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MALCOLM WILLIAMSON has only once given a number to one of his symphonies (it was no. 2), but unfashionably he has produced, by my reckoning, five of them, very diverse. There is the Symphony for Voices, an exotic, alluring choral work; the early Organ Symphony which caused a stir at the Proms in 1961 but has since languished; and the orchestral song-work The Icy Mirror which may also rank as a symphony. The first of Williamson's symphonies is Elevamini, a big orchestral work in three movements completed in 1947 and designated symphony on the title page. It has not been performed publicly in this country until now. Sir Charles Groves, who has a nose for unjustly ignored big works by contemporary composers, conducted his Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in the British concert premiere of Elevamini in Liverpool on 19 February. When he and they come to London this month they are giving us Berlioz; I hope that Elevamini will be brought south before long-it is impressive music, one of Williamson's finest pieces. By ! 9S7 Williamson had absorbed Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Messiaen, but was not yet embarked on the enterprise of communication at a popular level (though he was writing simple music for congregation participation in the East End church where he was organist). The First Symphony is an inward work, for all its size and dramatic scope, a memorial to the composer's grandmother for whom the everlasting doors were being lifted up, as the Latin title tells us. The religious nature of the symphony derives from admiration for Messiaen in the uninhibited joyousness of the central scherzo, and the alternation of serene sustained E major chords and vigorous quintuple dance music in the finale. These do not sound like Messiaen any more than the bitonal passages sound like Stravinsky or the rigorous serialism like Webern. Tradition is distinctively adapted for new and special purposes-this seems to be a fortunate characteristic of good * cf. Roger Smalley's article 'Momenu-material for listener and composer' in The Musical Times, January 197+, (to be continued in a later issue), for a fuller discussion of Moment Form. 3 E. Krenek: Studies in Counterpoint (Schirmer). 'Electronic Music-Transformation and After' (In Short, Radio 3 talk) I ° First performed at a Roundhouse Concert on 11 March I I
MALCOLM WILLIAMSON has only once given a number to one of his symphonies (it was no. 2), but unfashionably he has produced, by my reckoning, five of them, very diverse. There is the Symphony for Voices, an exotic, alluring choral work; the early Organ Symphony which caused a stir at the Proms in 1961 but has since languished; and the orchestral song-work The Icy Mirror which may also rank as a symphony. The first of Williamson's symphonies is Elevamini, a big orchestral work in three movements completed in 1947 and designated symphony on the title page. It has not been performed publicly in this country until now. Sir Charles Groves, who has a nose for unjustly ignored big works by contemporary composers, conducted his Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in the British concert premiere of Elevamini in Liverpool on 19 February. When he and they come to London this month they are giving us Berlioz; I hope that Elevamini will be brought south before long-it is impressive music, one of Williamson's finest pieces. By ! 9S7 Williamson had absorbed Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Messiaen, but was not yet embarked on the enterprise of communication at a popular level (though he was writing simple music for congregation participation in the East End church where he was organist). The First Symphony is an inward work, for all its size and dramatic scope, a memorial to the composer's grandmother for whom the everlasting doors were being lifted up, as the Latin title tells us. The religious nature of the symphony derives from admiration for Messiaen in the uninhibited joyousness of the central scherzo, and the alternation of serene sustained E major chords and vigorous quintuple dance music in the finale. These do not sound like Messiaen any more than the bitonal passages sound like Stravinsky or the rigorous serialism like Webern. Tradition is distinctively adapted for new and special purposes-this seems to be a fortunate characteristic of good * cf. Roger Smalley's article 'Momenu-material for listener and composer' in The Musical Times, January 197+, (to be continued in a later issue), for a fuller discussion of Moment Form. 3 E. Krenek: Studies in Counterpoint (Schirmer). 'Electronic Music-Transformation and After' (In Short, Radio 3 talk) I ° First performed at a Roundhouse Concert on 11 March I I
Herbert Henck's (1980) analysis of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Klavierstück X (1961) offers a fascinating insight into the composer's compositional process at an important juncture in his career. In this article I draw on the now significant recording tradition, including Henck's own canonical version (on Stockhausen [1986] 1996), and Stockhausen's contemporaneous moment‐form theory to explore the influence of the performer – confronted with the many novel rhythmic and technical features of the score – on the salience of the serial processes that Henck describes and the concomitant emergence of the piece's form in performance. I begin with a summary and contextualisation of Henck's analysis in terms of performance practice and audience perception. This then informs my analysis of the eight commercially available recordings, proceeding from discussion of global and sectional tempo data and their bearing on the teleological drive of the piece to qualitative close readings of five case studies, whose serial aesthetics, structural properties and interrelationships are negotiated with recourse to Stockhausen's moment classifications. As well as illustrating the contingency of the performer's contribution on the piece's teleological, serial‐statistical and moment‐formal properties, my methods have epistemological implications for the reciprocal and peculiar relationship that, I argue, must continue to inform the relationship between analysis and performance in the field of New Music.
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