Punctualism

Point Music is a way of composing that has been used by many composers, especially in Europe about 1949-1955. It is a special form of serial music. The term was, inter alia, retrospectively applied to the music of Anton Webern. But he was originally created by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Herbert Eimert to describe works such as Olivier Messiaen's " Mode de valeurs et d' intensités " (1949 ). However, he is most often associated with serial works such as the Structures of Pierre Boulez, Book 1 (1952 ), the Sonata for Two Pianos and number 2 for thirteen instruments by Karel Goeyvaerts, and Luigi Nono Polifonica - Monodia - Ritmica, early as well as with some compositions by Stockhausen ( eg cross game). Herman Sabbe argues, however, that " Stockhausen never actually certain points " have composed. The hitherto rarely played Swiss composer Hermann Meier worked at the same time also with selective techniques.

Background

A concept for Point Music was first published in 1954 by Pierre Boulez as text ( " Recherches maintenant ", 1954), the question Stockhausen article " On the situation of the craft " from 1952 remained unpublished until 1963. Boulez wrote later: "Nevertheless, an excess of arithmetic despite we had reached a certain, punctuality ' of sound, by which I literally mean the intersection of different functional possibilities at one point understand. What caused this, selective ' style? The unjustified refusal of Thematizismus. "

The term describes a music "whose structures mainly take place from note to note without conventional vertical ( sounds ) or horizontal ( melodic ) ' Create ' should be perceived. " The idea of music as 'space', or ' gas ' rather than as a body in space should be realized the Tonpunkte should be ( in this or that concept ) in the room or even yourself, select the room ( the space between) -. roughly comparable to different sized and colored beads (see Hermann Hesse's influence on Karl Heinz Stockhausen ) of different materials ( relating in a wire sculpture by very specific laws on those qualities combinations) are all located in the same spatial distance from each other ( because it is supposed no weight more between loud and soft, high and low, etc. more exist ).

And the single tone as ' point ' (ie the ideal point which has its counterpart in the ideal, infinitely small ' Nu ' or ' moment ') should be displayed. Above all, the duration of a tone was only a quality like others (volume, color, height, etc. ). The tone duration should not exceed ( elevation sedimentation system ) to be taken in a metric - proportional relationship system, but ' Detemporalized ' and ' enträumlicht '. The ' point ' took the place of the ' subject ' or ' shape ' and was now even the actual object. His ' shape ' was no longer in successive tonal relationships, but sat out of the relationship while and distinctive qualities parameters in a single sound, in a single moment together. It is similar to walking through a gallery: It occurs before this, then before that ... Karlheinz Stockhausen calls this an " attentive passivity " - the only way to the ( actually very strict serial ) order of the whole set of ' points ' (1952 /53) open. And this (probably ) also anyway just sublime, so without ' rational eye-opener '.

However, especially the demand for the elimination of vertical ( simultaneous ) tonal relationships is controversial here, since the single tone is quite unsystematic provided with different spectral ' colors', the ' chords ' ie simultaneous relationships ( sine ) are indeed from an acoustic perspective tones. In English and French, there was a problem of understanding, since the term was translated as Pointillism or musique Pointilliste, the painting style of pointillism has nothing to do with the Point Music.

Methods, techniques

It was so doing that we then assigned each note of a composition discrete values ​​of scale of the four parameters pitch, duration, volume, and velocity. Selective dynamic means, for example,

That all dynamic values ​​are fixed; a point is directly connected to another on the chosen scale without switching transition. Line dynamics on the other hand involves the transitions from one amplitude to another; crescendo, decrescendo, and combinations thereof. This second category can be defined as a dynamic glissando, comparable to the pitch glissandi and tempos ( accelerando, ritardando ).

" The almost analytic focus on individual events, and the transition between them brings a halt in this music, which is far from the gestural quality of other pieces. " After Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht is with the term " initially primarily the sensation of isolation of tones to points " connected; technically he calls " the sound of music as sound - point ', namely the intersection of element rows of serially organized music."