Musical Space and Architectural Time: Open Scoring versus Linear Processes Author(s): Galia Hanoch-Roe Source: International

Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Dec., 2003), pp. 145-160 Published by: Croatian Musicological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30032127 . Accessed: 23/10/2013 20:10
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Croatian Musicological Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

G. HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL TIME, IRASM34 (2003)2, 145--160

145

MUSICAL SPACE AND ARCHITECTURALTIME: OPEN SCORING VERSUS LINEAR PROCESSES

GALIA HANOCH-ROE Departmentof Music Haifa University Mount Carmel,HAIFA 31905, Israel E-mail:ghanoch@isdn.net.il

UDC: 78.01:72.01"1950/2000"

OriginalScientific Paper Izvorniznanstvenirad Received: July3, 2003 Primljeno: 3. srpnja2003. Accepted: September 26, 2003 PrihvaCeno: 26. rujna2003.

Abstract- Resum
The article focuses on certain musical and architectural works created during the second half of the twentieth century, which challenge the very categorizations of temporal versus spatial arts. In particular, it discusses the reversion of the linearity of the musical score into fluid urban design, and the transformation of the linear process of the musical score into a modular one, leading the performer to a process similar to that of 'performing' or comprehending an architectural work. Works of composers such as Ligeti, Stockhausen and Cage, whom resuscitate the frozen time into fluid architecture by use of >Open< and >Graphic scores are discussed, as well as similar scoring techniques in other arts such as poetry, dance and urban design. The article continues with a review of the utilization of scores as a foundation for urban design in the work of architects Peter Cook and Lawrence Halperin. In Cook's Bloch City and Halperin's RSVP Cycles, the formal compositional scores accept upon themselves characteristics of space unfolded through use of time and the temporal becomes spatial. Finally, the article discusses the transformation of the role of the ,>performer<,be it the observer of a building, the resident of an urban environment, a dancer or a symphony orchestra, in these works. A transformation which lends him or her a new control over the events, and points out the far reaching consequences of their new role when concerning artistic processes in the realm of architecture and urban design in the community. Key words: music & architecture, time & space, open scores, graphic scores, Peter Cook, Lawrence Halperin, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Earl Brown

Introduction Music and architecture have been traditionally classified as temporal and spatial arts accordingly. Despite these categorizations and obvious boundaries between these disciplines, important affinities have existed over the years. 'Art' music

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

146

G. HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL TIME, IRASM34 (2003)2, 145-160

has customarily been performed in space, in an architectural, acoustical setting. Each space not only causes sound to reverberate and resonate in a unique way but also offers special architectural challenges, visual reference points and built-in cultural associations.' On the other hand, architecture takes into account elements of time while offering a space and frame for human movement and activity. We >read or ,,perform a work of architecture by moving physically and mentally around or within it. Music is edifying, for from time to time it sets the soul in operation wrote John Cage in 1949, and ,the soul is the gatherer together of the disparate elements.<< Performed, 'real-time' music never exists as a whole at any given moment, but rather unfolds in a linear manner over time and joins to an entity only in retrospect, in the memory of the listener or performer. In that sense it is a process diametric to that of perceiving an architectural work, which exists as a whole at any given moment but may be retained by the observer only by a process of observation over time, walking around, through, and above it. This is an open, nonlinear process, which is never repeated in quite the same way, and the joining of all observation points will only surmise the whole, never quite reaching it. In this article I shall focus on certain musical and architectural works created during the second half of the twentieth century which challenge these very categorizations of temporal versus spatial arts and ,linear< versus ,,open structure, beyond the affinities existing within the boundaries of time and space. In particular, I discuss the reversion of the linearity of the musical score into fluid urban design, and the transformation of the linear process of the musical score into a modular one, leading the performer to a process similar to that of 'performing' or comprehending an architectural work.

