AMBIGUITY: IN MUSICAL COMPOSITION,
IN MUSICAL EXPERIENCE AND IN MAN.
REFLECTIONS ON A MILLENIAL CHANGE (1999)
by Per Nørgård
I.
While conflicts are piling up on all levels
around the world at the same time that ethnic
tensions, which have accumulated historically throughout the centuries seem to be more
explosive than ever, concern for the millennial change appears to be growing. This concern is spurred on by a rational and justified
alarm concerning the computers in the world:
‘What’s going to happen at midnight, at midnights the world over, at the start of the year
2000?’.Completely irrationally (in any case,
as it appears to every lay observer), the same,
incredibly brainy people who worked out the
myriads of problem-solvings which in the aggregate transformed the Industrial Society
into the Information Society – where the programming element is concerned, these superrational thinkers have forgotten to take into
account that the machines should perhaps be
sound and durable enough to survive the millennial change. It is feared that this short sightedness is going to backfire which has undoubtedly heated up the debate concerning whether
round years, a category to which the year 2000
undeniably must be credited, have any ‘deeper’ significance? Apart from being dashing...
The last Really Big Round Year, namely the
year 1000, did have great importance in that,
during the time leading up to it, increasingly heated interpretations prophesied that it
pointed to the abundantly heralded Doomsday,
and that it therefore would be rational to purify the Holy Land of heathens! This is not our
thinking today: to be an inspiration for the Crusades with its wildly absurd – yet gory – Holy
Massacres, unprecedentedly violent and sudden, waged against the defenseless Muslim victims (who, by the way, celebrated a completely
different year); indeed, to be the inspiration for
this gives a millennial change a bad reputation
– or rather, the agitation surrounding a millennial change receives a bad reputation.
It can perhaps cause wonder that I myself, at first glance, seem to have ‘joined the
Millennium wave’ (as it could appear from
my lecture’s title) to thereupon warn against
unnecessary agitation by attaching superstitious importance to inconsequential new
year commencements. The confusion will
perhaps become total when I, in the following, first lay the grounds for the fact that, seen
from a physical point of view, there might
be good reason for applying a special significance to the yearly number of 1000 (something apparently purely metaphysical), and
then subsequently do my best to dispel the
notion that there will probably be – in all likehood, unpleasant – upheavals during the approaching millennial change.
The thousand years have of course something to do with the positions of the planets.
The extent to which astrological obviousness has been experienced in private life, or
not, isn’t decisive for acceptance of the fact
that, exclusively by way of the enormously
energy-saturated magnetic fields surrounding the planets and moons, there are perceptible and measurable consequences of notably pronounced configurations between two
or more planets. Seen in this light, it is in any
case thought-provoking that the number of
years which go by before the planets occupy
the same, shared positions surrounding the
sun is – one thousand! I am not going to become deeply immersed in this subject, but
will merely illustrate how the celestial mechanics of shared rotation rhythms is analogous with the medieval world picture:
Pluto swings around the sun in 250 years,
Neptune in 165 years, Uranus in 84 years, Saturn in 29 years (giving then following relations and times round the sun within 1000
years: 4 to 6 to 12 to 34), all approximately, but
still surprisingly close to the ideal numbers.
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Converted into humanly perceptible oscillations, a quarter of a second instead of a
thousand years, a resonant octave-reinforced
major chord will sound. Just the way a similar
overtone-harmony sounds every time a drop
of water bursts. ‘As with big things, so it is
with small.’1
These proportional relations indicate a basically harmonious universe, strongly corroborated by the huge extraterrestrial conquests
that astronomy has carried out in relatively
few years. The conception of the average man
that probably still prevails (and greatly depresses – which is probably part of its power
to fascinate) portrays our Earth as an insignificant speck of dust within infinite space, revolving around a star in the backwoods of an
insignificant galaxy, and occupied by ridiculously self-important microbes – calling themselves ‘human beings’ – the consequence of
chance, just an absurd occurrence, hastily extinguished, in a universe void of meaning.
We all know that tune, but it is completely false according to the new world picture –
based, according to some physicists, on an
‘anthropic principle’, Scientists have established through countless computer model experiments that the only kind of Big Bang that
can give rise to, among other things, the miracle that we can see each other, and speak together, is precisely the Big Bang that has taken
place: among the billions of other possibilities, none was found stable enough to provide the possibility of the creation of galaxies
– because either the expansion was followed
by contraction so swiftly that neither galaxies
nor people could come into existence, or else
the primordial dust vanished out into eternal
space with no possibility of uniting itself for
the creation of Milky Ways and milkmen.
