Penderecki

Yale University Department of Music

To Cut the Gordian Knot: The Timbre System of Krzysztof PendereckiAuthor(s): Danuta MirkaSource: Journal of Music Theory, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 435-456Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of the Yale University Department of MusicStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3653444Accessed: 06/01/2010 09:18

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TO CUT THE GORDIAN KNOT:

THE TIMBRE SYSTEM OF

KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI'

Danuta Mirka

Timbre is certainly the most complex parameter of sound perception. In contrast to pitch, loudness, and duration, each of which possesses a single equivalent among the acoustic parameters of sound, timbre depends on the interaction of several physical aspects of sound. These aspects include overtones, wave forms, sound pressure, transients, as well as the number and frequency of formants. Moreover, a sound's frequency and intensity-parameters which relate basically to pitch and loudness-exert an influence on the resulting timbre. The complexity of timbre is evident when one attempts to depict it within a representational space: timbre cannot be modeled within one-dimensional space, but only by means of multi-dimensional scaling techniques (Spender 1980, 401). However, a set that cannot be projected onto a one-dimensional line of real numbers does not constitute an ordered set, and its elements are not comparable in the mathematical sense. As a result, no clear relationship between partic- ular timbres can be established, and hence no rational organization of the perceptual parameter of timbre by means of any rigid system is possible on the acoustic level. This may be why in the course of music history timbre has usually been set aside as a secondary factor of musical form. Even where it achieved a dominant position in the styles of individual composers, as in the case of Debussy or in the Klangfarbenmelodie of

435

Schoenberg, timbre was invariably organized in an intuitive manner. Nor was the problem of timbre solved by serial composers. In spite of the appearances of rationality, the serialization of timbre was essentially arbi- trarily determined. Who, after all, will without qualification agree that the relation between the timbres of violin and contrabass is the same as, say, between the violin and oboe or trumpet con sordino? Assumptions of this sort lie at the base of the timbre rows used in serial compositions. For the young Penderecki, faced with the Gordian knot of timbre, nothing remained to do but to cut it. He did so by transferring wholesale the prob- lematic issue of timbre from the hopelessly muddled acoustic level onto the motoric one: the level of sound generation.

I. Categories

Although the acoustic wave is a highly complex phenomenon, the process of its generation can be presented simply as a collision of two physical bodies, one being a sound source, the other being the body that vibrates the sound source. It is likely that such a splendidly simplified image of the sound-producing process was taken up by Penderecki from the teaching of Mieczyslaw Drobner, the eminent Polish acoustician and organologist. In 1958 Drobner moved from Lodz to Krakow to take the post of lecturer at Panstwowa Wyzsza Szkola Muzyczna, the school where Penderecki had recently finished his study in composition and was employed as an assistant. Two years later, in 1960, the Krak6w publish- ing house Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne (PWM) issued Drobner's book Instrumentoznawstwo i akustyka, which remains the classical Pol- ish handbook of both disciplines-organology and acoustics-named in its title. In this book, Drobner termed the sound source a vibrator, and in his subsequent publications introduced the complementary term, inciter, for the body which agitates the vibrator. A combination of vibrator and inciter is a sound generator. This formulation proposed by Drobner be- came an ideal point of departure for the consistent and rational system of timbre organization elaborated by Penderecki in the early 1960s, the period of his output labeled in Polish musicology as sonoristic.2

At that time Penderecki understood timbre primarily as a function of the materials-in the most common sense of the word-employed in any individual process of sound generation. Therefore the timbral categories in Penderecki's sonorism are based upon materials most commonly used in the construction of the musical instruments and accessories of the traditional symphonic orchestra: metal, wood, leather, felt, and hair.3 These materials can serve as both vibrators and inciters. Yet, while the role of inciter can be played by any of the listed materials, the vibrator can be only a metal, wooden, or leather body. In fact, almost anything can be made to vibrate; thus, it is theoretically possible for felt and hair to act as

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sound sources. But with these materials the vibration is so heavily damp- ened that it does not persist long enough to be heard. In practice, then, at least one of the two sound-generating bodies must be made of metal, wood, or leather. For this reason, I will call these three materials primary materials. In other words, metal, wood, and leather can interact with any material, including themselves. On the other hand, neither of the two remaining materials-hair and felt-ever collides either with itself or with the other within Penderecki's system, but must always interact with one of the materials that constitutes a potential sound source. A simple matrix, shown in the following table (Figure 1), displays all possible pairs of interacting materials.

Though inspired by Drobner's acoustics, Penderecki's system never- theless goes one step further than Drobner. In Penderecki's timbre system, it is of no importance whether metal, wood, and leather are represented by a vibrator or by an inciter, both colliding bodies being of equal weight as primary materials. In this respect Penderecki-if he had wanted-might have referred to the authority of the first father of physics, Sir Isaac Newton: according to Newton's third rule of dynamics, if a body A acts with some force on body B, body B acts with the same but reciprocally directed force on body A. The same principle applies to bodies acting on one another in the process of sound generation. Even if one is accustomed to think that hitting a metal cymbal with a wooden stick results only in the former emitting a sound, in reality what sounds is not only the cymbal, but also the beater. One may generalize this conclusion in the following way: if a given body can be a sound source-that is, if it is made of one of the three materials capable of performing this function

vibrators m w 1

inciters

m mm wm lm

w mw ww lw

1 ml wl 11

h mh wh lh

f mf wf If

Figure 1. Pairs of materials represented by combinations of vibrators and inciters

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m

1 0 . * | . * f* * h * * *

Figure 2. Pairs of materials after the reduction

(m, w, 1)-then it becomes a sound source regardless of whether it is hit, rubbed or plucked or itself hits, rubs or plucks. It follows that the material pairs "mw" and "wm," "ml" and "lm," as well as "wl" and "lw," repeated in the matrix above, may be reduced to single entries. As a result of this reduction, twelve pairs of materials remain (Figure 2). Every such pair indicates one type of sound generator, as well as the type of timbre characteristic of sounds generated by it.

As stated earlier, all the material categories chosen by Penderecki for his timbre system occur among the traditional musical instruments of a symphonic orchestra. This does not by itself mean, however, that a symphonic orchestra with its traditional set of instruments automatically ren- ders the realization of that system practicable. On the contrary, in order to use the timbre system in concrete pieces, Penderecki had to subject the orchestral forces to serious changes. The timbre system presupposed an equal weighting of the three primary materials-metal, wood and leather-in performing the function of vibrators, whereas metal typically predominates in the symphonic orchestra. One merely needs to compare the number of stringed instruments (which constitute the body of the conventional orchestra) augmented by an assortment of cymbals, gongs, tam tams, vibraphones and celestas, to the much smaller number of mem- branes of drums and timpani, and the almost inconspicuous collection of rattles and wood blocks, to convince oneself of this simple fact. Not only is there a greater diversity of metallic objects that generate sound, but metallic objects also predominate in terms of sheer number. To balance this unequal proportion, it was necessary to enlarge the representation of the two remaining material categories: leather and wood.

Beside adding a whole arsenal of percussive instruments-such as rattles (raganella), claves, guiro, xylorimba, wood blocks (blocchi di legno), and drums (casse di legno)-to augment the representation of wooden bodies, the composer also employed several elements of stringed instruments (sound board, fingerboard, bridge, tailpiece, bowstick). Further- more, Penderecki used non-musical equipment that is usually present on

438

stage, but that hitherto had never been exploited for sound production: chairs and stands, which at the beginning of the 1960s were almost always made of wood. To play on these new sound sources, the sticks and nuts of bows were employed. Incidentally, it is worth noting that the selection of new wooden accessories betokens a very pragmatic attitude of the composer. Avoiding the cost that would inevitably result from inventing and producing fanciful percussive tools, he managed to radically increase the number of wooden bodies by using objects near at hand. Moreover, these objects allowed him to diversify the timbre within the group of stringed instruments, enabling him to employ this group separately. In- deed, from among the pieces based on the timbre system, as many as four-Threnody-To the Victims of Hiroshima, String Quartet No. 1, Polymorphia, and Canon-are designed for strings alone.

Leather, as the third of the primary material categories, is supple- mented first of all by instruments of non-European origin. Congos and bongos stem from South-American popular music, while tom-toms reached Poland along with jazz, about which the young Penderecki was truly enthusiastic.4 Oftentimes the composer bids instrumentalists to play these instruments with bare hands, which considerably enlarges the representation of that material category (skin being understood as analogous to leather). Hands and fingers serve also to play stringed instruments: apart from the well-known pizzicato effect, the composer instructs play- ers to rub, tap, or strike on sound boards and strings with the palm of the hand or the fingertips.5

The invention of new instruments and accessories does not exhaust the changes entailed by the timbre system. Apart from balancing the primary materials, it was necessary to obtain the appropriate combinations-classes of sound generators-that could embrace all the classes of timbres determined by the pairs of materials. And even a rich representation of a given material did not by itself guarantee the existence of all its possible combinations with other material categories. In this respect the case of metal is exemplary. Whereas its combinations with hair (mh) and felt (mf) existed among the traditional techniques of playing orchestral instruments-the former as the arco playing of strings, the latter as the striking of gongs, tam tams, or cymbals by soft, felt sticks- sound generator consisting of two metal bodies hardly ever occurred. Their only representative within a symphonic orchestra was a triangle hit with a metal rod. The generator class "mm" thus had to be created by combining several traditional metal accessories to form hitherto nonexistent pairs of vibrators and inciters. As a result of one such combination, an astounding sound generator arose: piano strings rubbed by a cymbal. Another, no less surprising combination of a metal inciter with a metal vibrator was achieved by agitating piano strings with a triangle rod, the latter disconnected from its original instrument. A true revolution

439

resulted, however, from the practice-derived from jazz-of playing with metal brushes on suspended cymbals. These same brushes were also employed by Penderecki to play gongs, tam tams, and tubular bells, and even to play the strings of harps and pianos. With the aim of enlarging the number of generators of the "mm" class, Penderecki introduced a type- writer, creating a sensation during the first performances of the Fluores- cences. As this quasi-musical metal instrument demonstrates, making up a representation of an earlier nonexistent class of sound generators could incidentally lead to an expansion of the set of orchestral instruments with new accessories. Mostly, such cases issued from practical considerations, as when the interaction of a certain form of inciter and a certain form of vibrator could have been obtained on traditional instruments, but would have damaged them in the process. In the class of generators under con- sideration, rubbing two metal bodies against one another would scratch their surfaces. Therefore, instead of costly percussive instruments, Pen- derecki simply used a piece of iron rubbed with a file or sawed with a hand saw. A saw can also serve to saw wood, in this way creating an addi- tional generator of the "mw" class, but this entails the use of a disposable piece of wood.

Although Penderecki took into account such practical matters when inventing his new sound generators, orchestral musicians often disagreed with the composer as to what was or what was not harmful for their instruments. Characteristic is the technique of playing strings that originally called for the instrumentalist to tap the sound board with the nut (i)-an interaction of two wooden bodies (ww)-which Penderecki did not intend to be harmful. However, the performers thought the technique would dam- age the varnish covering their instruments (Erhardt 1975, 36). The composer yielded and specified that the sound board could also be tapped with fingertips. Therefore, in the scores of the earliest pieces based on the timbre system-Threnody (published in 1961), Dimensions of Time and Silence and Fluorescences (printed in 1962), as well as the String Quar- tet No. 1 (issued for the first time in 1963)-this effect is described as "tapping the body of the instrument with the nut or finger-tips." Evidently, musicians preferred the latter possibility, and thus in Polymorphia (issued at the end of 1963), and Canon (whose score was published as late as 1974), "tapping the sound board with fingertips" constitutes the sole way of performing this effect indicated by the composer. As a result of this compromise between the composer and the performers, a generator was included among the class "ww" of sound generators which in reality did not at all belong to it.

In light of the above discussion, it is clear that the notion of a musical instrument is useless-not to mention anachronistic-in Penderecki's pieces based on the timbre system. Because most of the instruments- except for some simple percussive tools-consist of a number of con-

440

stituent parts, with each part able to interact with a number of inciters, every instrument becomes the basis for several different sound generators, which, in addition, may represent different classes. This has an obvious effect on the grouping of instruments, that is, on the orchestration. In contradistinction to traditional orchestration, in which every instrument is ascribed a certain timbral quality, here one and the same instrument can be used in a number of different ways and cooperate with several different classes of sound generators in different musical contexts-depending on which of its elements is employed as a sound source. This issue has in the past been touched upon by musical critics who applied the term "percussive effects" to some playing techniques on stringed instruments.6 But this term is unsatisfactory. For, if the classification of instruments depends on their vibrators-and this is actually the basic criterion from Sachs and Hornbostel up to Drobner-then a violin tapped on with the nut of a bow or with the fingertips does not so much produce a percussive effect, but rather it becomes a percussive instrument: a wooden idiophone in this instance. Similarly, a wind instrument that is not blown but tapped with stops or pistons is not an aerophone but a metal idiophone. This last "percussive effect" occurs in Fluorescences as a representative of class "mm," and it is the only instance of winds in Pen- derecki's pieces based on the timbre system. Parenthetically, the absence of aerophones from other Penderecki scores written in the early 1960s also results from the system. Since its underlying material categories are all solid bodies, blown air-the proper vibrator of wind instruments- constitutes no category in the framework of this system. From here it follows that sounds emitted by the traditionally played woodwinds and brass have-from the viewpoint of Penderecki's timbre system-a neutral, "transparent" value. That they occur in Fluorescences is most likely due to the circumstances of its commissioning. The piece was commissioned by the Sinfonie-Orchester des Stidwestfunks, Baden-Baden. If Pende- recki had used the wind section exclusively for snapping stops and pistons, he would have exposed himself to the commissioner's displeasure while the musical critics would-in the best case-have suspected him of a very peculiar sense of humor.

Penderecki's invention of new sound generators-and thereby new timbres-was thus not a manifestation of extravagance by the composer. It was not intended merely to shock the audience, nor did it spring from an exuberant image of sound. Conversely, the new timbres were not-at least originally-to serve some vague "new expression."7 If Penderecki introduced in his pieces new quasi-musical instruments, unusual combinations of traditional musical accessories, or any previously unknown techniques of sound articulation, he did so in terms of his system. With- out them, the system would remain merely an intellectual construct de- void of any possible musical realization. Seen from this angle, the orches-

441

trations, and instrumental techniques Penderecki employed in the early 1960s depart from traditional ones in the same way as the timbre system based on the material categories metal-wood-leather departs from the traditional partition of the orchestra into strings, winds and percussion. At this point, one must also reject the suggestions formulated by some critics who claimed that, in Penderecki's early output, the "new" effects are opposed to the "old," traditional ones. Such an opposition finds justifica- tion neither in the timbral organization of concrete pieces nor in the com- ments of the composer himself. On the contrary, Penderecki's statements make it clear that the "history" of a given generator was entirely inessen- tial.8 In the framework of his timbre system, both traditional and non-traditional sound generators are equivalent representatives of classes fixed by material pairs. As in the case of the periodic table of Mendeleev, where classification according to the atomic mass disclosed places for new, not yet discovered elements, Penderecki's system revealed new niches which could be filled with distinctive timbres. Thus, the system helped stimu- late his discoveries.

II. Morphology

Let us turn from the problems of the practical realization of the timbre system to the main subject of this article, a reconstruction of the system itself. As explained earlier, the material pairs shown in Figure 2 fix classes of timbres represented by individual generators and-what for Penderecki is one and the same thing-by the individual sounds they generate. But individual sounds are secondary in Penderecki's music. In his pieces based on the timbre system the elementary unit is a set of sounds, which I will call a segment. Sound phenomena contained in one timbral segment can be identical or different, in the sense that they are generated by collisions of bodies representing identical or different pairs of materials. If all sounds are produced in the same way, that is, through interactions of the same two materials, then the timbre of a segment will be covered by only one material pair. Yet such "monochromatic" segments occur comparatively rarely. Much more frequent are segments whose component sounds belong to several different classes. How can their overall, resultant timbres be determined?

The initial analytical procedure in such cases is an enumeration of all the material pairs producing the sounds of these segments. At this stage of the description of a single segment, a given material can occur several times as a component of different pairs. This is so because bodies representing one material category can interact with bodies made of either the same or different materials, in this way producing sound phenomena that differ in timbre. From this it follows that different materials may vary as to the number of occurrences in a segment description. Of course, the

442

....... .

w

I- f

h

- 91 .. W *

Figure 3. Segment with one main material

composite timbre depends most on the materials that occur most frequently. Those exerting a decisive influence on the timbre of a given segment will be marked as its main materials. The main timbral roles, however, can be played only by primary materials-metal, wood, and leather. Felt and hair can never dominate the timbre of a whole segment, just as they cannot become a source of any one of its component sounds.

The main materials can be discerned by means of a method that I call a "common denominator search." This search is easiest and most obvious when all pairs belonging to a given segment form different conjunctions with one primary material. The latter, which occurs in all pairs and in this way forms their "common denominator," is the main material for the segment. Such a segment thus has only one main material (Figure 3). If no single primary material constitutes a common denominator of all the pairs within a segment, one has to search for the common denominator of the greatest number of pairs within this segment, and then for the common denominator of the remaining pairs. If such a denominator as a primary material does exist, the segment has two main materials, and the search procedure ends (Figure 4). However, if a common denominator still cannot be found within the group of remaining pairs, one has to repeat the procedure: first find the common denominator of the greatest number of pairs, and then the common denominator of the last remaining group. In such a case, the segment has three main materials (metal, wood

443

.... ...... W

f 0

Figure 4. Segment with two main materials

and leather), thus representing an amalgam of all timbral categories- the richest, though at the same time the most heterogeneous (Figure 5). Needless to say, three is the maximum number of main materials that can occur in a segment, since in the timbre system of Penderecki there exist no more material categories able to function as sound sources. At any stage of the above-described "common denominator search" it can happen that two or even all three primary materials may be represented in the same number of pairs. In that case, one has to choose one of them arbi- trarily and then continue with the procedure. The arbitrary choice does not affect the resulting set of main materials, which will always be the same irrespective of which material was chosen first.

It is, however, possible that after the first or the second step of the analytical procedure just described there remains one pair of materials. If this is the case, then one treats it in the same way as a segment containing sound generators of the same class, which is thus represented analyt- ically by only one pair. With regard to such a segment, the search procedure for the main materials must be slightly modified. The most common situation arises when the only pair characteristic of the segment is a reduplication of the same primary material (metal, wood, or leather) or its grouping with hair or felt. Since in either case there occurs only one primary material, it must be the main one for the segment in question. A more complicated situation arises when the only pair of a segment consists of two different primary materials. Because either of those materi-

444

als can constitute a sound source, they are of equal value in determining the timbre of a segment, irrespective of which one excites (inciter) and which one is excited (vibrator) in a given process of sound generation. Hence, if a segment containing such a pair is considered as an isolated unit, or if in the given musical context it is separated by a general pause from the preceding and following segments, both primary materials of the pair would have to be interpreted as its main materials. Yet this almost never happens in Penderecki's sonoristic pieces. Every segment usually constitutes a link in a chain whose perception is subject to the Gestalt law of good continuation (Koffka 1935; for good continuation in music see Meyer 1956, 83-127). As applied to syntactical units of Penderecki's timbre system, this law means that, in terms of the anticipation of future events, the listener tends to perceive, or "continue," the main material of a preceding segment in the following segments as long as it is possible to do so. On the other hand, orientation toward past events allows reinter- pretation of the preceding segment, such that the listener discerns in it the origins of the timbre quality that is only established as a main material in the current segment. Thus in an uncertain situation, such as that which arises in the case of one-pair segments, there is a tendency to perceive a segment's timbre under the influence of adjacent segments and, conse- quently, to prefer as the main material the one that predominates in the preceding and/or following segment (Figures 6a and 6b). Thus both primary materials of a single pair appear to be evenly balanced as main

Figure 5. Segment with three main materials

445

(a)

w

(b)

w , .......... ..............

~~~I ,

f

h

( m

f

h

m * i~~

Figure 6. One-pair segment with one main material. This material can be metal (a) or wood (b), depending on the context of

adjacent segments

446

materials only if they are equally marked as main in the adjacent segments (Figure 7a), or if neither of them occurs among main materials of either the preceding or the following segment (Figure 7b).

In light of the above remarks it seems clear that the complete defini- tion of a timbre segment, as an elementary syntactical unit of Pen- derecki's timbre system, requires both the specification of all materials involved in the generation of its component sounds, and the identification of those which function as main materials. According to these stipula- tions, any two timbre segments are different if they vary in either or both of those two constitutive aspects. Conversely, if no difference in either respect occurs, they then form the same segment in two different realizations. It is noteworthy that, as with the above-discussed examples, segments consisting of the same set of pairs, and hence identical as to their preliminary material description, can appear to be different in the sense just stated when put into different musical contexts, because of differences in their main materials. On the other hand, segments consisting of different sets of material pairs may appear to be two realizations of the same timbre segment, if the sums of all their material categories and of the main materials are identical. For the timbre segment as an abstract syntactical unit, differences in its concrete realization are insignificant so long as all the materials, including the main materials, remain the same across various realizations.

III. Syntax

The timbre system based on material categories rules not only the inventory of the elementary units (segments) that determine the morphology of timbre in Penderecki's early output, but also its syntax, that is, the succession of segments over the course of a piece. In its essence, this course is formed by a play of timbral oppositions between metal, wood and leather as primary materials. First, material categories singled out in a given piece as opposing timbral qualities may be contrasted by way of a direct juxtaposition of segments whose main materials constitute poles of opposition. For instance, a segment whose main material is wood may come directly after a segment exhibiting a metallic timbre. In such a case, a presentation of a timbral opposition will happen. Secondly, an opposition may be submitted to mediation, that is, a soft, gradual change form- ing a transition from one timbral extreme to the other. Segments of opposing main timbres are in this case separated by one or more segments whose main material is either: (1) neutral in relation to the opposition, standing outside the material opposition operative in a piece (leather in the case given); (2) a sum of the opposing materials; or (3) a sum of all three primary materials. Other types of transition result from varying temporal relations between segments. Segments need not form a simple

447

(a) m W

1 f

h

m

(b)

I

f

h

W

f

h

Figure 7. One-pair segment with two main materials, metal and wood, in two different contexts such that these materials are contained (a) or are not contained (b) among main materials of the adjacent segments

448

succession; they may also overlap or penetrate one another. Interpenetra- tion of segments happens when a segment gradually decays and the subsequent segment increases in loudness until it completely dominates the sound field. This may be achieved by dynamics or orchestration: by gradually lessening the number of sound events belonging to a segment and adding events belonging to the following one. Interpenetration is thus a "soft" overlapping of segments. Still more subtle timbral transi- tions are possible. It must be kept in mind that the sound color of a segment is determined not exclusively by main materials, but bears the stamp of all the material categories participating in the sound generation processes. Thus, before a given material is established as having the sta- tus of a main material, it may already occur among the material categories of the preceding segment. In turn, a material which ceases to function as a main material may be preserved in later segments, to recall the previously dominant timbre. Such procedures result, respectively, in anticipation or continuation of a main material, and are important for the smoothness of a succession in terms of the law of good continuation.

The very presentation of a main material may be more or less sugges- tive. Obviously, the main material will appear with the greatest force and brightness if it constitutes the only material of a given timbre segment, as in the case of a sound generator constituting a reduplication of the same material (for example, "mm" represented by gongs, cymbals, and piano strings played with wire brushes). On the other hand, the introduction of other materials, which combine with the main material category, will result at the same time in a dimming of the latter's characteristic timbre. Of course, both "dimming" and "brightening" of the main timbre can pro- ceed either gradually as a succession of slight changes or abruptly by juxtaposition of contrasting segments. It is noteworthy that the afore- mentioned possibilities of timbre modulation, though conditioned by the timbre system, are not rigorously governed by it. Rather, they are subject to free choices made by the composer and express his strategy-some times tending to sharp, contrasting juxtapositions, at others to soft tran- sitions and nuances. It is in the realm of strategy, not of system, that one can explain the disparity between the Dimensions of Time and Silence, operating with a pastel palette of color nuances and penetrations, and the glaring Fluorescences. The very choice of a material opposition for a given piece, which marks the poles of its timbral spectrum, is also a mat- ter of compositional strategy.

As an illustration of the above discussion, let us consider Polymor- phia, the most outstanding of Penderecki's early pieces.9 This composition of classical proportions is based on an opposition marked by the material categories of metal and wood. The analysis of the timbral course traced by Polymorphia is summed up in the diagram shown in Figure 8.

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w 0

1 ? ?

Figure 8. The timbral trajectory of Polymorphia

Felt is not included in the diagram, because it does not occur in the piece, which is written exclusively for stringed instruments:

1-24 (mh): traditional arco playing on all stringed instruments, from 22 continued by violas alone;

22-32 (mw, ml): strikes legno battuto on strings, as well as taps con dita between bridge and tailpiece;

32-37 (ml): pizzicato introduced by violins, then taken over by the remaining instrumental groups as pizzicato con due dita;

38-40 (wm, wl): strings struck with the palm of the hand as a playing technique combining two sound generators: fingerboard incited at the same time by the hand of the player (wl) and by the strings (wm);

39-42 (wm, wl, ww): percussive effect of the previous section, continued in contrabassi (40-41) and second violins (41-42), joined by taps on the sound board with fingertips (wl) and strikes on the stand with the bow or on the chair with the nut (ww);

42-45 (ml, ww, wm): sound board tapped with fingertips, the stand

450

w we

1 0 9

h ? e .1 11-;_ =

> k ! , K Ba E _ _ M ME

r7)

M0 a

tapped with the bow or the chair with the nut, legno battuto play between bridge and tailpiece, and strings pizzicato;

44-67 (mh): return to the typical arco articulation. Apart from the traditional way of playing strings before the bridge, in rehearsal numbers 63-64 the strings are bowed between bridge and tailpiece (which represents the same material pair), and the bridge and tailpiece are bowed as well, the latter treated by Penderecki as a substitute for the former technique in the low register of cel- los and contrabasses.

Observe that in the course of Polymorphia segments usually overlap. The simple succession of consecutive timbre segments happens just once: in rehearsal number 38, when the pizzicato play gives way to percussive effects. At this moment the opposition between metal and wood-the polar timbres of the piece-is presented. The same opposition is featured in other early pieces written for strings alone. (Leather only occurs as a pole of a material opposition in orchestral works including a large percussion section. Here, in Polymorphia, it never plays the role of a main material. Apparently, in the framework of a string orchestra the composer could not completely balance all the individual material categories.) Mediation of the marked opposition is carried out in the course of return- ing to the initial timbre through the joint occurrence of wood and metal as the main materials of the same segment (42-45). In this way the timbral course of the Polymorphia assumes a three-part, ABA form.

* * *

The timbre system, whose rules are presented briefly in this article, governs the organization of sound color in eight pieces of Krzysztof Pen- derecki: Anaklasis for 42 strings and percussion (1959-60), Threnody- To the Victims of Hiroshima for 52 strings (1960), String Quartet No. 1 (1960), Dimensions of Time and Silence for mixed choir, strings and percussion (1960-61), Fonogrammi for flute and chamber orchestra (1961), Polymorphia for 48 strings (1961), Fluorescences for orchestra (1962), and Canon for string orchestra and tape (1962). It was thus employed by Penderecki for just three years: from 1960 until 1962. Beginning with the St. Luke's Passion (1963-66), and in later works, the composer abandoned this system-most likely for rather prosaic reasons. Since Anaklasis, Dimensions and Fluorescences all required large groups of percussion- including several instruments rare within the orchestra, but indispensable for articulating the basic material categories-they were prohibitively expensive and at times logistically impractical to perform. In turn, atyp- ical techniques of playing instruments frightened conventional perform-

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ers, which very often led to sharp conflicts, protests, or even mutinies of orchestras. One needs only to mention the famous scandal during the Fif- teenth Music Festival in Venice, when-in spite of Bruno Maderna's per- suasion-the renowned orchestra RAI-Radiotelevisione Italiano refused to play Threnody. Such events created a climate unsympathetic to Pen- derecki's early scores and discouraged frequent performance. Renuncia- tion of the timbre system, though resulting in the loss of a strict control over sound color, solved all these problems and provided the composer easier access to the musical market.

With Penderecki's abandonment of the timbre system, the properly sonoristic period of his output ends and a late sonorism begins. In the latter period-in addition to a number of famous instrumental scores such as De natura sonoris I (1966) and De natura sonoris I (1970), Sonata for cello and orchestra (1964), Capriccio for oboe and strings (1965), Partita for harpsichord and chamber ensemble (1971-72) or the First Symphony (1972-73)-Penderecki also composed operas, oratorios, and other works destined for large vocal-instrumental forces: The Devils of Loudun (1968-69), Dies Irae (1967), the diptych Utrenia consisting of The Entombment of Christ (1969-70) and The Resurrection (1970-71), Cosmogony (1970), Canticum canticorum (1970-73), and Magnifi- cat (1973-74). The renunciation of the timbre system led to a revaluation of orchestration and instrumental techniques. The composition characteristic of a traditional symphonic orchestra is restored, with its predom- inant string section plus a competing group of winds. The sudden pro- motion of wind instruments, hardly utilized in the preceding period but once again taking over the role of the second most important orchestral section, is evidenced by the score of De natura sonoris II, in which a leading role is performed by the brass. In turn, the percussion, exploited so extensively from Anaklasis until Fluorescences, now recedes into the background; even if still given important tasks in individual pieces, it is employed more sparingly than before. The composer's recourse to atyp- ical sound articulation is also much more sparing.

Despite all these differences, the pieces belonging to the period of late sonorism are closely connected with the earlier sonoristic output thanks to another, more basic system, which constitutes the other part of Pender- ecki's compositional technique conceived at the beginning of the 1960s. That system, complementary to the timbre system, concerns the organization of the three remaining parameters of sound perception-pitch, loudness, and time-which in turn governs the other characteristic of segments-their texture-and results in a number of effects typical for Pen- derecki, especially clusters and glissandi. The basic system, which is a topic of another study (Mirka 2000),10 turns out to be more persistent in Penderecki's output: it makes for the stylistic unity of the sonoristic period before and after the Passion, and its abandonment-in the Awak-

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ening of Jacob (1974)-definitively closes the whole period. True, in his post-sonoristic output Penderecki does not completely renounce the con- quests of sonorism. But even though one occasionally finds glissandi and non-traditional playing techniques in his later scores, they occur separately from their original basis: not as an indispensable means for the realization of systemic assumptions, but rather as interesting sound effects once invented and, though still remaining at the composer's dis- posal, already relating to a different musical world.

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NOTES

1. To clarify the theoretical claims of my article, it may be necessary to emphasize that, rather than offering one of several possible hypothetical theories about the timbral organization of Penderecki's works from 1960-62, it provides a reconstruction of the compositional system he employed. The full system, presented broadly in my doctoral dissertation (Mirka 1997), consists of two halves called respectively the basic system and the timbre system. Having elaborated upon my reconstruction, I consulted with Penderecki in April 1995, who confirmed via personal communication that it corresponds with the procedures he actually used in the process of composition.

2. The first to use this term was J6zef M. Chomifiski. He later gave a broad theoretical description of what he called the "sonoristic regulation of musical form," which he extended onto any sort of contemporary music containing non-traditional means of sound production (Chomifiski and Wilkowska-Chomifiska 1983, 126-153). More specifically, the noun "sonorism" and the adjective "sonoristic" are used in Polish musicological writings for the avant-garde sound-mass music of the 1960s that was composed by Penderecki, as well as Wojciech Kilar, Hen- ryk Mikolaj G6recki, Witold Szalonek and others.

3. As is well known, in the construction of contemporary instruments natural materials have frequently been replaced by synthetic substances, especially in the case of percussion instruments. But this process of technological progress was not as advanced in the early 1960s. It is irrelevant for Penderecki's timbre system as long as the synthetic materials preserve the acoustical properties of natural materials.

4. Hardly anyone remembers that the Polish premiere of Anaklasis took place during "Jazz Jamboree," the most important Polish festival of jazz music organized in Warsaw to this day. Penderecki's interest in jazz is evinced also by Actions for free-jazz orchestra, composed a few years later (1971).

5. The effects meant here include striking the strings with the palm of the hand sul tasto, tapping the sound board with the fingertips, rubbing the sound board with the open hand, and tapping the strings between bridge and tailpiece with the fingers (con dita).

6. This term was used for the first time by Marian Wallek-Walewski in his article "W kregu poszukiwafi materialowych. Krzysztof Penderecki" (1960). This article was intended as the introduction to a study, Partytura wsp6oczesna (A Contemporary Score), that he was to write together with Krzysztof Penderecki-a study which never appeared. Tadeusz Zielifiski writes extensively about many such "percussive effects" in his articles of the 1960s (Zielifiski 1961, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1968).

7. Incidentally, it is worth stressing that Penderecki-contrary to his most fervent apologists-was and still remains skeptical about the expressive capacities of music. In a TV interview with Alicja Resich-Modliniska, 1995, the composer said: "Music cannot express anything. Of course, one can give some dedication or title, but that is it. Music is abstract and ideal, it boils down to structures and forms."

8. Very characteristic in this respect is the composer's utterance during the interview given to Tadeusz A. Zielifiski, first published in Swedish magazine Nutida Musik, then reprinted in the Polish Ruch Muzyczny. Challenged about his innovative ways of treating traditional musical instruments, he responded: "Thus you also yield to

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illusion...; you pay attention only to new elements, although in my pieces- besides new articulatory means-there are also several older ones" (Zielifiski 1963, 8). He explained the relation of the new sound effects to traditional timbres in the following way: "Occasional non-instrumental noises only supplement the orchestral timbre as coloristic retouching and are adjusted to that orchestral timbre." In the course of a discussion closing the seminar on his output, organized in 1975 in Krak6w, the composer stated the same idea even more laconically: "For me, there has never existed any difference between noise and a sound [of definite pitch]" ([Discussion] 1976: 46). These two notions were used-imprecisely-at the time as synonyms of sounds produced in a new and traditional way, respectively.

9. In my dissertation (Mirka 1997) the reader will find further analyses of full compositions using the terms presented in this article: Anaklasis (186-188), Dimen- sions of Time and Silence (205-208), String Quartet No. 1 (226-228), Fluores- cences (256-259), Canon (269-270).

10. For a detailed discussion of both the basic system and the timbre system, see Mirka 1997. Penderecki's use of the basic system in St. Luke's Passion, as well as its sym- bolic and expressive significance in that composition, is discussed in Mirka 2002.

WORKS CITED

Chomifiski, J6zef M. and Krystyna Wilkowska-Chomifiska. 1983. Maleformy instru- mentalne. Formy muzyczne I. Krak6w: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne.

Drobner, Mieczyslaw. 1960. Instrumentoznawstwo i akustyka. Krak6w: Polskie

Wydawnictwo Muzyczne. Erhardt, Ludwik. 1975. Spotkania z Krzysztofem Pendereckim. Krak6w: Polskie

Wydawnictwo Muzyczne. Koffka, Kurt. 1935. Principles of Gestalt Psychology. New York: Harcourt, Brace and

Co. Meyer, Leonard B. 1956. Emotion and Meaning in Music. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press. Mirka, Danuta. 1997. The Sonoristic Structuralism of Krzysztof Penderecki. Katowice:

Akademia Muzyczna. 2000. "Texture in Penderecki's Sonoristic Style." Music Theory Online

<http://smt.ucsb.edu/mto/mtohome.html> 2002. "Passion according to Penderecki." In: Siglind Bruhn, ed., Voicing the

Ineffable. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press. Sadie, Stanley, ed. 1980. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. London:

Macmillan. [Discussion]. 1973. "Dyskusja na seminarium poswieconym tw6rczosci Krzysztofa

Pendereckiego." Muzyka 2(81): 29-52. Spender, Natasha. 1980. "Psychology of Music," I-III. In: Stanley Sadie, ed., The New

Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Taylor, Charles. 1980. "Sound." In: Stanley Sadie, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of

Music and Musicians. Wallek-Walewski, Marian. 1960. "W kregu poszukiwafi materialowych." Ruch

Muzyczny 17: 1-2.

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Zieliniski, Tadeusz A. 1961. "Nowe utwory Krzysztofa Pendereckiego." Ruch Muzyczny 12: 17-18 and 24.

. 1962. "Der einsame Weg des Krzysztof Penderecki." Melos 10: 318-323.

. 1963. "Wspo6czesny kompozytor a tradycja." Ruch Muzyczny 12: 8-9.

. 1964. "Fluorescencje Krzysztofa Pendereckiego." Ruch Muzyczny 2: 5-6.

. 1966. "Neue Klangasthetik." Melos 7/8: 210-212.

. 1968. "Technika operowania instrumentami smyczkowymi w utworach Krzysztofa Pendereckiego." Muzyka 1(48): 74-92.

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