece. Hence, Webern’s use of silence is more than just an aspect of rhythm,

but more important in its function to the composition’s “morphology” and “pitch succession.”81

It is here, in these delicate structures and treatment of sounds as a phenomenon both related but

independent of global schemas that Boulez finds an affinity with Debussy’s treatment of form.

Boulez had been studying with Messiaen, who had already devised his own systems of

rhythmic organization such as the non-retrogradable modes. With the help of his students,

Messiaen wrote what is probably the first example of total serialism with his Mode de valeurs

(1949-50). At first, Boulez more or less adopted these techniques for his own compositions; the

importance of using rhythm structurally hadn’t yet crystallized fully for Boulez. One might say

that Cage was necessary for the total serialism achieved in Structures. Something could even be

said to be shared between their seemingly parallel discovery of rhythmic proportioning, which

eventually led Cage to the use of actual space on the page, as measured by a ruler, to designate

duration; a phenomenon which amounts to graphical scoring. And although Boulez is adamantly

against graphic scores, he embraces similar methods in Schaeffer’s electronic studio.

For Cage, silence in Webern was a manifestation of a supposed belief that “structure” can

only be properly achieved using lengths of time, or durations, as opposed to harmony - structure

being defined as “parts in relation to the whole.”82 Webern and Satie are the only composers

Cage credits with this discovery, and surprisingly they differ in a great degree in the other

elements of composition as Cage defines them.83

80
See “Webern” section above.
81
Stocktakings p. 298
82
Kostelanetz p. 81
83
See “Satie and Cage” section above.

3
Probably what Boulez gained most from Cage here is a model in separating rhythm from

other elements, especially polyphony. This separation probably originated from Cage’s

collaborations with the choreographer Merce Cunningham in creating dance pieces of a largely

percussive nature. In order to organize music of indefinite pitch, Cage was required to give up

the series and use rhythm as the structural element in his music.84 Later, Cage attempts to

logically deduce this preference for rhythm.85

In addition to the types of transformation illustrated by the Webern examples (in Part 2),

Boulez also suggested a type of transformation that was based on what he called the “synthesis”

of two motives. This synthesis is created by superimposing one rhythm over the top of another

and then notating the resultant rhythm:86

Given the rhythms I, II, and III, we get IV by the synthesis of I and II; V by the synthesis of I and

III; VI by the synthesis of II and III; and VII by the synthesis of I, II, and III.

Boulez’s work in the electronic studio led to considerations of rhythms as durational

lengths of magnetic tape. Using these lengths, one could then construct what Boulez called a

“registration of durations”87 - probably influencing Stockhausen's famous article “...how time

passes...” written a year later. But in order to be analogous, registers would have to relate at a

ratio of 2:1 like the octave. This ratio was further justified as being in line with Fechner’s law
84
Stocktakings p. 175
85
See “Satie and Cage” section above.
86
Example taken from Stocktakings p. 121
87
Stocktakings p. 165

3
which states that sensation is related logarithmically to stimulus. Stockhausen solved this

problem in “How Time Passes...” by proposing that scales of durations could be composed using

tempos. For example, a logarithmic scale of 12 tempos starting at ω = 60 would read as


ω = 60, 63.6, 67.4, 71.4, 75.6, 80.1, 84.9, 95.2, 100.9, 106.9, 113.3, and 120. Once the ‘octave’
is reached at ω =120, it can be reinterpreted as η = 60. The next register would then be given
the
same number values at the half note value.

Mobility and Immobility:

Originally, the idea of mobility was tied to aspects of register, such as used by Webern,

where occurrences of the same pitch class are moved to different registers, whereas ‘fixity’ or

immobility ties a pitch to the same register. Webern, Boulez, and Cage all used the technique in

different ways, but common to them all is the idea that some elements change while others

remain the same or as Griffiths put it: “There had to be this dialectic between process and

freedom, between organization and composition, between the rational and the irrational.” 88 The

concept of mobility versus immobility encapsulates the serial problem.

Leibowitz describes Webern's use of the technique as a way to transcend the classical

idea of a theme. Webern's 'themes' were constructed with the built in mobility of variation, that

is, the rows are already a development, or what Leibowitz called “a priori” development. This

stands in contrast to the ‘classical’ idea of a theme: a static idea of a tune not yet varied. But by

fixing the pitches in register, Webern was able to deny the dynamic quality of his themes and

build what are essentially static structures, or as Leibowitz characterized them, “unfoldments” of

a single chord.89

This was much the same way Boulez used the ideas of mobility and immobility, although

he extended the technique to aspects of rhythm. Rhythms were attached to pitches that were
88
Griffiths p. 83. This was actually said regarding Boulez’s Le marteau, but in my opinion could equally be applied
much of the rest of his output as well as to Webern and Cage.
89
Leibowitz p. 248

3
fixed in register. In the example below, the bottom line shows the register in which the pitches

are fixed. The rhythms are then based on the two voice counterpoint:90

The major innovation in this area however was Cage’s use of dialectic between mobility

and immobility which might be thought of as a precursor to chance. Surprisingly, this is an idea

that Cage claims to have gotten from Boulez.91 In Music of Changes (1951), Cage expanded this

idea to amplitudes, durations, and sounds/silences through his use of magic-square like charts.

