Anyone Ever Hear of Lutoslawski?

[pianoperfmajor]

If so, I need a little help in this assignment I have to do.  Can anyone give me some ideas on the following question:

Compare and contrast the counterpoint of Bach and the counterpoint in the opening section (up to rehearsal marking 13, or the first 4:38 in the recording) of Lutoslawski’s Chain 3. You may cite other works we have discussed in class to make your arguments. You may also cite works you know from outside class discussions, but please provide a copy of the score or a recording I can have while reading your paper.

Topics you will want to address include, but are not limited to:

    * The concept of line.
    * How is the “integrity of the line”, or the separation of horizontal musical ideas, maintained in these pieces?
    * Generally, what devices did Lutoslawski use that Bach didn’t or couldn’t and vice versa?


Thanks.

[jre58591]

hmm, i wish i could help with that. ive only heard lutoslawski's piano concerto and his paganini variations for 2 pianos. i might give chain 3 a listen someday, so as i can provide some info on it, but im not even in college yet, so what do i know.

[pianoperfmajor]

ahh come on.. no one?  please?

[pianistimo]

ok.  i'm working on it.

[pianistimo]

i found several books at amazon dealing with this composer lutoslawski and stephen stucky's 'lutoslowski and his music' seems to be the one that gets into the music the most, although charles bodmen rae has some good stuff, too.  he calls lutoslawski's music 'aletonism' where the harmonic system is non-tonal.  this would be a dramatic shift from having to make sure every note fits a harmonic scheme and modulates correctly, to 'anything goes' basically.  so you can bring in the voices pretty much anywhere you wish, right?  i haven't listened to lutoslawski's music - so am now looking for some of it just to look at.

can you put up the pieces that you consider 'counterpointish?'

as a side note:  under 'mozart's counterpoint' in https://punctuscontrapunctus.blogspot.com

"in october 9, 1770, mozart presented his admission test for the bologne accademia de filarmonici, a very prestigious institute that remains to our days as one of the finest in the world.  the test mozart was set to solve was to compose a four part piece on an anonymous gregorian antiphon, quarite primum regneum dei.  (mozart was only 14! and most people took 3-4 hours to complete the test. mozart did it within a 1/2 hour).

there is a picture under this little blog of the counterpoint of mozart - this very piece!

[pianistimo]

https://members.shaw.ca/steenhuisen/wonder.htm  seems to have some interesting stuff.  guess he composed some preludes and fugues.

"the tape part is divided into 14 cues (speaking of 'wonder'), each played back alternately from two compact disks over a powerful, minimum six-channel acousmatic diffusion system."

guess the main reason for his type of counterpoint was resonance?

vocabulary:
spectral analysis
vibration
moveable points of transposition/inversion
metriproportional notation

[pianoperfmajor]

wow great stuff, thanks for the help.  Well one of the pieces referred to in the question itself is ... well of course when i need it i can't find it, but in any event it was a Beethoven string quartet piece.  And I just found another piece we looked at--Mozart Minuet and Trio from Serenade in C Minor, K 338.  But mostly, we focused on Bach, namely the Preludes and Fugues, and the two part inventions.  Thanks.

[pianistimo]

try www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/PMJ/issue/3.2.00/homma.html for more good stuff.  it explains things more and also you have a pic of some of his stuff.  he puts it in four quadrants (as with renaissance choral writing) and the exact alignment of instruments is a matter of chance instead of exact positioning.

and www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/PMJ/issue/5.2.02/reylandlutos.html

[pianoperfmajor]

"We’re sorry! The page you are looking for does not exist."

did a letter get cut out or something?

[pianistimo]

sorry.  i forgot 'dept.'  it's fixed now.

the beethoven string quartet would be a tie-in to lutoslawski's preludes and fugues for 13 strings (or something like that).  i'm really no expert, but i can find info. pretty well now.  check out your periodicals (something i didn't do much of until a couple of years ago.  the reason they are so nice - as with the polish music journal - is that some are translated so you have authentic first hand quotations, etc.).

i tend to get WAY distracted.  take for instance the word 'protean' that is used in the second article.  this gets me thinking of a funny book that had a dr. protean in it.  i think it was in kurt vonneguts 'player piano.'  depending on how much time you have to read - this would be a good distraction after your paper is mostly done - and an illusory insight into music of the times.

