The evolution of my musical thinking over the period 2008-13 has been essentially driven by the quest for a personal language capable of asserting a genuinely contemplative musical idiom. In this context, how to dissociate rhythmic structuring from pitch organisation at the compositional level is recognised as a key question. It is addressed through a reflection focusing on two major aspects: (i) the formalisation of intervallic transformation processes based on topological principles, and (ii) the development of techniques of temporal organisation aimed at establishing rhythmic design as an autonomous compositional resource. Intervals are primarily conceived as plastic structures rather than acoustical phenomena. As such, they are subject to distortional forces that transform one interval class into another. Intervallic distortion is performed by means of an inversional procedure using a dual axis of symmetry on the pitch-class clock. Its formalisation draws on David Lewin's transformational theory. The technique provides a constructive principle for generating complex pcset sequences. Temporal organisation is systematically derived from a network of spatial coordinates (or 'time-point matrix') that defines the rhythmic surface of the music independently from pitch. The time-point matrix is conceived as a stratified structure combining various layers, each of which consists of a linear pattern of time-points, regular or not, itself forming a sequence of temporal intervals. The resulting methodology of composition consists in essence in projecting a harmonic scheme onto a time-point matrix. By confining the harmonic grammar to pc-set transformations based on intervallic distortion and apprehending the physical time of the composition as a bi-dimensional map - i.e., a fixed spatial expanse - rather than a linear flow, the system seeks to establish an intrinsically static, non-narrative mode of discourse.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:654569 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Metzger, Jean-Paul |
| Publisher | University of Bristol |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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