Chapter
3
Influences: Medieval and Minimalist Compositional
Techniques
The
influence of the composers who’s works Pärt studied in the early 1970’s is
immediately noticeable in nearly all of his post-1976 compositions. Before any
discussion on Pärt’s compositional style as influenced by this music, we must
first closely examine various stylistic characteristics of the said period in
order to see how Pärt has used this material in an altogether different
style. However, it is in no way correct
to say that Pärt merely copies the practices of the medieval period. Throughout the following paragraphs, many
generalizations of the music of that time will be identified. We will examine
not only the medieval period as a whole but also general compositional
techniques of Dufay and Ockeghem. Several
of these techniques are used by Pärt while others are not. Also, Pärt occasionally uses a specific medieval
device in a fashion opposite to its original use. This discussion attempts to present a general and not a comprehensive
analysis of the various compositional styles of the Gothic period or the compositional
style of Dufay or Ockeghem.
Dufay’s
Style
The
masses of Dufay are excellent sources to examine for identifying some stylistic
characteristics of the period. A tenor
voice cantus firmus made up of long note values is the basis for the work,
around which the remaining voices are constructed. The range of each voice part lies within a tenth . Phrases vary in length from one measure to
eight or ten. Although not prominent in
the medieval period, Dufay does employ some motivic writing. A motive can be one particular interval or a
short series of intervals. Melodic motion is stepwise, though skips of thirds,
fourths and fifths also appear quite frequently. Skips are restricted to an ascending interval of a sixth
(descending sixths are not used).
Little use is made of chromaticism, except at internal cadences where C
and F sharp often appear or when B flat is used to prepare a cadence on F. By the middle of the 13th century, after
organum and conductus had become less popular, lines are generally independent
of one another, both melodically and rhythmically. Passing tones and suspensions are the primary devices used to
create dissonance and are used primarily on unstressed syllables of text. All of these said dissonances resolve to
perfect consonances. “Most of the
vertical relations are triads (in four-part textures) and imperfect consonances
in three- and two-part textures. When
triads occur, they are used exclusively in root position and first inversion.”[1]
Second inversion triads are used only in rhythmically weak positions. “Internal cadences often have full triads or
imperfect consonant resolutions; final cadences always end on an open fifth
and/or octave.”[2] The motion of the bass voice is usually by
fourths or fifths as by this time, the bass has assumed a quasi harmonic
function. Rhythmically, the upper voices contain the most activity, the bass
less activity, and the tenor (cantus firmus) the least activity of all. The eighth note is the smallest note value
used. “The first beat of the metrical pattern usually has longer value except when
syncopated…”[3] Most often, increased activity precedes a
cadence. Much use is made of textural
contrast (i.e. between two-, three-, and four-part textures). Form is determined most often by text, but
musical elements reinforce this.
Ockeghem’s
Style
Several
notable and important aspects of Ockeghem’s style are “a great sense of
fluidity which tends to obscure internal cadences and lessen the importance of
harmonic relationships; more independence of voice parts, with larger ranges
and fewer crossings; increased use of imitation and limited but outstanding use
of canon; and characteristic increase of motion at most cadential approaches by
using dotted rhythms.”[4]
Ockeghem’s lines generally do not
coincide with one another, meaning that individual voices enter and exit
independently of one another at varying points in the text. The length of phrases are often unequal and
in many cases, the phrase in one line begins or ends in a different place than
the phrase in another line. Ockeghem
makes extensive use of syncopation as it is useful in contributing to the
fluidity of line. Like Dufay, Ockeghem
uses much textural variation. Solo
voice passages are contrasted with two-, three- and four-part textures,
homophony is contrasted with polyphony and close voice proximity is contrasted
with more open spacing. Grout states,
Another way
Ockeghem achieved contrast was to write occasional passages in which all parts
sing in identical rhythms, producing a homophonic (or homorhythmic)
texture. This declamatory manner of
writing was rare among earlier Franco-Flemish composers, who reserved it for
passages where they desired to place special emphasis on the words. It became much more common in the latter
half of the sixteenth century.[5]
The coloristic
qualities of each individual voice type and the tessitura of each voice type
are also exploited. All of these
qualities are very important in examining Pärt’s music.