“These twenty-four charts, eight for sounds and silences, eight for amplitudes, eight for

durations, were, throughout the course of a single structural unit, half of them mobile and half of

them immobile.”92 Mobility as Cage defined it “meant that once any of the elements in a chart

was used it disappeared to be replaced by a new one. Immobility meant that though an element
90
These examples are taken from Stocktakings and are excerpts of Boulez’s second Piano Sonata.
91
Correspondence p. 15
92
Silence p. 21

3
in a chart had been used, it remained to be used again.”93 At various “structural points” Cage

used a chance operation to determine which of the charts was to be mobile and which immobile.

It’s strange to think this was a piece Boulez claimed to have been “absolutely charmed by,” 94 but

as he pointed out, there still remains the idea of a dialectic between process and freedom; “The

idea that I find most interesting in all that you have explained to me is the opposition between

mobility and immobility of the constitutive elements of a table...”95

Chance:

As described above, Cage saw composition as the integration of law and freedom

elements, but with the composition of Music of Changes this was to change. According to

Peyser, this is the piece that began the separation of ways for the two friends. To support this,

there seems to have been a rather heated argument between Stockhausen and Boulez after a

performance in 1956 where Stockhausen argued for the ideas of the piece while Boulez argued

against them.96 Remember that this was the work Boulez was “absolutely charmed” by. Also, as

Nattiez observed, even after their relationship had pretty much come to an end (but only 7

months after the argument), it was the Music of Changes that Boulez would program with his

Domaine Musical. So which way was it with Boulez? Maybe both, but the seed of their

differences must have been planted before their first meeting.

In hindsight Cage’s development can be seen almost as a straight line slowly moving

element by element from rigid control to complete indeterminacy. By the time of the writing of

the Sonatas and Interludes in 1948, and his meeting with Boulez in 1949, Cage was already

working with what he called a method of “considered improvisation.” Later, he described his

93
Ibid.
94
Correspondence p. 133
95
Correspondence p. 113
96
Peyser p. 121

4
choice of the prepared piano sounds “as one chooses shells while walking along the beach.”97

Structure therefore, was the only element left that Cage had not allowed, or found a way to

produce, using chance procedures. In Music of Changes, the structure is still controlled, but

chance operations were introduced at various ‘divisions’ to determine stability or a change of

tempo.98 It became impossible (because of the tempo changes) to know the time length of the

piece; the ending was no longer determined. For Cage, the most basic function of structure had

been elided. The beginning and ending were no longer determined; the framework of structure

started to flake away. It became clear afterward that structure really was not necessary, but that

it did have its uses. For example, structure could determine the density of lines within a section,

or it could affect his charts of sounds and silences, or simply it determined the end of the

compositional process. But by 1952 in Music for Piano, structure had ceased to be part of this

purpose of integrating law elements and freedom elements and became instead a process itself

stripped of purpose.

At this point in his development, Cage found that he was no longer composing music, at

least not in the sense of a “preconceived object” waiting to be performed. His music could start

anywhere, last any length of time, be performed by any number of various types of ‘instruments’

(sound makers). Even silence itself was a sound, or to put it another way, there is no such thing

as pure silence. As Cage discovered in Harvard’s anechoic chamber,99 even in so called

complete silence one can still hear the faint throbbing of one’s own circulatory system and the

high pitched singing of the nervous system; “No silence exists that is not pregnant with

sound.”100 Silence is therefore not acoustic; it is only the absence of intention, or a change of

97
Silence p. 9
98
Ibid. p. 20
99
Harvard’s own catalog for the 1949-50 school year defined the anechoic chamber as: “an environment as sound
proof and reverberation free as was technologically possible.”
100
Revill p. 163

4
mind. Because silence loses its function as a separator of sound durations and other formal

structures, it must become something else.101 That something else could be argued to be closer in

spirit to Webern than anything Boulez ever composed; a charged silence, full of ambience, the

background onto which the music is ‘projected.’ Cage suggests that because of ambient sound

inherent to ‘silence,’ music is an ideal situation, not a real one. Music performance should then

be an occasion for experience, or as he sometimes called it, a “happening,” and not a desire to

improve upon creation.102 The ultimate non-dichotomy of sound and silence was the ‘silent’

composition 4’33”.

