Le 30 juin 2017
de 12h00 à 12h30
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
amphithéâtre 5
Séance - Circumscribing the Open: Cage and Pousseur
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : John Dack
Some of the most important and challenging works of the post-war period have been composed using ‘open’ forms. There are, broadly speaking, three main types: variable form (Stockhausen’s Zyklus – fixed globally but indeterminate locally), polyvalent form (Stockhausen’s Klavierstück XI – indeterminate globally but fixed locally) and what can be described as a form that is open at both local and global levels (Cage’s Fontana Mix). An examination of works in ‘open form’ presents particular analytical problems. Given the vast number of possible instantiations of a work, what precisely can be analysed? Two principal strategies are possible. Either the analyst evaluates specific performances in order to identify and compare moments of tension and release, formal divisions with closure etc. or the score is subjected to scrupulous examination with the intention of elucidating the choices offered by the composer to the performer. I shall base my paper on the second strategy as outlined above. The scores of ‘open’ works indicate a wide range of compositional approaches. The implications of an ‘open’ form work can be revealed by analysing the potential of the composition in the state of tension preceding any actual performance. I shall examine various examples of ‘open’ form compositions concentrating on selected variable and polyvalent forms as outlined above. Examples are: Zyklus, Rituel, Klavierstück XI, Scambi. By identifying what Eco called the ‘open’ work’s ‘field of possibilities’ I shall attempt to formulate a more differentiated typology than the three aforementioned examples.