[pianoperfmajor]

haha dr. protean.  i shall have to look into that.  but yeah thanks for the time, it certainly has helped.  anything else you come upon don't be shy!  thanks.

[pianistimo]

'strategies in light' might be something you could google about lutoslawski, too.  apparently he was also something of a mathematician.

here is something that lutoslawski wrote about preludes and fugue:

www.chesternovello.com/Default.aspx?TabId=2432&State_2907=2&workId_2907=7736

[pianoperfmajor]

Brilliant!  I should get goin on writing this.. it's due at 4.  Any other insights?  Thanks dudes.

[pianistimo]

i'm a dudette.  here's another site dealing with WTC of bach - explains more the performance side - but interesting nonetheless:  https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/wtc/performance.html

basically, this article brings out the idea that to 'hear the line' means you have to percieve the lengths of notes and give them a hierarchy of tonal value.  a quarter note would not have the same tone as a half-note (given that the half-note has to last longer).

maybe the idea of 'resonance' fits in - since lutoslawski utilizes the idea to bring 'conciousness' of different instruments without covering them up, right?!  i don't really know.  jsut guessing.

[pianistimo]

iannis xenakis brings out more about the idea of 'formalized' composition.  "the collision of hail or rain with hard surfaces, or the song of cicadas in a summer field.  these sonic events are made out of thousands of isolated sounds; this multitude of sounds, seen as totality, is  a new sonic event."  xenakis in 'formalized music:  thought and mathematics in composition.'   he combined ideas from architecture, music, math, and natural phenomenon.

here's another article:

www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/es_lutoslawski.html

formalized music to lutoslawski seems to be in the idea of isolating rhythm and making it more of a variable (not specifying the durations or lining music up horizontally) - and yet the pitch and harmony are specified.  also, he shows how you can play aleatory music 'ad libitum' or in time (just as with certain classical pieces).

i haven't read all of the articles, but i personally think what ties bach and lutoslawski together is the idea of 'formalized' composition.  it is thought out - and yet sounds 'random' at times.  even bach did some way out of the ordinary stuff with his preludes and fugues.  maybe it is an attempt to teach us how to percieve sound on a deeper level.  with bach, when you listen to glen gould, you can start hearing things that you never heard before because he is paying attention not just to the 'melodic line' but the overall scheme.  a sort of working out of a plot.  many characters (or ideas) just as with the 'bundle' idea of lutoslawski.  to hear the elements in the bundle - you have to really listen and know what to look for probably.  maybe listening to the pieces he composed several times - and each time saying 'ooh, look, i heard something new.'  this is always the case with bach as well.

one thing i am very confused about right now is the idea of 'climax.'  with bach, it seems that the climax is at the end of the prelude - but sometimes in the middle of a fugue (is that right?).  now, how does lutoslawski percieve climax.  are they always in the middle of his pieces or does each individual listener determine where the climax actually is?  is this what is so confusing about his work?

[pianoperfmajor]

Yeah, I think this is one thing that makes his work so confusing.  He achieves the climaxes in his music (from what I can tell) by altering and/or building certain elements of the piece, like the texture phrase length, and color.  The location of each climax in each of his works seems to be at different points; not necessarily all in the middle or end.  But the main unique thing here I think is that he achieves these climaxes through manipulating elements of the music probably previously thought not really related to climax at all, and certainly an aspect of his music that is different from Bach.

The idea of resonance definitely fits in too.. in this particular piece i'm analyzing, he focuses on particular 'links' and bringing out lines of certain instruments, etc.  So yeah, great ideas.  You are good at finding things 

[pianistimo]

glad to help.  maybe when you get your paper back you can clue me in.  i'm randomly talking but i've not listened to lutoslawski.