The Linearityof the Musical Score The essential quality of scores is that it is a system of symbols which can convey, guide, or control the interactions between elements such as space, time, rhythm, people and their activities and the combinations which result from them. Scores are devices used for controlling events and influencing what is to occur. They may also record events from the past or notate what is happening in the present, but the real importance of a score is its relationship to the future. Lawrence Halperin, designer and landscape architect, asserted in his book, RSVP Cycles, that the scoring process is the crux of creativity for any artist, be it musician, dancer, or architect: Scores are symbolizations of processes, which extend over time. The most familiar kind of score is a musical one but I have extended this meaning to include scores in all fields of human endeavor. ...I saw scores as a way of describing all
' For further reading in these issues see Michael FORSYTH,Buildingsfor Music: The Architect,the Musician, and the Listenerfrom the SeventeenthCentury to the Present Day (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985).

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

G. HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL TIME, IRASM34 (2003)2, 145-160

147

such processes in all the arts, of making process visible and thereby designing with process through scores. I saw scores also as a way of communication, these processes over time and space to other people in other places at other moments and as a vehicle to allow many people to enter into the act of creation together, allowing for participation, feedback and communications.<<2 As a mode of communication distinct from sounding music, musical notation has assumed a variety of forms, reflecting the changing needs and purposes of those who write and read it. Being a medium that facilitates the passage of music from the composer's imagination to physical reality of the performance, notation specifies what the composer wishes to control. The compositional score is composed in frozen time<<(rather than 'real' time of a performance), allowing the deliberate suspension of time. The silent reading of a score is similar to the observation of spatial art: The reader chooses the tempo, accentuation and the linearity of the process, and may stop, turn back, return and do as he pleases. When the silent reading of a score is performed the interpreter must choose one possibility of the numerous ones inherent in the score.

Open Scores In the second half of the 20th century, notation still tells performers 'what to do', but reflects a shift in creative priorities and hierarchies. The visual codes of the notational language have traditionally left the score open to interpretation on different realms such as tempo, dynamics, touch and atmosphere. Yet, up to 1950, the musical score was based on the idea that the performer reads it in a linear manner, and does not intervene in the formal construction of the musical score. During the second half of the 20th century composers such as Ligeti, Boulez, Stockhausen and others began to challenge the linearity of the musical score and offered the performer a choice in the construction of the musical work. These works are composed in terms of individual sections or fragments yet mobile in the order of appearance, creating unpredictability before and during performance. The conventions which underlie the intelligibility of the traditional musical work as casual logic, linearity, continuity and predictability no longer endure since in opencompositions each unit is predominantly important in itself and the order of these units becomes less and less important. An open-structured composition could be implemented many different times. The significance of the work, as is true of any spatial art, lies not in any one of its realizations but in their very multiplicity, in the range of interpretations the model allows. The temporal arts are given to the mercy of the performers who interpret the artwork on its way to the audience. Spatial arts induce an inner interpretation by
2 Lawrence HALPERIN, TheRSVP Cycles:Creative Processesin theHuman Environment(New York: Braziller, Inc., 1969), 1.