It can be seen then, that Music of Changes was quite a pivotal piece in Cage’s output,

especially with regards to the growing element of chance. What Boulez must have been

“charmed” with were the other aspects of the composition. He may have been enthusiastic about

Cage’s description of his use of charts, which he says was paralleling his own experiments, but

he was also not shy about what he didn’t like: “The only thing, forgive me, which I am not happy

with, is the method of absolute chance (by tossing coins). On the contrary, I believe that chance

must be extremely controlled...”103

From the start Boulez would be suspicious of Cage’s use of chance in his form and

method; this might be explained by Boulez’s firm stance against anything uncontrolled. But the

introduction of chance in the structure itself may have been more than Boulez could accept. A

year after the performance of Music of Changes, Boulez published the article “Alea” which may

have sealed the demise of their friendship. In the article, he outlines how one might reconcile

chance operations with composition, which was traditionally inherently a process of constant

choice, or as Boulez would say, “a series of rejections among many probabilities.” 104 The article
101
Silence p. 22
102
Ibid p. 32
103
Ibid. p. 112
104
Stocktakings p. 157

4
in fact almost seems to be a justification of his use of chance in the third Piano Sonata (1955-

57). Although Boulez never mentions any names, he describes a source of the so called

“obsession” with chance to be “quasi-oriental philosophy in order to conceal a fundamental

weakness in compositional technique.”105 Cage was not mislead though, and was reported to

angrily reply: “With me the principle had to be rejected outright; with Mallarmé it suddenly

became acceptable to him. Now Boulez was promoting chance, only it had to be his kind of

chance.”106

Cage may have been right about Boulez needing to do it his way since the impetus for

Boulez’s exploration in chance came from literature, or so he claims (Boulez would deny any

influence from Cage); partly from Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, a book Cage had sent him, and

partly from Mallarmé’s Livre. Regardless, there is a big difference in the two treatments of

chance operations. The plan of third Piano Sonata has been likened to that of a city - its design

is singular - however, “one can choose one’s own way of going through it, but there are certain

traffic regulations.”107 So the piece is composed by choice in its entirety, but a performance will

only include a sampling of its architecture chosen by the performer. Whereas Cage has trusted

large parts of his compositions to performers, Boulez still composes the details that might be

chosen, otherwise, he feared, the performer would fill the work with clichés as they are left to

memory as their only device.108 The third Piano Sonata represents Boulez’s contribution to the

fad of ‘open’ (or chance) form or ‘work in progress,’ but still a rejection of automatism and

chance operations in the compositional method.

Ironically, the first intentional use of chance in a composition by Boulez occurs earlier in

his Polyphonie X (1951), in the same year as Music of Changes. In a letter to Cage in Dec. 1950,
105
Ibid. p. 26
106
Peyser p. 129
107
Peyser p. 126
108
Orientations p. 461

4
Boulez describes it as a collection of 14 or 21 polyphonies where the performer will be able to

select which ones they like. Also, perhaps in response to Cage’s description of chance as an “un-

aesthetic choice” in an earlier letter,109 Boulez describes the form of Polyphonie X as “a

construction where the combinations create the form, and thus where the form does not stem

from an aesthetic choice.”110 This almost indicates a slight waffling on the part of Boulez with

regards to chance operations. On the one hand, he has a structure entirely composed that only

leaves the decision of which parts to play up to the performers, but on the other hand, he uses

Cageian language in describing the removal of the composers will from the compositional

process.

Cage generally reacts to these attacks as hypocritical, but usually with wit and good

humor. For example, in 45’ for a Speaker, Cage can be found asking: “Have you not lost your

friend?” and then quoting certain passages from Boulez’s letters. But as Peyser pointed out, the

renaming of the chance techniques that Cage had practically invented as ‘aleatory’ (after

Boulez’s article “Alea”) was quite a slap in the face, and it was a term that Cage would never

accept;111 although, it should also be remembered that Boulez’s use of chance was never quite the

same as Cage’s indeterminism.

Their differences regarding chance can also be seen through their reactions to the music

of Feldman. Cage makes it quite obvious that he is enamored with this music: “Feldman’s music

is extremely beautiful now. It changes with each piece, I find him my closest friend now among

the composers here.”112 Boulez is at first seemingly sympathetic towards this music, although he

treats him more as a student who is still learning than as a potential colleague. But it doesn’t

take long for this fatherly veil to wear off, and in the end Boulez is very much against the
109
Correspondence p. 78
110
Ibid. p. 85
111
Peyser p. 129
112
Correspondence p. 78

4
developments in Feldman’s music, concluding that his work with “white squares” is “much too

imprecise and too simple.”113 Specifically, Boulez found the metric organization to be a

“regression,” and the graphical notation more “summary” than previous developments. With

regards to the notes, or more precisely, the frequency bands, he states: “I do not believe that the

use of pavements of frequencies...corresponds to as rigorous a control.” 114 Feldman, it seems,

was surprised by this reaction, as was Cage, who was convinced that if Boulez would only talk

with Feldman he would recognize his quality. But the aesthetic differences here were too great.

