Stasis in music

[Sean]

Here's some sketchy notes on this matter, do let me know if you think these examples aren't so good or can offer others...

Examples of stasis, homogeneity and holistic form issuing from processes of repetition include Ligeti's Atmospheres and Lux aeterna, Feldman's Coptic light and Rothko chapel, Tavener's Akathist of Thanksgiving, Part's St. John passion, Bryars' Violin concerto 'Bulls of Bashan', Gorecki's Third symphony and Miserere, Messiaen's Et exspecto, La nativity and the closing movements of Quartet for the end of time (the title alluding to replacement of regular symmetrical metre); Mompou's piano works, Kancheli's Third symphony, Poulenc's Horn elegie, Satie's three Gymnopedies, Ives's The Unanswered question and Variations on America, and Cage's 4'33'' and Solo; earlier examples include plainchant, renaissance polyphony, Schutz's St. John passion, Beethoven's Eroica symphony first movement and slow movements of String quartets Nos.10-16; Wagner's operas, Bruckner's symphonies and Strauss's operas and tone poems.

And there's the related dispatch and whim of the Poulenc and Satie piano music and interest in the moment rather than high minded architecture; also slow minimalism, for instance Glass's Violin concerto, Company or Tirol piano concerto can illuminate the process in reducing down the rapid repetitions to reveal the underlying aesthetic logic to particularly beautiful effect; there's also the same process in any good melody, for instance a Puccini or Sullivan number or in Chopin, or in the motivic movement of the Beethoven Eroica first mov or Gross fuga. In such examples direction is given via inner processes of the material per se in a static background, not via a frame or dynamism imposed from without.

[jochanaan]

Here's some sketchy notes on this matter, do let me know if you think these examples aren't so good or can offer others...

Examples of stasis, homogeneity and holistic form issuing from processes of repetition include Ligeti's Atmospheres and Lux aeterna, Feldman's Coptic light and Rothko chapel, Tavener's Akathist of Thanksgiving, Part's St. John passion, Bryars' Violin concerto 'Bulls of Bashan', Gorecki's Third symphony and Miserere, Messiaen's Et exspecto, La nativity and the closing movements of Quartet for the end of time (the title alluding to replacement of regular symmetrical metre); Mompou's piano works, Kancheli's Third symphony, Poulenc's Horn elegie, Satie's three Gymnopedies, Ives's The Unanswered question and Variations on America, and Cage's 4'33'' and Solo; earlier examples include plainchant, renaissance polyphony, Schutz's St. John passion, Beethoven's Eroica symphony first movement and slow movements of String quartets Nos.10-16; Wagner's operas, Bruckner's symphonies and Strauss's operas and tone poems.

And there's the related dispatch and whim of the Poulenc and Satie piano music and interest in the moment rather than high minded architecture; also slow minimalism, for instance Glass's Violin concerto, Company or Tirol piano concerto can illuminate the process in reducing down the rapid repetitions to reveal the underlying aesthetic logic to particularly beautiful effect; there's also the same process in any good melody, for instance a Puccini or Sullivan number or in Chopin, or in the motivic movement of the Beethoven Eroica first mov or Gross fuga. In such examples direction is given via inner processes of the material per se in a static background, not via a frame or dynamism imposed from without.

I don't know all those pieces, but in the ones I do know, I don't see complete stasis, not even in the Quatuor pour la fin du temps movements you cited (whose title is also an allusion to the Biblical Day of Judgment), but rather, a slow, inexorable movement as powerful as that in any more "dramatic" music.  (Pärt's St. John Passion bored me silly the one time I heard it, so I can hardly say whether that's a good example of stasis.  Homogeneity, yes--all too much for my tastes.  But that's just me.)

However, the Eroica, the Wagner operas except for Parsifal, and the Strauss tone poems (I don't know Strauss' operas except for the Dance of the Seven Veils, but I suspect this is true for them too) are definitely bad examples; too much drama for any kind of stasis, too much contrast for homogeneity.  Holistic form, yes.  You might use those as counter-examples of "traditional" forms based on dramatic contrast.

I've long felt that Bruckner was a proto-minimalist. The best example I know of is the Kyrie from the E minor Mass--but even there, there's slow movement rather than stasis.  And that's what attracts me to minimalism: the sense of movement through apparent stasis, as in Steve Reich's Clapping Music with its phase-shifting.  Ravel's Bolero is another great example of proto-minimalism, where the movement grows from the increasingly complex and powerful orchestration.  And the music of Alan Hovhaness, although not "minimalist" in a technical sense, evinces the same kind of slow movement and non-traditional, deeply centered form.