Thus, we exist as a totally unlikely result of
an initiative of the great Big Bangs world roulette. Anyone can interpret it freely, of course,
but I feel it gives a certain tickle to know that
we exist as a statistical exception. The precision of the outburst has been compared with
that which is necessary for a slingshot to hit
a pea within the Vega constellation. This offers grounds for all preconceptions concern2
ing existence being based on nihilism into renewed consideration. Consider, for example,
what could perhaps be learned from the millennium rhythm?
The title of a book concerning this revolutionizing world picture is The Secret Melody.2 With enormous richness in detail the author, Prof. Trinh Xuan Thuan, demonstrates
how we have the possibility to time-zoom ourselves still closer to the wonder of creation itself – the Bang – a ‘singularis’ as this unique
event has been characterized: everything is
overwhelmingly co-ordinated just like a cosmic composition, whose melody we will always be only on the trail of.
Simultaneous with the new theoretical picture come the concrete pictures from other planets within the solar system, filmed by
Voyager I and II – the satellites. Besides making film-recordings of planets and moons, a
computer registered the fluctuations from
the magnetic fields of the planets concerned
when under attack from the solar winds that
are constantly passing through the planetary
system with high-energy. When the scientists received the signals, they transformed
them into sound waves – which did not result
in undue manipulation, since the frequency
range of the resulting ion-acoustic waves coincide, as their name implies, with our hearing range. Stories are still being told of their
astonishment when they heard what Man
had only fantasized about: ‘The Music of the
Spheres’. The profound order and tremendously rich sonority kept them up all night –
just from enthusiastic awe.
It is recommended to listen to these recordings for example from Jupiter’s magnetic field. Its authenticity was confirmed by the
CD-producer Dr. Thompson as being NASAregistered ion-acoustic waves transformed
into the sound medium.3
It is difficult to say what makes the strongest impression upon me in relation to these
sounds, which one is tempted to call music
– but that is ‘forbidden’, just as it is, for instance, with birdsong since it is beyond human genesis, therefore unconsciously produced, and therefore not ‘music’. And yet, it
Per Nørgårds skrifter. Udgivet af Ivan Hansen. Dansk Center for Musikudgivelse - www.kb.dk/dcm
is difficult to avoid the late-antiquity philosopher Boethius’s terms for the three aspects of
the Music of the Spheres: only one of these is
audible, produced by human beings, musica
instrumentalis, whereas the other two are inaudible; respectively, musica humana, where
Man’s very psycho-physical movements are regarded as (inaudible) music, and musica mundana, ‘The Music of the World’, generated by
the movements of the planets, the harmony
of which represents the most perfect harmony. This is also inaudible – until now, I am attempted to add, when Voyager I and II can allow us to ‘hear snapshots’, wave-recordings
transformed into audible sound by the collisionsless shock effects that are produced incessantly by the meeting of the solar winds
with the magnetic fields of planets and moons.
The shock effects are discharged as ‘ionacoustic waves’, which, true enough, distribute themselves out over thousands of kilometers – in contrast to ‘normally-audible’
airborne tones that range between a few centimeters and a couple of meters. The frequencies of the shock effects are, nevertheless,
analogous with the airborne tones (between
20 and 20,000 oscillations per second).
Just before this I expressed my uncertainty
as to what makes the greatest impact upon me
where these ‘Jupiterian harmonies’ are concerned. With that I meant that the elementary
beauty I experience through these sounds is
in itself remarkable – because normally the
radio waves from space, for example, usually do not distinguish themselves with other
than crackling noise, like poorly adjusted receivers, and chaotic phenomena are not associated with profoundly beautiful impressions. But within the Jupiter-waves (and the
waves from other planets) there is the abundant harmonic richness that is otherwise produced by harmoniously-formed objects, such
as wine glasses, musical instruments, or Æolian harps, and which is to a high degree connected with the strongest, basically sensual,
expressions of beauty within classical music...
At the same time, it perhaps makes an
even greater impression upon me that in between waves of recurrent major (overtone)
risings, long stretches of minor harmonies (G
minor, to be quite precise) occur! Minor is not
a natural tone phenomenon, but a subharmonious one; a kind of resonant echo of the
overtone series, and it is in itself interesting
that a G minor harmony appears so distinctly, in several octaves. But the most dramatic
thing is, I find, that above these minor plateaux a chromatic scale clearly sounds from
E to C-sharp, which indicates a dodecaphonic
field, a division of the octave into twelve equal
intervals. This mathematical conquest is ascribed to Chinese Prince Tsay-yu in 1596, and
magnificently celebrated 200 years later by
Johann Sebastian Bach in the so-called Welltempered Clavier’s two volumes of Preludes
and Fugues. Finally, a piano was capable of
playing in all twelve keys, thanks to human
ingenuity and sense of abstraction.