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

148

G. HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL TIME,IRASM34 (2003)2, 145-160

the observer and they do not demand the execution of a mediator.3 Traditionally, the audience was a recipient of a specific rendition by the performer in terms of spirit, tempo, dynamics, touch etc., but not in structural choices or formal processes. In open-compositions the traditional role of the performer is changed, as he now takes part in the formal compositional process. The audience's role in the reception of such works remains unchanged, as it is unaware of the choices exposed to the performer and perceives an integral and linear musical composition. The unraveling of an open-composition lends a choice of movement to the performer and allows him to move freely or randomly about the musical work. In such constructions, the function of the musical score changed from an object to be read by the performer into a process to be built. The choice of movement ruptures the linearity of the score inherent in the performance of a musical composition up to that time, and resembles a silent reading of a score in which the reader may stop, turn back, return and do as he pleases. In this, the process of performance becomes similar to that of a movement within a structural space, where the observer chooses his way about it. In a comparable manner, both performer in the open-composition and observer in the structural space gather several of the infinite existing possibilities inherent in the art-work to an artistic entity which is but one of its many realizations. One of the notable examples of such open-compositions is Karlheinz Stockhausen's KlavierstuckXI (1956). This work is constructed of nineteen groups placed on one manuscript, to which the composer instructs: At the end of the first group, the performerreads the tempo, dynamic and attacks indicationsthat follow, and looks at randomto any othergroup, which he then plays in accordancewith the latterindications.'Lookingat randomto any othergroup' implies that the performerwill never link up expressly chosen groups or intentionally leave out others. Eachgroup can be joined to any of the othereighteen:each can thus be played at any of the six tempi and dynamiclevels and with any of the six types of attack.4 The work reaches its end when the performer chooses a group for the third time. The order of groups is open to the performer's choice but his freedom is confined by restrictions appearing at the end of each group, which instruct how to perform the next group, whichever it may be (in terms of tempo, dynamics, touch etc.) This makes the possibilities between three sections at the minimum, to thirty3 In the same period the development of electronic music was at its peak. Pierre BOULEZ, in his article >At the Ends of Fruitful Land,<<Die Reihe 1, 19, states that >,electronicmusic changed the necessity of a mediator performer to realize the composer's artistic creation. He now may directly produce the sounding material that can be heard over and over without the slightest variation once it has been realized, bringing pieces composed in this way into the neighborhood of the products of the plastic arts. The composer is simultaneously the performer, in that he has a direct control over the quality of the realization, the musician takes on a function similar to that of the painter<<. 4 Universal edition No. 12654 LW. K. Stockhausen, Klavierstuck XI.

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

G. HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL TIME, IRASM34 (2003)2, 145-160

149

eight (38 x 37 x 36 x 35...) at the maximum. This, along with the tempo, dynamic and attack variances, creates a work whose notes in terms of fragments are controlled by the composer, yet the results will tend to indeterminacy. Physically, an observer of an architectural construction chooses a ,,path< with which he goes about the space. This path is built of the sequence of his movements and creates a linear process, a succession of events. Each event is relative to the preceding one (moving from a closed to an open space, from light into the dark etc.), and affects future responses and choices. The observer of a building weaves his path by combining choice with restrictions. He may choose to stop, walk faster or slower, look around, reverse his position in space, but his freedom is confined to certain obstacles on his way, corridors, staircases and points of view that affect his perception. In many ways this is a process similar to the performer of Stockhausen's Klavierstuck XI, in which the performer constructs a linearity of music by moving his eye randomly between the sections of the work, constructing an interpretation for each individual section utilizing choice and chance. Chance being foretold by the guidelines at the end of the preceding section, and choices inherent in any interpretation of music. In Earl Brown's AvailableForms (1961), the first of the orchestral open forms, the conductor determines the inclusion, omission, repetition and order of materials to be performed. The score is made up of six loose pages, all of which are in view of the eighteen performers, and the conductor indicates which sections are to be played by moving an arrow on a large board which contains the number 1 to 6. The passages labeled with large numbers are rehearsed individually and then combined in any order, successive or simultaneous, determined by the conductor during the performance. The open form encourages the performer thereby to a newly won spontaneity.5 Our comprehension of a musical composition owes its characteristics to the succession of events, which is inherent in the temporal nature of music. The events currently heard are always understood in light of the immediate preceding events and the new musical events that subsequently appear. The idea of the build-up and release of tension, inherent to all hierarchic-tonal music, necessitates the successive order of harmonies, leading to a cadence and back to the tonic. If the ca5 Other known examples to works which employ mobile-open forms are Pierre Boulez's Third Piano Sonata with arrangements of eight possible manners of ordering the five movements. The work includes visual layouts of poems by Mallarme (,Un coup de des< - The throwing of dice), Cummings and Joyce. The Sonata's score resembles a road map, which is in its own way a kind of score for 'performance' by an automobile driver. In David Bedford's Fun for all the Family (1970), constructed as a game chart, all players begin on the square marked >start,< each player makes four short sounds, choosing pitches, either pp or mf during the duration of the square (each square lasts 20"). The performers split off into two groups, then four and finally eight distinct parts, eventually joining again at the end. William Duckworth's Pitch City (1969) is a work for any four wind instruments, and specifies pitch and note-to-note successions, but not register, rhythm, duration, instrumental timbre, or the precise synchronization of parts. Duckworth chooses to control mood, overall gesture and large-scale continuity but requires each of the four performers to follow a path from one of the corner F#'s to the F# at the center.

