[silence] origins and purposes / tonal aleatorism

[David Badagnani]

Good luck with your research.  If you're interested in use of aleatorism in modal/tonal music one example that's often overlooked is Alan Hovhaness's "Spirit Murmur" technique, which I think he first used in the excellent piano concerto "Lousadzak" of 1944.  Cage, Cunningham, and Harrison became associated with Hovhaness c. 1945 after hearing a New York performance of this piece and while Hovhaness didn't approve of Cage's later, more philosophical (i.e. "less musical," to him) works, I think they had a lifelong admiration for one another and I think Hovhaness, Cage, and Harrison appeared together at an event at the Cornish Institute in Seattle sometime around the 1980s.  In Hovhaness's 2000 New York Times obituary, Cage was quoted as saying that Hovhaness produced music much as an orange or lemon tree produces fruit, a beautiful quote, I thought.
   
  By the way, for some reason in academic texts and courses Lutoslawski is usually given the credit for introducing, 10 years *later*, pretty much exactly what Hovhaness had been doing since 1944, though Hovhaness didn't give his technique a Greek name or use fancy boxes to surround the free rhythm sections in his pieces. ;-)
   
  For more about Hovhaness, see the website www.hovhaness.com -- note in particular the photo of a young Cage in the "Gallery" section, with Cunningham at a party at Hovhaness's house, maybe around 1946.
  --
  David Badagnani
  Kent, Ohio
  USA

Dionisis Boukouvalas <paistinpotamia@hotmail.com> wrote:
  I am presently doing my master, examining the history and actual 
possibilities of aleatorism

Different kinds of aleatorism: Compositional, as in Music of changes. 
Interpretational, as in all the indeterminate works. Morover: Variaties of 
compositional aleatorism, like Cage and Xenakis (a totally different 
apporach). I would very much appreciate any bibliographical suggestion on 
the origins and purposes/goals of aleatorism.

What strikes me as more interesting though, is what one can make out of 
aleatorism in our days. I think aletorism is a wonderful tool that can 
permit us to compose "tonal" music (I include modal music here) liberating 
us of its historical connotations. A nice example is Cage's Litany for the 
whale. I am not sure if Ear for EAR is aleatoric too (?) Which other works 
by Cage fall in this category? Which ones of other composers? Attention: I 
am not talking about potential tonality. E.g. Many of Feldman's graphic 
pieces can be tonal if the interpreter choses so. These are not interesting 
to me. I am talking here about works where tonality is inescapable (that 
conciders, as much as I see it, compositional aleatorism).

Thank you!
 
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