And now, we listen to dodecaphonic fields
from interplanetary space!
I do hope that the presentation of these
phenomena has made sense – and especially that the order of the presentations allows
them to appear as one, unbroken narrative.
(If nothing else it expresses the approach
that is, I suppose, characteristic of the way
in which I combine my thoughts, normally
by composing, which means setting things
beside each other.) My narrative began with
the new picture of cosmos – ‘the human universe’, the improbable secret melody – and
subsequently this was caused to make music,
so to speak, as we can hear, during a moment
from a (presumable) normal weekday in Jupiters history. Thus, I have attempted to establish a certain background for considering, in
the following, possible effects of the planetary
revolutions’ cycle during the aforementioned
1000-years phases. Which was, of course, the
starting point as well…
However, as I hope you will remember, at
the time I anticipated the continuation, and
promised that I would first argue in favor of it
being reasonable to ascribe 1000-year passages as having a certain influence upon earthly
life, including cultural life. Immediately following, I would do my utmost to dispel the, as
we have seen, rather frightening possibility
of a collective-agitation connected with the
approaching new year. And for this I guess
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the time has come, and what I want to argue
for in this connection can be summed up in
one sentence:
‘Yes, but we have, in all probability, passed
the Great Round Year long ago!’
The protests that will arise against this
will naturally refer to calendars and other
irrefutable arguments, but remember, in
my argument in favor of believing that the
1000-years’rhythms in our solar system have a
certain effect, I have until now not mentioned
any particular year, ‘round’ or ‘not round’!
It is, therefore, on the one hand – based on
what I have indicated – not out of the question
that a 1000-year rhythm can give resonance
to, or stimulate, a specific type of disturbance.
This disturbance, having arisen during a certain magnetic condition within the solar system, can subsequently display a tendency to
return 1000 years later, when the planetary
configuration is renewed.
Historical evidence tells us that there, in
fact, prevailed a great collective agitation in
the century before Year Zero, provable, among
other ways, by a great number of Doomsday
preachers and prophets. We know that the
conception of the dramatic events surrounding Jesus did later lead to – rather late, by the
way – appointing a ‘Year Zero’, called the birth
year of Jesus. My guess is that possible millennial disturbances fluctuate around the ‘Round
Number’, whether 0, 1000 or 2000.
If so, I think that in our time they began to
appear as early as 1914. It becomes still more
apparent that catastrophic interruptions, in
the face of all known cultural development,
occurred then, and at the same time a flood
of new ideas developed: destructive-constructive, disrespectful, awe-inspiring, and worldremodeling scientific revolutions, such as
Einstein’s and Bohr’s – all of this, in fact, happened around 1914. And the trauma due to
the millions of dead was supposed to ‘turn
out the lights of Europe for the rest of this
century’, as your foreign minister of that time
here in England prophetically pronounced.
Enough of this: to regard a new departure
such as this as a challenge to humanity that
requires many centuries to answer and master is inevitable. We do not need any more Ar4
mageddons just now, thanks! (Furthermore,
as early as several years prior to the World
War, the Austrian Karl Kraus, who was a kind
of joumalistic consciousness of that age, appointed Vienna as the “Experimental Station
for the End of the World”.)
If we, based on this, should now try to take
a look 1000 years backwards, we would find
that western compositional music was born
around that time. Guido of Arezzo (and his
inspirational teacher) is credited with the
honor of having drafted the first consistently
utilized staff notation with its unambiguous
note specifications on lines, or in the spaces
between. Guido’s invention – one is tempted
to say discovery – quickly spread, and the consequences soon manifested themselves.
These were so considerable that one can
regard Guido’s notational Columbus-egg
as the very prerequisite for western music’s
unique development, as well as its global dissemination and colossal influence upon the
music playing and composing of other cultures. This latter fact is especially due to its
typically western, ‘handy’ technology: the
simplicity and ease of reproducing the seven
tones and ‘three chord-shapes on the guitar’.
It is precisely this simplicity, which also
suggests, however, that the limitations of the
initial development would have become fatally claustrophobic if the compositional energies had not pointed out beyond the system,
towards ‘other territories’.
This is yet another sign that the period up
to 1914 represented a millennial conclusion –
and thus the tumultuous commencement of
a new age – that a series of musical, harmonious, melodic, rhythmic and sound experiments was initiated (which to this day have
yet to delineate a new leading style).