[Sean]

Hi there jochanaan, indeed you've got a point in arguing many of those pieces are really going through a regular kind of movement but a lot more slowly. The 70 minute Part Passion is almost calculated to annoy people, but it's in a tradition that includes Schutz's examples, his St John being very austere, if you don't already know.

Regarding Strauss and Wagner, well they're more rhapsodic which means you don't really know which way they're going, or which contrast they're going to make next, so I was thinking the feel of real movement is stultified- Meistersinger I think is an amazing huge slab of holistic interconnection. All music that prioritizes juxtaposition over architectonics fits in here I think- inc eg the Messiaen and Schumann piano music.

But throughout all the examples I'd want to agree that there is movement and a sense of direction that persists but issuing from inner processes of the material per se not from an imposed linear architecture or dynamism conceived prior to the music. And I forgot about Bolero, thanks.

More from my notes- Also the stasis from a drone has similar effect to repetition- long intense notes held give time for the attention to return back on itself in re-engaging with them, exalting in awareness of one's own self. Examples might include Part's Cantus for Benjamin Britten and the second section of Tabula Rasa, along with Young's Seventh composition (a two note chord 'held for a long time') and the drone in medieval music for example in Hildegard of Bingen.

[jochanaan]

Hi there jochanaan, indeed you've got a point in arguing many of those pieces are really going through a regular kind of movement but a lot more slowly. The 70 minute Part Passion is almost calculated to annoy people, but it's in a tradition that includes Schutz's examples, his St John being very austere, if you don't already know.

I don't know it, but I don't doubt your word.

Regarding Strauss and Wagner, well they're more rhapsodic which means you don't really know which way they're going, or which contrast they're going to make next, so I was thinking the feel of real movement is stultified...

But that's not real stasis either.  And I would argue that the Strauss poems are very tightly organized, but the organization is not so obvious because of the abundance of themes.

More from my notes- Also the stasis from a drone has similar effect to repetition- long intense notes held give time for the attention to return back on itself in re-engaging with them, exalting in awareness of one's own self. Examples might include Part's Cantus for Benjamin Britten and the second section of Tabula Rasa, along with Young's Seventh composition (a two note chord 'held for a long time') and the drone in medieval music for example in Hildegard of Bingen.

Yes.  And that reminds me, I was forgetting the unforgettable prelude to Das Rheingold

[Sean]

Yes, well the Rheingold prelude is Wagner's revolutionary step forward into the amazing exhilaration of forward movement from the characteristics of the material per se, in a background of architectonic stasis.

More notes-
Successful repetitious works then include for instance Glass's Dance No.1, Satyagraha, Powaqqatsi, Music in twelve parts, Einstein on the beach and Belle et la Bete; Reich's Six pianos, Variations and Eight lines; Adams's Nixon in China and Grand pianola music; Nyman's The Man who mistook his wife for a hat; Part's Spiegel im Spiegel, Litany and Credo; Stockhausen's Stimmung; Ustvolskaya's Fourth symphony and Octet; Bax's Christmas eve and Paean; Stravinsky's Rite of spring and Les Noces; Wagner's Rheingold prelude and most of his operas; the second movement of Beethoven's Seventh symphony and last movement of the Violin concerto; the fugue of Bach's Toccata and fugue BWV.565; and numerous Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas. The effects are also shadowed in some pop and folk, for instance Senegalese and other West African musics and their accuntuated and endless drumming rhythms.

[jochanaan]

...West African musics and their accuntuated and endless drumming rhythms.

Uh, you might want to do a spellcheck at some point...

[Sean]

My file of musings is so big the spellchecker shut itself down. I'll have to copy and paste chunks to a new doc now for the proofing...

[millionrainbows]

I noticed a curious case of "stasis" that I describe more as "entropy." This is in Milton Babbitt's Piano Concerto. The whole thing reminds me of walking through an elephant graveyard, or perhaps a bombed-out ruin. Surrealistic in a way.

Also, In John Cage's "Concert for Piano and Orchestra" there is a certain empty stasis.

[Contemporaryclassical]

I noticed a curious case of "stasis" that I describe more as "entropy." This is in Milton Babbitt's Piano Concerto. The whole thing reminds me of walking through an elephant graveyard, or perhaps a bombed-out ruin. Surrealistic in a way.

Also, In John Cage's "Concert for Piano and Orchestra" there is a certain empty stasis.

I've seen both of those works performed live at one point and I tend to agree, though stasis isn't a negative thing.
They both have a very intriguing sense of form and "harmonic" development, maybe like the Webern Symphony movement #1?