Medieval
Rhythmic Devices
Pärt
makes use of two medieval rhythmic devices.
The first is the system of rhythmic modes. Rowell states, "Until the early fourteenth century, musical
rhythm was entirely dependent upon the rhythmic patterns of speech - the
traditional poetic meters (iambic, trochaic, dactylic, anapestic, et al.) and
the structural patterns of formal society.
The result was what has often been called 'the eternal triple meter of
the Middle Ages,' supported intellectually by its Trinitarian associations -
God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."[6]
This system was codified around 1250 by Johannes de Garlandia in De Musica
mensurabili and is essentially the first stage in the history of
rhythm. Each of the six rhythmic modes
contains a different combination of long and short notes.
The value of
the normal breve or short note (brevis recta) is one temporal unit (tempus),
and that of the normal long (longa recta) is two. The modes that make use of these values only
(the first, second and sixth) are known as modi recti; in them each foot
contains a total of three tempora.
The basic values may be altered to accommodate patterns of greater
length -- the so-called modi ultra mensuram – to the ternary rhythm of
the shorter ones. Thus, in the third,
fourth, and fifth modes the longs have three tempora, while in the third
and fourth the first breve has one and the second two. Musical phrases (ordines), commonly
marked off by rests corresponding in duration to the last element of the foot,
are created by one or more repetitions of the modal pattern.[7]
In this system,
phrases were identified by one of two possible endings. A masculine ending is
one which contains rounding while the feminine ending does not contain the
final rest. The feminine ending is not
as aesthetically pleasing as the masculine ending because the phrase or section
ends with a note on an unaccented syllable.
The
13th and 14th century term hocket refers to a composition or technique
involving two voices in which when one voice sings, the other rests. Grout adds,
The effect is
that of a hiccup, ochetus in Latin, from which the term is probably
derived. Passages in hocket occur
occasionally in secular conductus and motets of the late thirteenth century and
more frequently in the early fourteenth century. Pieces in which hocketing was used extensively were themselves
called hockets.[8]
In the 16th
century, the term was applied to a certain type of cadence in which one voice,
approaching the tonic from above, fails to reach its destination, and instead
has a rest at least one beat long. The
leading tone in another voice reaches the tonic and has at least a whole-note
value, over which the theme of the next section begins.[9]
“Such passages . . . create a rapid
rhythmic effect that was used to build up excitement and climax.[10]
Chant
and Organum
Though
Pärt is said to be most influenced by the above mentioned medieval composers,
his style shows the influence of earlier music. Because Pärt’s vocal lines are generally rhythmically bound to one
another (though they do have some melodic independence), his music at times
more closely resembles that of 11th century organum.
By the end of
the eleventh century, polyphony had developed to a point where composers were
able to combine two melodically independent lines by using oblique and
contrary motion. Simultaneous intervals
had been stabilized by the invention of precise pitch notation on a staff. Two other essentials had still to be
achieved: the ability to combine two or
more rhythmically independent melodies; and a precise method of notating
rhythm.[11]
Apart from his
extensive use of chant-like melodic elements, Pärt also uses devices such as the
drone; an eternity symbol which in the 13th century appeared in
compositions as elongated chant melodies above which other voices would provide
melismatic interjections.
Now
that many of the medieval stylistic generalizations have been identified,
attention must now turn to the twentieth century and the minimalist movement in
order to identify other trends that have had an influence on Pärt’s
compositional style.
Pärt’s
Minimalism
Since
the piano piece Für Alina of 1976, Pärt has limited his tonal and
rhythmic materials to the bare minimum. When the musicians who premiered Pärt's most famous work first saw
the score of the Tabula Rasa of 1976, they cried out, “Where is the
music?"[12] Although Pärt's style can certainly be
labeled minimalist, one cannot deny that this music is something altogether new
and different from traditional minimalism.
Its minimalist characteristics lie not in repeated melodic figures, but
in the limited quantity of notes that are used and the concept of extended
time.
Many listeners
may feel [that his works] lack variety and contrast, but I’d argue that Pärt’s
use of materials is restrained, not restricted: why include more when you can achieve so much with so
little? Maybe ‘essentialist’ is a
better label than minimalist for a composer who concerns himself so diligently
with floating melody, rich sonority and honest spirituality.[13]
Before
exploring the similarities between Pärt’s style and the traditional definition
of the minimalist style, we must first determine what this definition is.