II.
The explosive impulse which emanated from
the notation becomes intelligible if one –
in the rear view mirror – takes a look at the
enormous field that now opened itself up to
the composers’ and musicians’ mutual and
swift communication: ideas were exchanged,
inspired each other, created opportunities
for the pursuit of particular, fertile, develop-
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ments. In short, the foundation was laid for
the branched network we know as western
music culture.
This chain of contributions has been
made possible by economic foundations provided by those in power at any time that commissioned musicians and composers. Works
written to patrons’ requirements – masses,
operas, court music, and so forth – naturally
reflect the taste of the period and behave respectfully in every way where their employers
are concerned, as a matter of course. Therefore accusations have been made against
composers such as Haydn and Mozart: that
they were ‘lackeys’ of the aristocracy. (Thus
their works were forbidden during the socalled Chinese Cultural Revolution.) This is
difficult to argue against because such duties were the prerequisites for survival (which
Beethoven was the first seriously to oppose).
What is amazing is that against this background of ‘compulsory music production’
throughout the centuries, the development
once begun remained consistent. It even
seemed goal-oriented, in spite of the many
and varying masters and their time- and situation-determined demands upon their hired
composer-servants. The answer, I believe, is
linked to the concept of multiple meanings,
or ambiguity. You may associate this with the
suitcase that has a double bottom: with ambiguity, there can be two kinds of baggage within the same dispatch.
Here lies, perhaps, part of the explanation:
composers (in any case, the ‘great masters’)
have supplemented their commissioned
commodity with a depth and brilliance that
has built abridge over distances, generations
and centuries. As I shall attempt to exemplify,
it seems as though, seen in the millennium’s
rear view mirror, they all dedicated their efforts to the weaving of an immense carpet –
traceable across the epochs – whose content
of sounding symbols concerns all people, not
just the princes.
We are compelled to ask how this ambiguity can be detected musically at all? In order to find some kind of answer we must focus on the musical experience: by way of cool
analysis we can establish that this also de-
pends upon a type of ambiguity – a fact that I
will elaborate upon later. To begin with, I will
take a closer look at the phenomenon ‘ambiguity’ itself by illustrating it with a sisterphenomenon, ‘interference’, which likewise
is based upon a double meaning – or rather,
double foundations of any kind. Interference
means ‘strife’ (of a constant or transient nature) which emanates from two contrary causes, but is expressed as ‘something entirely different’: the interference.
The simplest term for this is ‘beats’, which
are the result of two tones so close to each
other that our ear only perceives them to be
one: the (imaginary) one in the centre, supplemented by (equally imaginary) ‘beats’ in
a tempo corresponding to the difference between the frequency of the two tones, the cycles per second, the so-called hertz (Hz).
If for instance, the concert pitch 440 cycles
per second sounds simultaneously with another slightly deeper tone (433), a third tone
is heard right in between them, but so close
to the others it is almost imperceptible that
there is any difference what so ever between
the pitches; but we now hear beats in a tempo of seven per second – a phenomenon used
in my electronic composition The Enchanted
Forest from 1969.
This, then, is the ‘primordial-interference’,
the physical phenomenon which, however,
can be applied with advantage to a number of
areas, first and foremost to the fundamental
conditions within the essence of music itself.
We find, namely, that the actual experience
of every listener is unpredictable; this unpredictability – and with this, the impossibility
of dictating the musical experience – derives
from the double origin of music: during every
moment, the musical work informs us about
the continuation of a time lapse, a tone play.
We can call it the melody, or Melos, which
stretches ‘backwards’ in our memory and at
the same time projects itself as expectation of
that which is approaching.
This is the temporal aspect. But each moment this ‘melos’ is transported by one sound
or another – although the word ‘transported’ is misleading: Melos is identical with the
‘transporting’ sound! Sound is, however, nev-
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er neutral: a horn tone, a human voice or thunder is already narrative. But this narrative-initself also can be represented beyond sound,
by well-known formulas, rhythms and so on
– which also suggests a (semantic-interpretable) reality, for example, the Viennese waltz
mood, the pub, church, and so forth – in other
words, independent of the distended ‘melos’.
Our attention cannot be in two places –
but can swiftly fluctuate between, for example, the sound’s now and the current of the
direction. Herein exists the interference, the
‘strife’, that makes every listening experience unique, since the fluctuating ‘listening
dance’ between two poles can never be controlled or, therefore, recreated (not even if the
source of the experience is identical, for example, a CD).
