Eternal moments

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

I really could give you hundred more examples @Christo, but I think I'll stop for now.

[JBS]

What I am describing -- in Dutch the term "eternal moment" is used by novelist Maarten 't Hart in describing music -- is more than an individual observation, but at least 'intersubjective' and often also the experience of the composer himself. An 'eternal moment' is more than purely an individual experience, although some people seem to think so here, but that is too postmodern for me. Let's see how many "eternal moments" we share, here.

Still not quite sure...but I think what you're talking about happens a lot in the music of Vasks.

[Or I may be totally confused/confusing. In which case, best ignore all I say.]

[JBS]

Another moment for me is in Shchedrin's Chamber Suite in the third movement Amoroso --- 1:28 - 1:54:

I don't hear the "eternal moment" there, but that's a beautiful piece of music.

[Karl Henning]

There's nothing eternal about mankind and their products, art included. We might give as many and as different examples as each of us see fit --- two hundred years from now, 99% of them will be forgotten, just as 99% of the things past are today forgotten. The future is a foreign country, they' do things different there. 

Call it an impression of the Eternal. 
Separately, my internal mischief-maker wanted to misread this thread as "Music Which Runs on Way Too Long."

[Mandryka]

Some more examples.


Grisey, La Mort de Civilisation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t86Aqti59gI&list=PLdTmlq9YEL-cwxv1ADtgHe3DkxkuHKB6Q&index=2

La Monte Young, Composition 1960 #7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In6kZwdxiMI

The  Hosokawa Vertical Time Studies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVpfk_pZHW0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXr2Q4J1LhM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hua48NQOEhU


The second part of Phillip Manoury's Le Temps, Mode d'Emploi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_5OiYgWNcw
(From 4:46 and it lasts for 13 mins 52 secs)

[atardecer]

I think there are different ways these 'timeless' moments happen in music. Sometimes it is similar to what is described in the OP, sometimes I think they can arise from other things such as an effective use of silence or dynamics. The final movement of Mahler 3 was mentioned, for me there is a moment where time seems to stand still near the beginning of that work where it momentarily becomes very quiet and one only hears a dampened percussion before the orchestra comes back in. Similarly the middle section of Debussy's Fêtes from his Nocturnes things become relatively quiet and it creates a sensation of the flow of time being altered. Conversely the loudness of the climax of Messiaen's Apparition de l'église éternelle.

Effective use of counterpoint such as in Bach fugues can create this effect too as mentioned.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Another example for me is Rouse's Symphony No. 3 --- the fourth movement from 2:55 - 3:25:

[vandermolen]

Last few minutes of A London Symphony by Vaughan Williams (in the 1913 or 1920 versions - not in the 1936 version)

[Christo]

.. I think what you're talking about happens a lot in the music of Vasks.

My experience too! Take the 'meditave moment', sounding like a Latvian folk song but really Vasks, that arises out of the ashes some 9 minutes before the end of his Second Symphony. But also in his Viatore -- I was lucky to hear the world premiere -- and much more.   

[Christo]

What I am describing -- in Dutch the term "eternal moment" is used by novelist Maarten 't Hart in describing music -- is more than an individual observation, but at least 'intersubjective' and often also the experience of the composer himself. An 'eternal moment' is more than purely an individual experience, although some people seem to think so here, but that is too postmodern for me. Let's see how many "eternal moments" we share, here.

For example, when I spoke to Vagn Holmboe about his Eighth Symphony, Boreale, he said that entire passages had come to him 'in a dream,' but that some 'dream music' was wonderful, while other ideas were useless. All in all, he described the same kind of experience of inspiration that Stravinsky referred to when he said that he was the "vessel" where the Sacre had 'come through', or similar wordings. 

[relm1]

This happens quite a bit in James MacMillan's music such as the Vigil Symphony before the last movement, complete stillness.  Reminds me a bit of the end of Also Sprach Zarathustra.

https://youtu.be/8sLWuOLxc_I?t=1460

[ritter]

I must confess I unfortunately still don't understand what is meant with "eternal moments".

In a previous post in this thread, though, the notion of "time standing still" was alluded to. That I can relate to.

I reiterate what I have stated before in other discussions: a magical moment of "frozen time" is most of Tombeau, from Boulez's Pli selon pli. There are several minutes of extremely busy measures in which the members of the ensemble play intricate, interwoven lines, but the music seems to have no forward thrust, to be completely motionless. Then, suddenly, the tension is released with a phrase by the pitched percussion, which is subject to interjections first by the brass, then the woodwinds and then the strings, leading to the soprano's singing the final verses of Mallarmé's poem and the word "mort" followed being by the famous chord that had started the whole cycle 60 minutes earlier.

In the below video, the "frozen time" measures start at around the 8-minute mark in the video below, and the "resolution of the tension" at 12'15".

If he had only composed the 15 minutes of Tombeau, Boulez would already have secured a place among the giants of the history of music IMHO.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

@ritter yeah, I'm still rather unclear about what are "eternal moments" so instead I provided examples of music that take my mind somewhere else.

[Spotted Horses]

This is what Schubert famously does in the last movement of the E flat major Piano Trio, D929.

I also want to mention one of the magical things for me -- the end  of the first movement of Brahms 2.

I can relate to the Brahms reference. I might also mention the finale of Brahms 3, when the tumultuous opening theme of the first movement returns in the coda of the finale, played softly.

I think what Cristo refers to as an "eternal moment" is what I would call a transcendent moment.

[Mandryka]

Massig from Webern op 6. Time is still, I don't know about eternal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z38YW05ty48