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

150

G. HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL TIME,IRASM34 (2003)2, 145-160

I EarlBrown:Available Forms dences were modulated or interrupted, they would be considered as a change of course or branching off, always part of the ongoing flow of music. In the case of open-scores such as Stockhausen's Klavierstuck XI, the composer does not want to control the linearity of the process. The course of the form is no longer experienced as a process of congestion and relaxation, but as a juxtaposition of colors and surfaces, just as in a picture or an architectural space. The succession of events is a mere exposition of something that in its nature is simultaneous; in this way in fact, one's glance wanders over the canvas of a painting.6 Stockhausen rejected the principle that music must be constructed of ideas in from 1960,7 an antecedent-consequent fashion. In his article on >>moment-form<< XI to an extreme, as he sets out against he takes the non-linear ideas of Klavierstuck the understanding that musical events are products of the past and preparations for the future. Instead, he suggested focusing on the present as the key for eter6 For a further discussion see: Gyorgy LIGETI,Metamorpheses of Musical Form, Die Reihe 7 and Theodore W. ADORNO, Philosophyof ModernMusic, trans. Anne G. Mitchell and Wesley V. Blomster, (NY: The Seabury Press, 1973), 123. Karlheinz STOCKHAUSEN, Momentform, Texte I (1963): 189-210. 7

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

G. HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL TIME, IRASM34 (2003)2, 145-160

151

nity, which is attainable at any given moment. In his works Kontakte(1959-1960) for four track tapes or with the addition of piano and percussion, and Momente (1964) for soprano solo, four choral groups and thirteen instrumentalists, Stockhausen moved from the concept of the interdependent ,,group<< inherent in KlavierstuckXI to that of the autonomous >>moment.<< In these works each unit is important in itself, none is more important than any other is, and the listener's attention may wander about these moments without harming the concept of the whole. Thus, a moment form may be said to be without beginning or end and reflects a >concentration on the Now - on every Now - as if it were a vertical slice dominating over any horizontal conception of time and reaching into timelessness, which I call eternity.<<In Momenteeven the choice of texts include overlap of languages, nonsense syllables, handclaps, laughter, foot stamping and outbursts from the audience resulting in a total sense of discontinuity throughout the piece. The composer Gyorgy Ligeti compared the various interpretations of opencompositions to flash-photos of a Calder mobile, in which changes are manifested only indirectly, since each performance is merely a momentary incarnation of the manifold possibilities of the form. In a Calder mobile, the shape, color, and design of each part is fixed, with the order and angle constantly changing. The composers themselves claimed the analogy of the aesthetic and emerging notations of Brown, Feldman and others with the concept of a mobile. This implies art as a process, no longer will objects<< of music exist in that sense, but each new performance, each new circumstance will create a continually variable process of ideas.9 The new open attitude towards performance of temporal art is not limited to music but can also be seen in concrete poetry, in dance, design as well as in other mediums. The following ,Poem<<by Jackson MacLow utilizes an open approach to the reading of the poem by >,performing<< it in any direction and combination chosen by the performer. The directions read:
>,Thereaderbegins at any square(empty squaresare silences),he moves to any adjacent squarehorizontally,vertically,or diagonallyand continuesthis processuntil the end of the piece. Lettersare read as any sound they can stand for in any language. When lettersare repeatedin a numberof adjacentsquarestheirsound may be continued for the durationthought of as equivalentto that numberof squares,or they may be reiterated the same number of times as of squares. Letters can be added occasionally as one letter words denoting the letters.1