The musical basis in the sound, and its immediate sensualism, has been throughout
time over-accentuated to the detriment of the
comprehension of music-as-a-phenomenon.
Thus, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard places music, on a scale of values, lower than language, which is ‘higher’ because
it enlightens the concepts and the activity of
thought. In contrast with language, music is a
kind of indecipherable mumbling, although
filled with sensual delight – with Mozart’s Don
Giovanni being ‘the opera of operas’ since this
notorious personage represents the opera’s
motif as well as its material – music!
To this I respond that it’s true: the musical work, or parts of it, cannot say “yes” or
“no”; but it is precisely this apparent lack that
becomes a strength, since it can express itself analogously with human psychical processes, which can hardly be said to be logical
and which, all too often, contain a “yes” and
a “no” at the same time – in different layers!
In for example Symphony No. 9 by Gustav
Mahler (movement 4, bar 72-) it is possible
1. Vl.
≥ ≤
bb b b 4 ~~~~~
n˙
& b 4
Eks. 1
6
to perceive a rising melody as well as a falling one. These two contrarily directed movements manifest themselves as one single melody voice, paradoxically split up and yet one.
See Ex. 1.
Thus, my reaction to Kierkegaard placing language on a higher level is to accept it, but with
the reservation that music is absolutely not
on a ‘lower’, but on a deeper, level.
This ‘depth’ is identical to its ambiguity,
its non-logical ability to bear two or more messages. And this includes, on the social level,
for example, paying lip-service to the Soviet
regime the way Shostakovich did, while the
subtext may be, later, interpreted as mockery
or despair.4
Mozart is the typical example of a composer who, while used to associating with those
who rule, at the same time dealt with them in
a liberally humorous way – even now and then
rebellious with a hidden agenda, for example,
concerning the employers’ unfair privileges. ‘Now if Mozart had been a nice boy’, said
my Parisian teacher, Nadia Boulanger, during the exposition of a Mozart sonata movement, ‘then he would have conventionally finished the bass line (that began stepwise, and
had no rest). But Mozart was not a nice boy’,
hissed Nadia, ‘So he did something completely different and unexpected’, which she then
demonstrated for us.
However, ambiguity is, first and foremost, the vehicle of an evolution, maintained
throughout the centuries but never enunciated, an evolution that reveals itself indirectly as
a secret tale of human characteristic features,
recurrent in many stylistic attires throughout time. What we know as emotions are here
expressed in manifold ways and ambiguity
shines through and fluctuates like emotional phosphorescence in a Mozart-Adagio (for
n ≥œ n œ
nœ œ
≥
#œ nœ
œ nœ
S
S
S
S
molto cresc.
(Wieder altes tempo.)
w
Griffbrett.
˙.
pp subito
Per Nørgårds skrifter. Udgivet af Ivan Hansen. Dansk Center for Musikudgivelse - www.kb.dk/dcm
Œ
instance Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488,
movement 2), where one’s expectations are
often thwarted – by developments resulting
in still more tremendous expectations.
The ‘Secret Tale’ in the multi-ambiguous repertoire of masterpieces throughout a thousand years can perhaps bring to mind The Secret Melody I spoke of in connection with the
recent astronomical insights. And in reality
there really is a peculiar trait that they seem
to have in common: both unfold according
to apparently incidentally cross-operating
natural laws – for example, those of entropy
and the speed of light with respect to the universe, and where music is concerned, those
which reign and are stipulated at any given
time (and hereby function as a kind of ‘natural law’). But for the development of both it
holds true, at the same time, that – in addition to the constantly changing conditions
and incidental expressions of style – a superior image is formed: The Secret Melody (or a
‘Secret Tale’).
It manifests itself gradually and indirectly
as, for example, variations, on increasingly enriched levels of thus far unillustrated or underexposed emotional expressions. This is traceable from the designation ‘stile concitato’, the
agitated style created by Claudio Monteverdi
around 1600, varied and enriched in the ‘crescendo’ (gradually increased dynamics) of the
Mannheim symphonies around 1750, which
in the beginning caused the audience to get
up, slowly, as though in a trance; reappearing
in magnificent bloom with Beethoven, who
created symphonic movements that appear as
enthusiastic gesticulations, laid bare for the
first time – and further evolved in the LoveDeath-ecstasy of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde
as an uninterrupted, orgastic rising with ensuing fall during Isolde’s Liebestod.
But these kinds of evolutions can be followed over the stylistic epochs, chains of
events which are just as inconceivable in time
reversal as the notion of blooming and wilting in reverse order: the cyclical phenomenon
that shows itself in fullest expression, for example, from the Arias of the Baroque period
to Schubert’s Lieder – a development we take
as a natural result because we, so to speak,
‘have never known any other music history’.