They were very much the differences that would lead to the parting of ways for Cage and

Boulez; it’s a wonder if at this point in their friendship they didn’t see it coming.

113
Ibid. p. 103
114
Ibid. p. 115-16

4
PART 5: TOWARDS AN APPRECIATION

All art is an abstraction in some form or another. A painting, at the most basic level is an

abstraction from the dimension of depth. Sculpture is often an abstraction from color. But not

until the twentieth century is abstraction considered a method for approaching ‘pure’ forms or

those prototypes that give rise to the less pure deviations from pure forms that are external or

‘natural’ forms. In many ways, abstraction of form is a generalizing of form in order to remove

the specifics that make it ‘external’; by removing the specifics of external form one may

approach the ‘pure’ form.

To approach pure forms by removing specifics often infers a process of chance during the

interpretation of the viewer of the art. The artist is allowing the beholder to ‘fill in the spaces.’

E.H. Gombrich describes this phenomenon as being what made impressionist methods possible;

“The artists who tried to rid themselves of their conceptual knowledge, who conscientiously

became beholders of their own work and never ceased matching their created images against

their impressions by stepping back and comparing the two – these artists could only achieve their

aim by shifting something of the load of creation on to the beholder.”115

To some extent, all music that is given human performance inherently contains additional

chance elements. The way in which a performer deals with these chance elements is what is

described as interpretation. But chance can also be used as a method of composition with the

same intention of tapping into pure forms, or as in the case of 4’33”, chance may become the

material itself.

The emergence of chance methods in serial composition marks an important juncture in

the evolution of serial music. The early serial music pioneers consistently made the claim of

giving birth to an entirely new music. But until the development of ‘open’ works, this claim
115
Gombrich p. 10

4
could always be called into question because of the remnants of the common practice conception

of form. Open works represent the beginning of the dissolution of this formal conception and the

arrival of something truly new. No longer could serialism be described as a method, but rather

as an entirely new conception of music, complete with new modes of expression, new

instruments and performance techniques, and new ways of listening.

Mobile and Open Form:

The seeming convergence of indeterminate and serial music in the form of the open work

is sometimes seen as the beginning of the breakdown of serial music. This breakdown is often

attributed to Cage's presence in Darmstadt in 1958 and the subsequent influence his ideas had on

the serialists.116 But the correspondence between Cage and Boulez shows that serialists must

have been aware of Cage’s ideas even before his visit, therefore, it seems likely that the seeds of

open form in serial music came from somewhere else. As Grant suggests, Cage's ideas only

became important when serialists realized their own methodology had led them to similar

conclusions that Cage had already reached.117 A reading of the theories of open form as seen

from this perspective suggests a chance element must have been inherent to the serial conception

from the very beginning. It is the open form that holds the key to an appreciation of serial music

by suggesting a new mode of listening. The true intersection with Cage's brand of chance music

lies with this alternate mode of listening; it not only connects serial music with Cage's

indeterminacy, but also the rest of the abstract art world through its rejection of thematicism and

representation and its composers search for an entirely new world of musical expression.

In his article “...how time passes...” in the third edition of die Reihe, Stockhausen posits

that time is the fundamental element of music: “Music consists of order-relationships in time.” 118

116
Grant p. 144-45
117
Ibid. p. 144-46
118
dRIII p. 10

4
He asserts that both pitch and rhythm (or duration) and even timbre are governed by what he

called “phases” or the intervals between sonic events. Phases consisting of longer than

approximately 1/16 of a second are perceived as rhythm, whereas phases less than that in length

are perceived as pitch. The phenomenon creating these impulses, and the phases between them,

remains the same; the change occurs in our perception. This idea suggested a basis for a new

morphology of music: all musical parameters can be derived from a unifying element of time.

In order to achieve a balance of all these temporal elements, every phenomenon in the

perception of pitch, or what he termed the “microphase” level, was given an analogous element

in duration, or “macrophase” level. Therefore an equal-tempered scale of durations was derived

to correspond to the chromatic scale.119 The 2:1 ratio of an octave was equated to 2:1

proportions of durations such as θ to ε . Changes in tempo then corresponded to modulations

and so on.120

When faced with the equivalent to timbre, Stockhausen introduces the idea of the

“formant rhythm.” Using a term borrowed from acoustics, a formant is a basic element of a

complex tone, i.e. a sine tone. When brought together, all the formants of a tone make the timbre

of the sound and imply their common fundamental. By analogy, a formant rhythm would create

a “statistical density” where the individual lines would appear undifferentiated in a sound mass

forming a “group spectrum,” or field. In tonal music, the equivalent might be the key; for

example, one might refer to the dominant and tonic fields in a sonata form. These statistical

fields could then be deployed serially in the composition.