8 Cited in K. H. WORNER, Stockhausen: His Lifeand Work,trans. and ed. Bill Hopkins (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 110. 9 Another example for mobile type structure indeterminacy is Roman Haubenstock-Ramati's Mobile for Shakespeare(1960). The work is comprised of boxes, each giving a fairly straightforward, mostly traditionally notated fragment. The order of each box is not predetermined and therefore while the composer has indeed composed each note the performances are quite different and unpredictable. The complete piece (for voice, keyboard and percussion) is contained on a single sheet, offering a variety of sound events (mostly notated graphically) and many possible paths of connecting them. '0 HALPERIN, RSVP Cycles, 17.

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

152

SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL TIME,IRASM34 (2003)2, 145-160 MUSICAL G. HANOCH-ROE:

Jackson MacLow: Poem In the score for the dance Parades and Changes by Ann Halperin, cell blocks resembling the musical blocks of Stockhausen's work are employed as a scoring device. Each collaborating artist, musician, dancer-choreographer, lighting demovement of sound evolved a series actions, actions, sign, sculptor, coordinator, light actions, environmental or sculptural actions in discrete thematic ideas called cell blocks.

Ann Halperin Dance Theatre: Score sketches for Paradesand Changes

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

G. HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL IRASM34 (2003)2, 145-160 TIME,

153

The cell blocks' principle is so organized that not only are all the parts independent and therefore can be reassembled, assembled and reassembled in infinite combinations, each combination generating a different quality, but the sequence can start from any point. In terms of development new cell blocks can be added, others omitted, so that over a period of several years the same score can be in operation but entirely new cell blocks can be inserted to the extent that the original has very little resemblance to the new one.

PaulaHorriganand Margaret McAvin'svisual book and design for Clute MemorialParkin Watkin'sGlen, New York This approach, offering a glimpse of the whole and its parts simultaneously, while lending a multilayering of time, may be observed also in the visual book and landscape design by Paula Horrigan and Margaret McAvin's for Clute Memorial Park in Watkins Glen, New York. The site reveals an active mining site that lies beneath the picturesque waterside park. The reader may read the book and the landscape at their own pace, in part or whole, in or out of order. The form of the design is analogous to the interpretation of and interaction with the landscape. This is a landscapecreatedby water:the inland sea, the glaciers,the canals,and the water pipes that flush out salt as brine. When closed and tied the book/site presents a cover of greenland and silverwater. Over this landscapewe impose a grid of explorationor of subdivision.Eachpage/layer is a map orderthatprevailsas surface.Within eachpage/layer, we canopen windows into the past. We turnpages/layers and open/ close windows creatingpermutations.The grid deepens and fragments. Our universal and superficial of the landscapebecomeslocaland circumstantial.11" understanding
" Matthew POTTEIGERand Jamie PURINTON, Landscape Narratives:Design PracticesforTelling Stories (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1998), 148.