But when you come to think of it, there is
nothing at all natural about these mental dispatch riders working among the composers,
an instantaneous acknowledgement of the
importance of an innovation, as when Mozart
spontaneously wrote six quartets in the ‘new
style’ Haydn had just invented.
The network of correlations, obvious and
concealed, coming down through the ages
and across borders, is enormously rich, but
forms a strikingly homogenous developmental history. It occurs as an unconsciously performed, collective act through generations – a
tropism across the centuries – when the repertoire of musical expression appears to expand so purposefully.
Traceable by means of the scores, the consistent and continuous pursuit of ‘goals’ appears, goals set as early as the commencement of the millennium and which resulted
from notation.
This I will further exemplify musically by
comparing transitions from two musical ages
– and again point out the analogous developmental traits: in the transition from the Notre
Dame masters Leonin (for instance his 2-part
organum, Viderunt omnes) and his successor
of the next generation, Perotin (for instance
his 4-part organum, Sederunt principles); we
can, by comparing their music, clearly register an abrupt change from long-spun independent lines to monolithic sound-blocks,
analogous to the similarly sudden shift from
the late Romantic polyphony of César Franck
(for instance Fugue for organ, from Op. 18) to
Debussy’s orientally-inspired impressionism
(for instance La cathédrale engloutie).
One could further examine the equally
abrupt transition from the heavily encumbered late Baroque (up to 1750) to the transparency and clarity of the early Classical period, the so-called Rococo period, but the
intention is not to give a lecture on musical
history – only to ponder some traits which
have increasingly fascinated me, in any case,
throughout the years.
■
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Now it is far from my view that this observation of human traits, recorded over the centuries, has in itself refined human beings; that
would be the manifestation of a brand new
history. On the other hand, there is something
insistent, something informative, about the
indisputably great narrative that makes me
thoughtful: as mentioned earlier, a developmental tendency of a non-accidental nature
seems to underlie the series of individual
works, along with the fact that they are independently typical expressions of their time.
But to whose benefit? To ours – human beings – one must believe!
But to what good? Here the ‘alternative
universe’ concept of a musical composition
may be of some help.5 If the listener identifies
him/herself with the perceived sounds as a
tone world, outside him/herself and yet within, the alternative universe will open up. He/
she will then perceive the performed music
as a proposed interpretation of connections
within a resounding cosmos. The movement
of the mind will be spontaneously creating
order (‘why else should those tones sound?’)
and rendering possible experiences of stories
other than those of everyday life – suggested
by the playing, which appeals to Man’s ability to explore, and our desire for, the imaginary
order of game playing.
When Schubert created expressions for his
universes that were very much his own, consisting of sounding feelings (or sentient tones)
in the alternative universe’s playing spirit,
they were imparted to the immediate surroundings, which found them fascinating and
Strange – all at once. A few years after his death,
his very singularly-toned universes became intonations close to the heart of everyone!
Thus, each of us retrieves one’s self in Schubert’s unique discovery of the light-and-dark
alternations between major and minor (for instance in his String Quartet in G, D. 887, movement 1). Between tears and smiles is found one
of the many ambiguous emotions so familiar to every one of us. Through music such as
Schubert’s, the soul has received a voice.
As the swimmer and the diver must be able
to understand and form a conception of the
current and wave situation, so does Man –
8
placed with no security in a frightening world
– find himself on the lookout for any guidance for orientation, for the safeguarding of
his existence.
Through a qualified musical work, the listener does take part in a world of meanings –
on the basis of a concept of the order of tones,
where, however, the interpretation is that of
the listener.
That the whole thing is imaginary is precisely what makes the playing in the learning
experience possible, in contrast to the ‘real
reality’ where a playing attitude could prove
to be fatal – and where one is hardly tempted
to imagine that reassuring order rules all over
the world, alas.
While the notated music up to now has
been a western affair, globalization and undreamt-of mergers with electronic media
seem to have assumed such proportions
that the future of concert music and notated
scores appears highly uncertain.
However, it is my conviction – of which I
hope I have given a clear expression – that it
is precisely the notated musical phenomenon
(which is accessible to reflection and inspection) which possesses unique possibilities
for ‘mind operating mind’: journeys into our
own consciousness. With notated scores, it is
as if we had a key to ‘revisiting’ our dreams,
as often and in as detailed a way as we desire.
And a key like that is one you really would take
good care of, wouldn’t you?