The highly complex methods of notation necessary for such a work would only lead to a

less than exact performance. Indeed, much serial music in general suffered from imprecise

119
This is outlined in detail in the article.
120
See above in “New approaches to rhythm.”

4
performance due to its highly evolved rhythmic organization. This lead Stockhausen to consider

his options: he could return to tonal composition, he could accept the problem and work with it

as an additional dialectical relationship, he could renounce performance and compose only

electronic music, or lastly, and the preferred choice, he could find a completely new method of

composing for instruments.121 He found that by looking into the problem he could theoretically

determine “factors of dubiety” where the more complex the notation the less exact the

performance; thus the creation of “uncertainty fields” and the implication of serial use of chance

in composition. The statistical methods ensured that the individual elements were no longer

perceived discreetly, and instead, one could base a composition on the fluctuation of these fields.

It is a chance concept derived from serial methods. The form is not governed by thematicism but

by a certain disconnectedness made by the statistical fluctuation. This type of form implied any

possible ordering of the material so long as a flux was maintained and “the possibility of forms

not closed, but open.”122

It was through this notion of working with fields of uncertainty that finally led to

composing open forms. But as Grant states, this is entirely in keeping with the serialist aesthetic.

Serialism’s tendency to revert to basic elements and its fascination with the individual tone show

us what a new mode of listening might entail. The constantly transforming fields of serial music,

as derived of open forms, require being aware of a completely differentiated world in constant

flux, just as a focused listening on the isolated tone reveals a “richer and more subtly inflected”123

world than previously experienced with thematic music. This is a point Cage has repeatedly

experimented with.

121
dRIII p. 29
122
Grant p. 139
123
Ibid. p. 160

4
Both Cage and the serialists were ultimately working to destroy the artificiality they

perceived in traditional music and worked towards a more accurate description of the universe

that can only be seen through faculties of reason in order to avoid being deceived by our senses.

In a metaphysical sense, their art closely resembles that of other mid-twentieth century abstract

artists and truly may be considered abstract itself. Looking at the motivations behind abstraction

should then give insight to serial thought.

As Umberto Eco and others124 have observed, artistic expression has always followed

historically with how societies have perceived reality. A tendency towards abstraction has

always existed, but abstraction resulting in the actual destruction of form is unique to the modern

era. The new physics showed an inconstant universe that was renewed in each observation. To

form a whole picture of reality, many 'snapshots' or models to describe the behavior of matter are

required. But these ‘snapshots’ are often seemingly contradictory and can’t be shown together as

a whole. Psychology demonstrated the illusion of perception. We can never completely

experience an object; none of our views exhausts the possibilities. Experience is therefore also

always open to continuous renewal.

The abstract painter Paul Klee is noted for his interest in nature, a fact that somehow

seems distant from serialism, but given this new view of experience, is justified. However, he

was not just interested in the various forms and objects created by nature, but more importantly,

in finding an archetype responsible for the proliferation of these forms. He wanted to get at the

“absolute value of objects of the external world through art.”125 This motivation assumes

deficiencies in our senses of perception; a description reminiscent of Bertrand Russell’s view of

perception. According to Russell, it is impossible to see the true nature of matter. Instead, we

124
This history is recounted by Rosenthal
125
Klee p. 25

5
receive “sense data” from “objects” that aren't necessarily inherent in the object itself but are a

product of the object and our mechanisms of perception i.e. our eyes and brain. Experience is

only an ‘accidental’ manifestation of an infinite possibility. Abstraction is used to create so

called ‘pure’ forms. According to Klee, art’s purpose was not to depict things as we see them or

even would like to see them, but rather as the truth that is hidden in this infinite possibility. In

Klee's words, “the relativity of visible things is made clear, and the belief is expressed that the

visible is only an isolated case taken from the universe and that there are more truths unseen than

seen...an effort is made to give concrete form to the accidental.”126 By searching for archetypes

of form, Klee is defining the function of abstraction as making a representation from a multitude

of possible realities. In short, “art does not reproduce the visible, but makes visible.”127

In the attempt to account for an overlying principle (or archetype), designs were made

which gave birth to more than one single ‘accidental’ musical form. Instead, composers

attempted to account for a multitude. But music, being restricted to the flow of time, is only able

to inhabit one of the possibilities of these schemas at a time (time meaning performance). As

such, open form might be thought of not so much as a chance form, but more of a draft archetype

with the performance being the audible 'accident' inherent to the schema. The problem one

encounters is that the possibility of other accidents within the archetype is not transferred to the

listener in the sounding music; polyvalence of form cannot be heard. This is a charge that Ligeti

leveled at “mobile” forms, or those polyvalent forms on paper that contain the possibility of

multiple realizations. He claimed that “multiple instantiations of a text” does not mean a

multiple or mobile form. As soon as the music sounds, the form is set, immobilized as it were. 128

For him the problem lies with the difference between “primarily spatial configurations” and

126
Klee p. 25-26
127
Ibid. p. 26
128
Ligeti p. 15

5
“primarily temporal events.”129 A sculpture is a spatial configuration. A sculpture in motion,

such as Calder's mobiles, is also a spatial configuration but has an added temporal element. A

mobile is then a spatial configuration set in motion. Music as a temporal art is already in motion.