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

154

G. HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL TIME, IRASM34 (2003)2, 145-160

In 1969, Lawrence Halperin advances the idea of open-scores one step further and devised a mechanism to utilize scoring not only as a reading or ,performance of the architectural plan, but for participating in the actual planning process. The use of open scores for him is similar to that of the performer in a musical event utilizing open scores: it is the mechanism which allows us all to become involved, to make our presence felt. He revolts against the general tendency of the immediate past which implied passivity on the part of the people as an audience for art, and made them receptacles for works developed by others the artists. He proclaimed that over the centuries artists have become specialists for the people, they made laws for the people. This created a dichotomy between the act of art and the act of life, between decision-making and results. A dichotomy which did not exist in primitive cultures where all the people were artists, nor does it even now exist among children or the free young people of the revolution who do not differentiate between the act of symbolization and the life process itself. In searching for ways to break down this dichotomy and allow people to enter into the act of making art as part of the art process he used >,open ended scoring devices, which act as guides, not dictators. These kinds of scores have built-in possibilities for interaction between what is perceived beforehand and what emerges during the act. They allow the activity itself to generate its own results in process. They communicate but do not control. They energize and guide, they encourage, they evoke responses, they do not impose. Halperin goes on to say that these open scores redefine the role of the artist, as it is no longer adequate for him to be a solitary hero he must now reposition himself in society and relate once again to the whole community. He is required to know more than the techniques of his special craft, and is becoming aware of art as a creative community experience by evolving scores, which allow for creativity of others as well as himself. Thus, the artist now becomes part of a total configuration of all the people involved, including every age level and every ethnic group in our society. This new attitude of the artist as scorer redefines the role even further: The artist now sees his work to be not only as a form maker himself but also as responsible for the creative drives of his total community.12 GraphicNotation Several composers as John Cage, Earl Brown, Haubenstock-Ramati and Paul Ignace developed the idea of graphic notation in the 1950's. Extending the idea of indeterminacy of forms existing in open scores, graphic scores use a simple picture without instructions instead of conventional notation. Here the semantic communication between composer and performer is narrow, and the visual communication has more weight. It is no more possible to infer the composition from the
12HALPERIN, RSVP Cycles, 18. (As an interesting example of this process sea the >Sea Ranch Score, pp. 117-151.)

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

G. HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL IRASM34 (2003)2, 145-160 TIME,

155

interpretation and therefore, the criteria of a musical drawing are to be sought exclusively in the visual field. The composers let go of the control they have over the details of the composition, and revert to approximations, which indicate the general idea and atmosphere, and give the performers a meaningful place in the construction of the work. Composers who work with such notation, where the distinction between symbol and drawing is blurred, hope that it may excite the performer's imagination. >>One cannot determine exactly what effect the notation causes<< wrote John Cage in 1960, >>theobserver-listener is able to stop saying I do not understand, since no point-to-point linear communication has been attempted. He is at his own center (impermanent) of total space-time.13 The suggestive visual power of the graphic score offers multi possibilities of interpretation, by which a second performance of a work by the same graphic notation and even the same performers will yield a completely new rendition. In such works the relationship between composition and interpretation becomes ambiguous. Earl Brown's December1952 was the first wholly graphic score. It suppresses all familiar notational devices and places black rectangles of various sizes in a pleasing but irregular pattern on the page. The result is resembling Piet Mondrian's painting Ocean 5 (1914).

Earl Brown: December1952

Piet Mondrian: Oceal 5

John Cage's Aria (1958) contains no specific pitches, although each vocal phrase is notated as a general contour, which functions as an ,,ideogram, visualizing an entire concept rather than an alphabetic construction of component parts. Cage uses colors throughout the printed score to denote change in singing style and has
13 John CAGE, Form is Language, in JohnCage, ed. Richard Kostelanetz (New York, Washington: Praeger Publishers, 1970), 135.

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

156

G. HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL TIME, IRASM34 (2003)2, 145-160

given suggestion (but does not specify) for some stylistic possibilities: blue for jazz, green for folk, brown for nasal, etc. In another work by John Cage, Cartridge Music (1960), there are twenty sheets, each containing as many shapes as its number, together with three sheets of transparent paper, one of which contains dots, another circles and the third a dotted line.14 In this work Cage has attained the maximum indeterminacy for both the order of the actions and the single action are to a great extent left to chance, to spontaneous decision.

ir "

&

JohnCage:Cartridge Music1960

John Cage compared the process of reading graphic notation to that of a traveler trying to catch trains and departures, which have not been announced but are in the process of being announced. The performer here takes the role of the observer. By deciphering the graphical aspect of the score and the affinity with the atmosphere it evokes, it offers a purely aesthetical-associative manner of translation into music. Here, the process of >>catching trains< is similar to an exploration of a spatial work of art. Observing a work of spatial art calls for movement, and movement in turn requires the use of time. A two-dimensional work of art requires movement of the eye, and a three dimensional work requires the actual movement
14The transparent sheets are to be laid on the numbered sheet, the transparent sheet with the dotted line in such a way that the circle at the end of the dotted line lands outside the shapes and the line itself cuts or touches a shape at least one point. Where the dotted line cuts a shape the time unit can be fixed by means of a fourth transparent sheet on which the face of a stopwatch is drawn. Wherever the dotted line cuts a circle inside a shape the volume should change, if outside, the pitch should change. If a dot or circle are in a section which results from the dotted lines crossing itself the action is to be repeated in the manner of a perpetual loop of tape.