That it is essential for Man to express himself through music’s interferential medium
probably hangs together, when all is said and
done, with the fact that Man himself is an interference (that is, a being of double origin),
an ambiguous creature.
Our double foundation is still so hidden, or
rather, so welded together in our consciousness, though, that it appears to be an entity.
Each one of us feels one’s self to be a responsible ‘I’, a self despite our reptile brains’ often
destructive – self-destructive – takeover of the
course of action, to the detriment of overview
and rational choice. This has led to catastrophes, but has also provided inspiration for
gripping love poetry and passionately erotic music.
Per Nørgårds skrifter. Udgivet af Ivan Hansen. Dansk Center for Musikudgivelse - www.kb.dk/dcm
I’m thinking especially of, for example,
mistaking a ‘roguish appearance’ for a ‘sister
soul’, which has created so much sweet confusion. The confusion is within every single one
of us – and is explained most briefly by the interference between the beast, with its present
moment-focusing, instinct-ruled inarticulateness, and that which we can call the spirit
or the soul, or whatever one prefers – but as a
phenomenon is expressed precisely throughout the ages, from Buddha to Heidegger, as
the suffering consciousness.
It is suffering because it is in fact constantly burdened by guilt and pressured by fear,
delivered, as it feels, to a threatening world
that surrounds it. This also holds true for other creatures, to be sure, but, contrary to these,
Man is loaded down with a permanent knowledge of this fact, as well as of his own certain,
impending death – a knowledge that opens
up desperation concerning the ultimate and
absurd termination on all levels. All of this is
due to the ability of consciousness to recall
and to imagine coming events (thus, exactly
the same ability that is required for the musical experience).
Every well-oriented person around the
2000-years millennial change knows that their
appearance, behavior and mating instincts
are genetically contingent. Strictly speaking,
it is all ‘masks looking at masks’ when people
meet; but we are still hypnotized to presume
that sincerity lies behind the culturally contingent expression in the, for example, roguish face. And so, then you make a mistake, you
disappoint the other person – and may be disappointed yourself, for the umpteenth time
(how often it is we have heard: ‘All of a sudden
he/she was like a stranger to me!’). However,
I cherish belief that music can also help us in
this conflict: through the continued dedication of musical expression of ambivalence,
for tears and smiles, for beast and soul, we can
perhaps gradually distinguish the individual
levels, forces or ‘brains’ – and be less abandoned to our continuous inner circus and its
entertaining, but dangerously delusive, ambiguity that is always asking you out to dance. If
we could reach so far as to distinguish between
‘mask’ and consciousness (knowing that the
mask is not ‘evil’, but an absolute necessary
instrument for communication), we would –
perhaps – be able to pass through the present,
when you come to think of it, primitive stage
in mankind’s evolution (that has been characterized by the Swedish film creator Ingmar
Bergman as our ‘emotional illiteracy’).
In the event that someone within the audience should feel the lack of a chief common denominator for these numerous and
–admittedly – widely branching reflections,
I would like to suggest the following observation concerning each and every one of this
lecture’s topics: it seems as if there is a spiritual aspect, just as well as a material one, of
any matter. Doesn’t it?
Noter
1 Thomas Ring: Das Sonnensystem – ein Organismus. Eine gestalt-teoretische Untersuchung. Deutsche Verlags-anstalt, StuttgartBerlin, 1939.
2 Trin Xuan Thuan: La mélodie secréte.
Fayard, Paris 1988. English version:”The
secret melody (– and man created the universe)”, Oxford University Press, 1995.
3 Space Sound Recordings (NASA-Voyager I
& II) 1990 Brain/Mind Research 204 N EL
Camino Real Suite E-116 Encinitas, CA
92024, USA. And: Collisionless Chock Waves
by R.Z. Sagdeer and C.F. Kennal – in “Scientific American”, April 1991.
Several examples from the CD series
were played at the lecture, here the mentioned Jupiter magnetic fields.
4 Excerpt for the book Testimony: the Memory of Dmitri Shostakovitch, ed. Solomon Volkov (London, Hamilton, 1979), p. 21:
“The simple-minded demands of Soviet
officialdom became more and more difficult for him to endure.
What was Shostakovitch to do? He could
not, and did not want to, enter into open
conflict with the authorities. Yet it was
clear to him that total submission threatened to become a creative dead end. He
chose another path. Whether consciously
or not, Shostakovitch became the second
(Mussorgsky was the first) great yurodivy
composer.
Per Nørgårds skrifter. Udgivet af Ivan Hansen. Dansk Center for Musikudgivelse - www.kb.dk/dcm
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The yurodivy is a Russian religious phenomenon, which even the cautious Soviet scholars call a national Russian trait.