Ligeti thus concludes that “Since music already embodies motion, ... and since this mobility, as a

spatializing entity, enters into musical form and determines it, musical form cannot be

understood as mobile: mobility inheres in form, but form itself is not mobile.”130

An explanation of the open form in serial music as a search for a new sonic archetype

seems more accurate and insightful than attributing the entire phenomenon to Cage, even though

Cage probably expedited the process. An alternate, but related, view could describe serialism,

and much abstract art in general, as a reaction to phenomenology: 131 we can never completely

experience something since none of our views can exhaust all the possibilities, therefore, our

experience of something is always open to continuous renewal; “Every performance [of an open

work] explains the composition but does not exhaust it.”132 Such a view of music implies

perspective and 'point of view' and seems to reinstate the metaphorical spatialization of music

central to thematicism. To be sure, later explorations of time, especially discontinuous time and

multi-layered time, led to a reevaluation of the rejection of the spatial dimension in music,

especially in the theories of Eimert and Ligeti, and probably had something to do with the

physical properties inherent to the experience of time as discovered by modern physicists. For

example, Ligeti spoke of a transition in serial methods from one of process to one of

“juxtaposition of colors and surfaces” reminiscent of modern paintings.133 It would seem that

this juxtaposition would be a natural result of discontinuous time or the concatenations of


129
Ibid.
130
Ibid. p. 16
131
The study of objects of experience as seen from the subjective, first person point of view initiated in the works of
Husserl and Heidegger.
132
Eco p. 15
133
dRVII p. 15

5
'moments.' The attempt to form multiple perspectives of this discontinuous time in the open

form was also described by spatially by Ligeti as simply a “flash-photo of a Calder mobile;” 134

the performance being a “momentary incarnation”135 of the various perspectives of a spatialized

form.

Aesthetic versus Semantic Music:

Serial music, as a form of information, requires that communication between sender

(composer) and receiver (listener) operate within a repertory of elements common to both; that

is, the listener must have the necessary knowledge of the musical language to decipher the

messages. When this repertory does not exist, the information splits into two different messages:

that which was sent, and that which was received, the latter being due to a subjective response to

the former because of a lack of interpretation capability. Werner Meyer-Eppler generalized the

problem by defining various attributes of communication “signals” and grouping them into two

“spheres”: semantic and ectosemantic.136 The semantic spheres contain all signal attributes that

have to do with the language and symbols, and are common to both communication partners.

The ectosemantic spheres contain those signal attributes which are not symbol carriers, such as

those attributes having to do with emotion or style. Ectosemantic spheres also contain those

attributes where the original signal differs from the translation of the signal.

The pioneering information scientist Abraham Moles took this a step further and

concluded that there must be two types of information: semantic and aesthetic. 137 Semantic

information exists outside the communication system and is translatable to other transmission

channels; it has a “universal logic”. Semantic information is largely utilitarian, and serves to

prepare actions. Aesthetic information is created within the system and is not translatable to
134
Ibid. p.19
135
Ibid.
136
dRVIII p. 7
137
Moles p. 128

5
other transmission channels; it is particular to the receiver. Aesthetic information shapes states

of mind, but has no goal or intention. For example, the semantic nature of a dictionary allows for

its entries to be defined using many different combinations of words, whereas the aesthetic

nature of poetry doesn’t allow for this same method of recombination. Ultimately, poetry must

remain non-translated in order to convey the same information. In reality, all messages are a

mixture of both, but they do tend in one direction or the other. While music is primarily

aesthetic, it could be true that some music is more semantic, while other music is more aesthetic.

The philosophy of Max Bense describes a similar dialectic. According to Bense,138 all art

is a sign process. He describes two processes taking place in the world: physical and aesthetic.

Physical processes those of the natural world and governed by necessity and reality. Aesthetic

processes are made, and founded on possibility and are essentially statistical. Since art is man-

made and is an accumulation of possibilities, it must also be an aesthetic object formed by

aesthetic processes. The exponential increase in possibilities, and the statistical nature of serial

music, would seem to place it further into the aesthetic spectrum of information than common

practice music. In general, art’s existence in the possible, rather than reality, implies that its

focus should not be on what is presented, since there are innumerable possibilities, but on the

presentation itself. Modern art demonstrates a transition from a sign world that functions, to a

more aesthetic and untranslatable sign world that simply is; the material becomes the sign.

Classical art functions through the representation of things; modern art can only represent itself.

Serial music, like much modern art, is also concerned more with the presentation of itself.

Analyses involving in depth ‘row counting’ and ‘note crunching’ miss the point entirely.

Traditional analysis, which is based on the semantic argument inherent to the thematicism of

common practice music, has very little to say regarding an aesthetic and athematic music. The
138
All the following information on Bense is secondhand via Grant pp. 146-49.

5
common argument that serial methodology doesn’t reflect the aural experience is a result of this

misplaced premise regarding thematicism. Trying to account for organic structural unity from the

smallest musical unit to the largest (a preoccupation of classical analysis) is foolish. It misses the

point.

The Serial Conception:

In an essay titled “Series and Structure,” Umberto Eco, taking the idea from Levi-Strauss,

defines two paradigms of experience, and in the case of the creation of art, two methodologies.

“Structural thought” as the basis of traditional scientific method, relies on general structures or

objective constants on which to build an understanding of the world. “Serial thought” rejects this

hierarchy central to structuralism, and as Levi-Strauss pointed out, even denies the very

existence of objective constants.139 This is not to say that serialism and structuralism are

opposites. In many ways the two paradigms have much in common, and Levi-Strauss was keen

to point out a few of these similarities in order to demonstrate that because of the similarities the

two should be carefully distinguished: both paradigms demonstrate “a resolutely intellectual

approach,” “a bias in favor of systematic arrangements,” and “a mistrust of mechanistic or

empirical solutions.”140 These similarities, coupled with the fact that serialists often use

structuralist techniques, could possibly be to blame for the misunderstandings of serialist

thought. As Eco pointed out, because serialists use structuralist methods doesn't mean that

structuralism is the method of serialism.141 In fact, there are also fundamental differences

between the two schools: 1) Structuralists emphasize the idea that communication requires a

common vocabulary between the sender and the receiver, whereas serialism posits that every

message calls its very vocabulary into question; “every artistic message is a discourse on the

139
Levi-Strauss p. 26
140
Ibid. p. 27
141
Eco p. 219

5
language that generates it.”142 2) Structuralism is based on the hypothesis that there exists a

primary code upon which the evolution of all codes can be traced. Serialism uses the

identification of primary codes in order to question and destroy them, thereby creating entirely

new forms of communication. 3) As taken from structuralist linguistics, structuralism proposes

two levels of articulation necessary for communication; they are often described as the axes of

‘selection’ and ‘combination.’143 Selection has to do with associative relationships and

substitution of codes while combination determines the positioning of codes. Temporally,

relations of selection refer intertextually to codes outside the message’s transmission channel,

while relations of combination refer intratextually to codes co-present within the transmission

channel. According to Levi-Strauss, serialism by contrast attempts to “construct a system of

signs on a single level of articulation” by omitting the first, or selection level, or attempts an

“oblique” reading of the two axes by integrating them.144 By dispensing with the first level of

articulation, serial music destroys the “general structures” which allow the encoding and

decoding of messages to be universally understood. There is no longer an inherent grammar to

the music. According to Eco, the series is “a field of possibilities that generates multiple

choices” and “challenges the bidimensional axes of selection and combination.”145 As seen

above with Moles and Bense, serial music must then belong to an entirely new conception of

music that places even greater emphasis on the aesthetic attributes of the acoustic “signal.”

142
Ibid. p. 220
143
These axes were first proposed by Saussure. His student, Roman Jakobson, in his book “The Fundamentals of
Language” defined them as follows: Combination is a linguistic mode of arrangement where “any sign is made up
of constituent signs and/or occurs only in combination with other signs.” This concept is important in the formation
of context in a message. Selection is the other mode of arrangement that involves the selection of alternatives. “A
selection between alternatives implies the possibility of substituting one for the other, equivalent to the former in
one respect and different from in another.” In modern semiotics these are known as the syntagmatic and
paradigmatic axes.
144
Levi-Strauss p. 24
145
Eco p. 220

5
The stances taken between Eco and Levi-Strauss on this last point are somewhat similar

but contain a subtle and important difference. Levi-Strauss, incapable of seeing outside the

structuralist paradigm, must analyze serial music accordingly: since all language requires both

articulations, serial music must not be a language, or at least incapable of communication. And

given the difficulty of the music, the vast amount of the public understandably seems to agree

with this. But Eco suggests the fundamental aim of structuralism is only discovery, whereas

serialism aims to produce.146 Common practice tonality fits this description of the structuralist

aim by way of its continuous discovery of messages and meanings within a given language.

Serial music aims at creation of new codes of language and constant evolution of these codes.

As Boulez put the distinction, “classical tonal thought is based on a universe defined by gravity

and attraction; serial thought, on a universe in continuous expansion.”147

In a world that is perpetually expanding, serialism's goal is constant evolution forward

rather than the rediscovery of the past. This evolution took place at such a rapid pace that its

systems of construction quickly became tremendously sophisticated and outstripped the listening

public’s comprehension of these constructions. This is indeed one of the charges against

serialism: the complexity of its constructions doesn't correlate with the sounding music. It might

even seem that the form-giving principles, or means, are more important than the final sound.

This is a point that even Levi-Strauss conceded: “It is not a question of sailing to other lands, the

whereabouts of which may be unknown and their very existence hypothetical. The proposed

revolution [serialism and the avant-garde] is much more radical: the journey alone is real, not the

landfall, and the sea routes are replaced by the rules of navigation.” 148 Or put another way by

Mondrian: “Let those of out time, the men of action who insist upon immediate results, who are

146
Eco p. 221
147
Stocktakings p. 220
148
Levi-Strauss p. 25

5
so strongly oriented to concrete realization, who are so hostile to so-called abstract art, let them

understand through this art that the realization of anything depends upon the means employed,

and that only with pure means, can universal equilibrium be established.”149

In order to construct a new “universe in continuous expansion,” serialists would have had

to develop a conceptual generator to ensure the expansion. Although the building of this

‘conceptual generator’ was not undertaken through conscious effort, the language serialists used

to describe their music suggests this direction. Indeed, much abstract art of this period echoes

similar sentiments. When considering a statement by Klee such as, “The more deeply he [an

artist] looks, the more readily he can extend his views from the present to the past, the more

deeply he is impressed by the one essential image of creation itself, as Genesis, rather than by the

image of nature, the finished product,”150 one is struck by the theological coloring of the

language. Obviously these artists are not referring to God or gods, but they are speaking of some

powerful higher plane of understanding from which they are trying to derive their art. Eimert in

the edition of die Reihe dedicated to musical craftsmanship says, “ ‘Serial’ technique...can no

longer express itself aright in the comparatively plastic world of sound to which...academic

lessons belong, since it has reached out and laid its hand on the basic elements, the

‘repertoire’.”151 Since this remark is placed amongst others in the essay having to do with the

work of A. Moles and its significance in music, it would seem that Eimert may be referring to a

musical metalanguage. The so called “basic elements” are those universal elements that describe

languages themselves. Because serial composers were no longer composing symbolically or

thematically, expression in their music elides the interpretation stage of the communication chain

from composer to listener, and instead aims to tap directly into the “Genesis” of music. The

149
Mondrian p. 280 (emphasis original)
150
Klee p. 45 (emphasis mine)
151
dRIII p. 2 (emphasis mine)

5
‘conceptual generator’ is then a metalanguage devoid of symbol and incapable of interpretation

since it is creation itself, and no language exists for interpretation.

Serial composers were not only building a new conception of musical composition, they

had to destroy the old one. In effect, they also introduced a new mode of listening. As with

chance music, one only has to listen - not to relationships or systems of construction, but only

sounds - to the mystery and fascination and to revel in our own incomprehension. Serial music,

being an abstraction in the musical sense, is not to be listened to as representational; that is, it is

ultimately aesthetic in information content and representative only of itself. Or perhaps more

accurately, there is an indefinite number of possible representations. Stuckenschmidt even states

that Eimert, as spokesman for the serialists, is “opposed to all metaphorical synaesthetic

interpretation - that is, he is opposed to the idea of composition and interpretation by association

and reference.”152 This seems to echo Mondrian's ideas about abstract art: “Art itself shows that

to be new it must realize a positive change in its representation of the essential in art's

manifestation; that is, a positive change in the representation of purely plastic expression - which

does not subsist in figurative representation but is created by relationships of line and color or of

the planes they compose.”153 The fact that you can’t hear serialism’s structures is not only

irrelevant, it is essential to the experience. As Eco explained, “incomplete knowledge of the

system is in fact an essential feature in its formulation.”154 It reflects the non-definitive nature of

experience. What is required is a change in the way the music is listened to, much the same way

that one must suspend their preconceptions when viewing a Klee or Mondrian work.

A silent piece like 4'33”, is taking advantage of the fact that the world (which already

possesses its own sonic archetype) is constantly giving a real time ‘performance’ of sounds; you

152
dRI p. 11
153
Mondrian p. 245 (emphasis original)
154
Eco p. 15

5
only have to turn your attention to it. The spectacle of a staged performance is inconsequential.

It simply provides a framework - a beginning and an ending for the piece of essentially arbitrary

length (remember, Cage discarded form) and possibly a philosophical framework for the

uninitiated. Maybe this is where the fundamental difference between serialism and chance music

lies. Where serialism is seeking the ‘higher power’ or creation itself for use in its own ends,

chance music is accepting nature as it exists at any given moment of performance. As Cage put

it, “I listen to it [4'33"] every day...I don't sit down to do it; I turn my attention toward it. I

realize that it's going on continuously...”155

155
Duckworth p. 14

6
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