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

G. HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL IRASM34 (2003)2, 145-160 TIME,

157

around or within the work. The actual movements of the eye or the observer around a work are in themselves limited, as are the musical sections of an open-score, but their combinations too, create an infinite range of variation. The architect cannot predetermine all movements and thus must leave the observation of the building to chance, as does the composer of an open score. The movement of the observer, in turn, is also subject to chance, as his attention may drift to many different angles and views, focusing for long on one area, skipping another, etc. Bloch City Graphic notation suggests that a musical score may be an aesthetically moving object in its own right. In this, it goes one step further into the realm of the spatial arts. In fact, scores by Cage, Crumb, Cornelius Cardew and Earl Brown have been exhibited as works of visual art. Likewise, each conventional score has a graphic dimension, which may indicate, without necessity of prior knowledge, aspects such as regularity of pulse, relative tempo, acceleration and deceleration of the pace, density of texture or instrumentation, and formal organization. Such terms also relate to architectural plans, which incorporate ideas of spatial pulsation, density of textures and inner pace. Thus, the conventional score may be translated from linear musical process into fluid architectural or urban design. The idea of the musical score as direct architecture was explored by the architect Peter Cook in his plan for Bloch City (1983). Cook translated the notational details directly into parts of a fluid urban design: The role played by the >>stave in music was seen as analogous to that of the street in a city, the highway was divided into the four spaces and the bar divisions used as bridges. The negative

PeterCook:Bloch City of the musical score The first stage of three-dimensionalisation

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

158

G. HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL TIME,IRASM34 (2003)2, 145-160

space between the staves was open space and extended stave lines were represented as walls. The walls of the highway contained accommodation with windows facing the park and the accent marks were presented as vertical garden conditions incorporating fruit and vegetable growing under controlled conditions. Cook related to the texture of the music and its inherent hierarchies of sound as foreground and background spaces of the urban design. Think of a symphonic score as a city plan<< he wrote, the little flute obbligato as a mere backyard event and the grand march as the main street...and then begin to wave the rest inwards...The notes become towers, the stave becomes a The linear motion inherent in street, the supportive markings become walls.<<15 musical performance was interpreted here as spatial path, an urban highway on which the traveler proceeds to create a sequence of experience through which the specific environment is apprehended. The score was believed by Cook to be an indication of the cultural aura in which it was composed. Cook described it as an extremely sophisticated diagram of urbanized action,<believed by him to depict the sociological-historical ambiance in which Bloch's music was composed. Cook saw the score of Bloch's violin concerto, written in 1938, as a cultural statement.16 Not only was the music itself an image of Europe on the verge of World War II, but so was its graphic aspect. Fifty years following Bloch's composition, Cook plans a city in which he points out the highway of the 21stcentury and the parkland with pseudo-historic and other romantic remnants of the 19th century. The 20th century, as he mentions, was conveniently forgotten.17

Peter Cook: detail from final plan of BlochCity

16

Ibid. 17Peter COOK, Bloch City, Diadalos 17-18 (1985): 26-28.