There is no word in any other language
than can precisely convey the meaning of
the Russian word yurodivy, with its many
historical and cultural overtones.
The yurodivy has the gift to see and hear
what others know nothing about. But he
tells the world about his insights in an intentionally paradoxical way, in code. He
plays fool, while actually being persistent
exposer of evil and injustice. The yurodivy
is an anarchist and individualist, who in
his public role breaks the commonly held
‘moral’ laws of behavior and flouts conventions. But he sets strict limitations, rules
and taboos for himself.
The origins of yurodivy go back to the
fifteenth century and even earlier; it existed as a noticeable phenomenon until the
eighteenth century. During all that time,
the yurodivy could expose injustice and remain in relative safety. The authorities recognized the right of the yurodivy to criticize and be eccentric – within limits. Their
influence was immense. Their confused
prophetic words were heeded by tsars and
peasants alike. Yurodivy was usually innate, but it might be taken on voluntarily,
‘for the sake of Christ’. An number of educated men became yurodivy as a form of intellectual criticism, of protest.
Shostakovitch was not the only one to
become a ‘new yurodivy’. This behavior
model had gained certain popularity in
his cultural milieu. The young Leningrad
Dadaists, forming the Oberiu Circle, behaved the yurodivy. The popular satirist
Mikhail Zoshchenko created a consistent
yurodivy mask for himself, and he had a
deep effect on the manner and expression
of Shostakovitch.
For these new yurodivy the world lay in
ruins, and the attemps to build a new society was – at leat for the time being – an
obvious failure. They were naked people
on a naked earth. The lofty values of the
past had been discredited. New ideals, the
felt, could only be affirmed ‘in reverse’.
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They would have to be conveyed through
a screen of mockery, sarcasm, and foolishness.”
5 As expressed in a new book about musical
experience (in Danish) by Jens Kjeldsen:
Den klingende orden – Systime, 1999 (”The
sounding order” – in Danish).
■
The article is a slightly modified version of a
paper manuscript (translated from the original in Danish: Dobbelbunden: I musikværket,
i musikoplevelsen og i mennesket), given at the
Jubilee Hall, on Monday 21 June 1999, during the Fifty-Second The Aldeburgh Festival
of Music and the Arts: Ambiguity: in musical
composition, in musical experience and in man.
Reflections on a millennial change” – for The
Prince of Hesse Memorial Lecture, 1999.
A correction was made after 1999 (concerning the numbers mentioned with one of
the planets in the beginning), and the original ‘CD-listening examples’ integrated in the
Aldeburgh lecture is in the written version
here only mentioned or shown with a note example. (Original CD playlist: examples from
the listed Space Sound Recordings (NASA-Voyager I & II), Per Nørgård: The Enchanted Forest
(electronic work by Per Nørgård, 1969 – private production, not on CD), Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 9 (from movement 4), W.
A. Mozart: Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488
(from movement 2), Leonin: 2-part organum
Viderunt omnes, Perotin: 4-part organum
Sederunt principles, Cesar Franck: Fugue for
organ, from Op. 18, C. Debussy: La cathédrale
engloutie, Fr. Schubert: String Quartet in G, D.
887, from movement 1.
The (corrected) Danish version was published in the book Per Nørgård: Tilbageblik
– Undervejs. Artikler 1956-2009. Redigeret af
Ivan Hansen (Edition Wilhelm Hansen, 2009)
– also contained in this archive.
■
Artiklen er et let redigeret foredragsmanuskript (en oversat engelsk version af
originalen Dobbelbunden: I musikværket, i
musikoplevelsen og i mennesket. Overvejelser
omkring et årtusinde, 1999) til et foredrag
Per Nørgårds skrifter. Udgivet af Ivan Hansen. Dansk Center for Musikudgivelse - www.kb.dk/dcm
holdt på The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and
the Arts 1999: Ambiguity: in musical composition, in musical experience and in man. Reflections on a millennial change” – for The Prince
of Hesse Memorial Lecture, 1999.
Den oprindelige danske version var
udgangspunkt for optrykket i bogen Per
Nørgård: Tilbageblik – Undervejs. Artikler
1956-2009. Redigeret af Ivan Hansen (Edition
Wilhelm Hansen, 2009) – også indeholdt i
dette arkiv – hvor bl.a. en tal-fejl (vedr. planetforholdene) justeredes i forhold til 1999-versionen.
Per Nørgårds skrifter. Udgivet af Ivan Hansen. Dansk Center for Musikudgivelse - www.kb.dk/dcm
11