Minimalism: Traditional Definition
The
music we now refer to as minimalist has its roots in early forms of process
music. Schoenberg and Stravinsky often
based their compositions on the ‘working out’ of a particular scheme, whether
rhythmic, tonal, textural or other.
These early processes differ from more contemporary ones in that they
were inaudible. For example, it is not
readily apparent that Stravinsky used a thickening texture as a process or
compositional device for the first movement of the Symphony of Psalms. Also, it is not easy or even humanly
possible to aurally trace the activity of one particular tone row in any
12-tone composition. However, in the
mid-1960’s, composers began to write compositions that contained easily audible
processes. “These processes involve
extended repetitions of deliberately limited material, within which a series of
minute changes slowly and gradually evolve; as a result, the listener can hear
the process unfolding. A great many
terms have been coined to describe this phenomenon . . . . Most people,
however, use the term minimalism.”[14]
Silence is an extremely important
minimalist technique. This can range
from small to extended periods of silence within a work or a work that is based
entirely on silence, such as John Cage’s 4’ 33”. The opposite of complete silence is
continuous sound. Minimalist
‘philosophy’ subscribes to the belief that if “the duration is extremely long -
a matter of hours rather than minutes - the single event can become enveloping
and all-encompassing.”[15] This is accomplished through the use of
drones and sustained sonorities . Many
minimalist composers make use of extended drones, endlessly repeated chords and
sustained textures. These devices also
cause a composition to become harmonically static.
Even
without a definition of the term minimalism, one can deduce from the
word alone that this style involves the use of a limited amount of
materials. These materials are
manipulated in order to achieve rhythmic, tonal and textural complexity. The goal of many of these composers is to
achieve the maximum complexity with the minimum materials. Perhaps the most important minimalist
technique is repetition and gradual change.
A phrase or motive may be repeated over and over, most often at a rapid
pace, but each time something is slightly altered. These changes affect the melody as well as the overall rhythmic
scheme. Gradual change can also be
accomplished through rotation. “By
beginning successive statements of a melodic or rhythmic pattern at different
points within the pattern, the order of elements can be rotated.”[16]
Texture construction is also
accomplished through repetitive patterns as individual members enter or leave
the texture. All of these
transformations may be instantly apparent to the listener or recognition may
take several minutes. Most often, some
kind of process is involved with this technique. These types of compositional devices have existed throughout
music history, in one form or another.
However, minimalist composers place much more importance on them, and
these devices become the essence of the composition. In contrast to earlier practices, these techniques are almost
always related to some sort of process.
These types of compositional devices “become virtually immobile
aesthetic objects in their own right.”[17]
We can now go on to examine how the
style of Arvo Pärt compares to this ‘traditional’ definition.
[1] Lloyd Ultan, Music Theory: Problems and Practices in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977), 159.
[2] Ultan, Problems and Practices, 169.
[3] Ultan, Problems and Practices, 169.
[4] Ultan, Problems and Practices, 171.
[5] Grout and Palisca, A History of Western Music, 214.
[6] Lewis Rowell, Thinking About Music, (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1983), 97.
[7] Don Randel, ed., The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, 1986 ed., s.v. “Modes, rhythmic,” by Janet Knapp.
[8] Grout and Palisca, A History of Western Music, 132.
[9] Louis Munkachy, 16th Century Counterpoint, (Pittsburgh: Privately printed), 81.
[10] Andrew Hughes, Style and Symbol; Medieval Music: 800 - 1453, (Ottawa, Canada: Institute of Medieval Music, 1989), 67.
[11] Grout and Palisca, A History of Western Music, 102.
[12] Sandner, liner notes for Arvo Pärt Tabula Rasa.
[13] Barry Witherden, “Pärt, the Essentialist,” Classic CD 63 (July 1995): 63.
[14] Elliot Schwartz and Daniel Godfrey, Music Since 1945; Issues, Materials, and Literature, (New York: Schirmer Books, 1993), 316.
[15] Schwartz and Godfrey, Music Since 1945, 318.
[16] Schwartz and Godfrey, Music Since 1945, 323.
[17] Schwartz and Godfrey, Music Since 1945, 320.