15 Peter COOK, Six Conversations, ArchitecturalMonographs28 (1992): 32-33.

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

G. HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACEAND ARCHITECTURAL TIME, IRASM34 (2003)2, 145-160

159

Conclusion In the course of this article I have explored the breaking of barriers between the traditional classifications of music and architecture in the second half of the twentieth century through the dimension of the musical score. Architecture and music both rely on numerical proportions, music measured in time and architecture in space. One can argue that architecture may be conceived as > frozen music, and the spatial construction of architecture utilizes temporal procedures in the process of deciphering the tension between all its simultaneous elements over time. Composers such as Ligeti, Stockhausen and Cage, resuscitate the frozen time into fluid architecture by assimilating the process of deciphering the musical score to that of observing architecture. By use of open and graphic scores, the performer, comparable to the observer, is forced to take part in constructing linearity out of the mobility offered by the score, and structuring the musical work in terms of choice and chance, freedom and restrictions. Similar processes are observed in other temporal arts such as poetry and dance. On the other hand, music may be conceived as >>fluid architectures<:in the process of turning music into a formal compositional score it accepts upon itself characteristics of space unfolded through use of time. Thus, the temporal becomes spatial. Peter Cook's experimentation in resuscitation of the frozen time into fluid urban design utilizes the linear dimensions of the musical score and the details of its notation to create an atmosphere inherent in the musical aura of Bloch's Violin Concerto. He therefore plans a city in which he points out the highway of the 21st century and the parklands of the 19th century, omitting for the sake of the well being of its residents the remnants of the 20th century. In all the examples throughout this article the role of the performer, be it the observer of a building, the resident of an urban environment, a dancer or a symphony orchestra, has undergone a transformation which lends him or her a new control over the events. This new responsibility taken upon by the artist-performer has far reaching consequences when concerning artistic processes in the realm of architecture and urban design, as Lawrence Halperin stated: Today's performing artist profoundly wants a partnership which will involve the audience as much as himself. This conception means much more to us in the design and scoring of our communities than it does for the theatre. Cities themselves are beginning to be scored like theatre, in an intricate interrelationship between artist and communities. A community has the right to make scoring decisions itself, based on its own understanding of the implications of action... This comes back full cycle to our early discussion on scores in music and theatre, to the new attitude about involvement and against specialization. The new theatre, the new art, wishes once again to involve the people.'18

'8 HALPERIN, RSVP Cycles, 175.

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

160

G.HANOCH-ROE: MUSICAL SPACE ANDARCHITECTURAL TIME, IRASM 34 (2003) 2, 145--160 Safetak GLAZBENI PROSTOR I ARHITEKTONSKOVRIJEME: OTVORENA PARTITURA NASUPROT LINEARNIH PROCESA

Clanak se usredotoCujena neka glazbena i arhitektonska djela stvorena u drugoj polovici 20. stoljeca koja predstavljaju izazov svakoj kategorizaciji vremenskih nasuprot prostornim umjetnostima. Osobito se raspravlja o obratu linearnosti glazbene partiture u fluidni urbani nacrt te transformaciji linearnog procesa glazbene partiture u modularnu, sto izvoditelja dovodi do procesa sliCnog onome izvodenja ili razumijevanja arhitektonskog djela. Raspravlja se o djelima kompozitora kao sto su Ligeti, Stockhausen i Cage, koja ponovno oZivljuju smrznuto vrijeme u fluidnoj arhitekturi uporabom otvorenih i grafickih partitura, kao i slicnih tehnika iscrtavanja u drugim umjetnostima poput pjesnistva, plesa i urbanog dizajna. (lanak nastavlja s pregledom uporabe nacrta kao temelja za urbani dizajn u djelu arhitekata Petera Cookea i Lawrencea Halperina. U Cookovu Bloch City i Halperinovim RSVP Cycles formalni kompozicijski nacrti poprimaju karakteristike prostora razvijenog uporabom vremena, kada vremensko postaje prostorno. Na posljetku se raspravlja o transformaciji uloge >izvoditelja u tim djelima, bilo promatraca zgrade, stanovnika urbanog okolisa, plesaca ili simfonijskog orkestra. Ta transformacija daje mu/joj novu kontrolu nad zbivanjima i istice dalekoseZne posljedice njihove nove uloge u pogledu umjetnickih procesa u podruju arhitekture i urbanog dizajna u nekoj zajednici.

This content downloaded from 194.81.216.168 on Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:10:07 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions