The Liberation of Sound
Author(s): Edgard Varèse and Chou Wen-chung
Source: Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Autumn - Winter, 1966), pp. 11-19
Published by: Perspectives of New Music
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THE
LIBERATION
OF SOUND
EDGARD VARESE
Our musical alphabet is poor and illogical.
Music, which should pulsate with life, needs new means of
expression, and science alone can infuse it with youthful
vigor.
Why Italian Futurists, have you slavishly reproduced only
what is commonplaceand boringin the bustleof our daily
lives.
I dream of instrumentsobedient to my thoughtand which
withtheircontribution
of a wholenew worldof unsuspected
sounds,will lend themselvesto the exigenciesof my inner
rhythm.'
(Excerptsfromlecturesby Varese,compiledand edited
with footnotes
by Chou Wen-chung)t
NEW INSTRUMENTS
AND NEW MUSIC*
W H E N newinstruments
willallowmetowritemusicas I conceiveit,
the
of
the
linear
the movement
of soundtaking place
counterpoint,
of
will
be
When
these
masses, shiftingplanes,
clearlyperceived.
sound-masses
collidethephenomenaof penetration
or repulsionwill
seemto occur.Certaintransmutations
takingplace on certainplanes
willseemtobe projectedontootherplanes,movingat different
speeds
and at different
of
angles.Therewillno longerbe theold conception
of melodies.The entireworkwill be a melodic
melodyor interplay
The entireworkwillflowas a riverflows.
totality.
Todaywiththetechnicalmeansthatexistand are easilyadaptable,
thedifferentiation
of thevariousmassesand different
planesas well
as thesebeamsofsound,couldbe madediscernible
to thelistenerby
meansofcertainacousticalarrangements.
suchan acoustiMoreover,
cal arrangement
wouldpermitthedelimitation
ofwhatI call Zonesof
Intensities.
These zoneswouldbe differentiated
by varioustimbresor
colorsanddifferent
loudnesses.Throughsucha physicalprocessthese
zoneswouldappearof different
colorsand ofdifferent
magnitudein
1 "391," Number 5, June 1917, New York; translatedfromthe French by Louise
Varese.
t The completeVaraselectureswill appear in the forthcomingbook Contemporary
Composerson ContemporaryMusic, to be published by Holt, Rinehart,and Winston.
* From a lecture given at
Mary Austin House, Santa Fe, 1936.
?
11
?
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PERSPECTIVES
OF NEW
MUSIC
different
forour perception.
The roleof coloror timbre
perspectives
from
wouldbe completely
anecdotal,senchanged
beingincidental,
likethe
sual or picturesque;
it wouldbecomean agentofdelineation
different
colorson a map separatingdifferent
areas,and an integral
partof form.These zoneswouldbe feltas isolated,and thehitherto
unobtainable
(or at leastthesensationofnon-blending)
non-blending
wouldbecomepossible.
In themovingmassesyouwouldbe consciousof theirtransmutationswhentheypass overdifferent
certain
layers,whentheypenetrate
or
are
in
certain
dilated
rarefactions.
the
Moreover, new
opacities,
musicalapparatusI envisage,able to emitsoundsof anynumberof
willextendthelimitsofthelowestand highestregisters,
frequencies,
hencenew organizations
of the verticalresultants:chords,theirartheir
Not onlywill
rangements,
spacings,thatis, theiroxygenation.
the harmonicpossibilitiesof the overtonesbe revealedin all their
createdby the partials
splendorbut the use of certaininterferences
an appreciablecontribution.
will represent
The neverbeforethought
ofuse oftheinferior
resultants
and ofthedifferential
and additional
soundsmayalso be expected.An entirely
newmagicofsound!
I am surethatthe timewill comewhenthe composer,afterhe has
realizedhis score,willsee thisscoreautomatically
graphically
put on
a machinewhichwill faithfully
transmit
the musicalcontentto the
listener.As frequencies
and new rhythms
will have to be indicated
on thescore,ouractualnotation
willbe inadequate.The newnotation
willprobablybe seismographic.
Andhereit is curiousto notethatat
the beginningof two eras, the Mediaevalprimitiveand our own
era (forwe are at a new primitive
primitive
stage in musictoday)
we arefacedwithan identical
problem:theproblemoffinding
graphic
of the composer'sthoughtintosound.
symbolsforthe transposition
At a distanceof morethana thousandyearswe have thisanalogy:
our stillprimitive
electricalinstruments
findit necessaryto abandon
staffnotationand to use a kindof seismographic
writingmuchlike
theearlyideographic
used forthevoicebeforethe
writingoriginally
ofstaffnotation.
thecurvesofthemusicalline
development
Formerly
indicatedthe melodicfluctuations
of the voice,todaythe machineinstrument
requiresprecisedesignindications.
MUSIC AS AN ART-SCIENCE*
AndherearetheadvantagesI anticipate
fromsucha machine:liberationfromthe arbitrary,
paralyzingtemperedsystem;the possibility
* From a lecture given at the Universityof Southern
California,1939.
* 12
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I
THE
LIBERATION
OF SOUND
AeoliattHall
SundayEvening,March,;, 1925,at..8.30 o'clock.
International
Inc.
Guild,
Composers'
founded 1921
Fourth Season
Third Concert
NEW MUSIC
presentedby
an.Ensemblecomposedof
JOHNBARCLAY
an(d
The Leading Players of the PhiladelphiaOrchestra
conductedby.
LEOPOLD STOKOWSKI
(by special permission of the Board of DIirectors of the
Philadelphia Orchestra)"
PROGRAM*
I. Serenade ..........................:.Arnold
(first.timein America)
1. March
2. Minuet
3. Variations
4. Sonnet by Petrarca
5. Dance Scene
6. Song withoutwords
7. Finale
Schinberg
(1924)
Program continued on next page
Program of the firstAmericanperformanceof Schoenberg'sSerenade
by the InternationalComposers'Guild
of obtaining any numberof cycles or if still desired, subdivisionsof
the octave, consequentlythe formationof any desired scale; unsuspected range in low and high registers; new harmonic splendors
obtainable fromthe use of sub-harmoniccombinationsnow imposof timbre, of
sible; the possibilityof obtaining any differentiation
far
the
new
sound-combinations;
present humanbeyond
dynamics
in
a
of
sense
sound-projection space by means of
powered orchestra;
the emissionof sound in any part or in manyparts of the hall as may
be required by the score; cross rhythmsunrelated to each other,
#13*
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OF NEW
PERSPECTIVES
MUSIC
AeolianHall
SundayEvening,February
14, 1926,at 8.30o'clock
Inc.
International
Guild,
Comi,osers'
founded by Ed??ar Varese, 192r
FIFTH SEASON OF NEW MUSIC
Third Concert
Les
PROGRAM
1
Stravinsky
(firsttime in America)
Noces......................Igor
(1917)
FOR FOUR SOLO VOICES, FOUR PIANOS,
MIXED CHORUS %xNDPERCUSSION
conducted by
LEOPOLD STOKOWSKI
(by courtesy of the Board of Directors of the
Philadelphia Orchestra)
MADAME CAHIER
RICHARD HALE
SOLO VOICES
MARGUERITE RINGO
COLIN O'MORE
PIANOS
GERMAINE TAILLEFERRE
GEORGES ENESCO
MIXED
CHORUS
SELECTED
THIE FRANCIS
PLAYERS
FROM THE
PERCUSSION
OF
ALFREDO CASELLA
CARLOS SALZEDO
TWENTY-FOUR
BY
SOLO
VOICES
MGT.
MARSH
PHILADELPHIA
ORCHESTRA
BROWN
Voices (Soli and Chorus) prepared by
CARLOS SALZEDO
Program continued on next page
Program of the firstAmerican performance of Stravinsky's Les Noces
by the International Composers' Guild
treatedsimultaneously,or to use the old word, "contrapuntally"(since
the machine would be able to beat any numberof desired notes, any
subdivisionof them,omissionor fractionof them)-all thesein a given
unit of measure or timewhich is humanlyimpossibleto attain.
RHYTHM,
FORM AND CONTENT*
My fightforthe liberationof sound and formy rightto make music
with any sound and all sounds has sometimesbeen construedas a
* From a lecture given at PrincetonUniversity,1959.
* 14
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THE LIBERATION
OF SOUND
desire to disparage and even to discard the great music of the past.
But that is where my roots are. No matterhow original,how different a composermay seem, he has onlygrafteda littlebit of himselfon
the old plant. But this he should be allowed to do withoutbeing accused of wanting to kill the plant. He only wants to produce a new
flower.It does not matterif at firstit seems to some people morelike a
cactus than a rose. Many of the old mastersare my intimatefriendsall are respectedcolleagues. None of them are dead saints-in fact
none of them are dead-and the rules they made for themselvesare
not sacrosanct and are not everlastinglaws. Listening to music by
Perotin,Machaut, Monteverdi,Bach, or Beethovenwe are conscious
of livingsubstances;theyare "alive in the present."But music written
in the mannerof anothercenturyis the resultof cultureand, desirable
and comfortableas culturemay be, an artistshould not lie down in it.
The best bit of criticismAndre Gide ever wrote was this confession,
"When I read
whichmusthave been wrung fromhim by self-torture:
Rimbaud or the Sixth Song of Maldorer, I am ashamed of my own
works and everythingthatis onlythe resultof culture."
Because forso many years I crusaded fornew instrumentswithwhat
may have seemed fanatical zeal, I have been accused of desiring
nothingless than the destructionof all musical instrumentsand even
of all performers.This is, to say the least, an exaggeration.Our new
liberatingmedium-the electronic-is not meant to replace the old
musical instruments
whichcomposers,includingmyself,will continue
to use. Electronicsis an additive,not a destructivefactorin the art and
science of music. It is because new instrumentshave been constantly
added to the old ones that Western music has such a rich and varied
patrimony.
Gratefulas we must be forthe new medium,we should not expect
miracles frommachines.The machine can give out onlywhat we put
into it. The musical principlesremain the same whethera composer
writes for orchestraor tape. Rhythm and Form are still his most
importantproblems and the two elements in music most generally
misunderstood.
Rhythmis too oftenconfusedwith metrics.Cadence or the regular
succession of beats and accents has littleto do with the rhythmof a
composition.Rhythmis the element in music that gives life to the
work and holds it together.It is the elementof stability,the generator
of form. In my own works, for instance, rhythmderives from the
simultaneousinterplayof unrelatedelementsthat interveneat calculated, but not regular time lapses. This correspondsmore nearly to
S15
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PERSPECTIVES
OF NEW
MUSIC
the definitionof rhythmin physicsand philosophyas "a succession of
alternateand oppositeor correlativestates."
As forform,Busoni once wrote: "Is it not singularto demand of a
composer originalityin all things and to forbidit as regards form?
No wonderthatif he is originalhe is accused of formlessness."2
The misunderstandinghas come fromthinkingof formas a point
of departure,a patternto be followed,a mold to be filled.Form is a
result-the result of a process. Each of my works discovers its own
form.I could never have fittedthem into any of the historicalcontainers. If you want to filla rigid box of a definiteshape, you must
have somethingto put into it thatis the same shape and size or thatis
elastic or softenough to be made to fitin. But if you tryto forceinto
it somethingof a differentshape and harder substance, even if its
volume and size are the same, it will break the box. My music cannot
be made to fitinto any of the traditionalmusic boxes.
Conceivingmusical formas a resultant-the result of a process, I
was struckby what seemedto me an analogybetweentheformationof
my compositionsand the phenomenonof crystallization.Let me quote
the crystallographicdescriptiongiven me by Nathaniel Arbiter,professorof mineralogyat Columbia University:
"The crystalis characterizedby both a definiteexternalformand
a definiteinternalstructure.The internalstructureis based on the
unitof crystalwhichis the smallestgroupingof the atomsthathas the
orderand compositionof the substance.The extensionof the unit into
space formsthe whole crystal.But in spite of the relativelylimited
variety of internal structures,the external forms of crystals are
limitless."
Then Mr. Arbiteradded in his own words: "Crystalformitselfis
a resultant[the veryword I have always used in referenceto musical
form]ratherthan a primaryattribute.Crystalformis the consequence
of the interactionof attractiveand repulsive forces and the ordered
packing of the atom."
This, I believe, suggests betterthan any explanationI could give
about the way my works are formed.There is an idea, the basis of an
internalstructure,expanded and split into different
shapes or groups
of sound constantlychangingin shape, direction,and speed, attracted
and repulsed by various forces. The formof the work is the consequence of this interaction.Possible musical formsare as limitlessas
the exteriorformsof crystals.
2 See note 4.
. 16
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THE LIBERATION
OF SOUND
Connected with this contentioussubject of form in music is the
really futile question of the differencebetween form and content.
There is no difference.Form and contentare one. Take away form,
and thereis no content,and if thereis no contentthere is only a rearrangementof musical patterns,but no form.Some people go so far
as to suppose that the contentof what is called programmusic is the
subject described. This subject is only the ostensiblemotive I have
spoken of, which in program music the composer chooses to reveal.
The contentis still only music. The same senseless bickeringgoes on
over style and contentin poetry.We could verywell transferto the
question of music what Samuel Beckett has said of Proust: "For
Proust the quality of language is more importantthan any systemof
ethics or esthetics.Indeed he makes no attemptto dissociate form
fromcontent.The one is the concretionof the other-the revelation
of a world."3To reveal a new world is the functionof creationin all
the arts, but the act of creation defies analysis. A composer knows
about as littleas anyone else about where the substance of his work
comes from.
As an epigraph to his book,4Busoni uses this verse froma poem
by the Danish poet, Oelenschliger:
"What seek you? Say! And what do you expect?
I know not what; the Unknown I would have!
What's known to me is endless; I would go
Beyond the known: The last word still is wanting."
And so it is forany artist.
THE ELECTRONIC
(Der mdchtigeZauberer)
MEDIUM*
First of all I should like you to consider what I believe is the best
definitionof music, because it is all-inclusive: "the corporealization
of the intelligencethatis in sound," as proposedby Hoene Wronsky.5
If you think about it you will realize that, unlike most dictionary
definitionswhich make use of such subjective terms as beauty, feel3 Samuel Beckett, Proust (1957).
4 Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), Entwurf einer neuen Asthetik der Tonkunst
(1907); published in English as Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music (T. Baker,
tr.; 1911).
* From a lecture given at Yale University,1962.
5 Ho?ne Wronsky (1778-1853), also known as Joseph Marie Wronsky, was a
Polish philosopherand mathematician,known for his systemof Messianism. Camille
Durutte (1803-81), in his Technie Harmonique (1876), a treatiseon "musical mathematics," quoted extensivelyfromthe writingsof Wronsky.
* 17
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PERSPECTIVES
OF NEW
MUSIC
ings, etc., it covers all music, Eastern or Western, past or present,
including the music of our new electronicmedium. Although this
new music is being gradually accepted, there are still people who,
while admittingthat it is "interesting,"say, "but is it music?" It is a
question I am only too familiarwith. Until quite recentlyI used to
hear it so oftenin regard to my own works, that, as far back as the
twenties,I decided to call my music "organized sound" and myself,
not a musician, but "a worker in rhythms,frequencies,and intensities." Indeed, to stubbornlyconditionedears, anythingnew in music
has always been called noise. But after all what is music but organized noises? And a composer,like all artists,is an organizer of
disparate elements.Subjectively,noise is any sound one doesn't like.
Our new medium has brought to composers almost endless possibilitiesof expression,and opened up forthemthe whole mysterious
world of sound. For instance,I have always feltthe need of a kind of
continuousflowingcurve that instrumentscould not give me. That
is why I used sirens in several of my works. Today such effectsare
easily obtainableby electronicmeans. In this connectionit is curious
to note that it is this lack of flowthat seems to disturbEastern musicians in our Western music. To theirears it does not glide, sounds
jerky, composed of edges of intervalsand holes and, as an Indian
pupil of mine expressed it, "jumping like a bird from branch to
branch."To themapparentlyour Westernmusic seems to sound much
as it sounds to us when a record is played backward. But playing a
Hindu recordof a melodic vocalizationbackward,I foundthat it had
the same smoothflowas when played normally,scarcelyalteredat all.
The electronicmedium is also adding an unbelievable varietyof
new timbresto our musical store, but most importantof all, it has
freed music fromthe temperedsystem,which has preventedmusic
fromkeeping pace with the other arts and with science. Composers
are now able, as never before,to satisfythe dictates of that inner
ear of the imagination.They are also lucky so far in not being hampered by estheticcodification-at least not yet! But I am afraidit will
not be long before some musical morticianbegins embalming electronicmusic in rules.
We should also rememberthat no machine is a wizard, as we are
beginningto think,and we must not expect our electronicdevices to
compose for us. Good music and bad music will be composed by
electronicmeans, just as good and bad music have been composedfor
instruments.The computingmachine is a marvelous inventionand
seems almostsuperhuman.But, in reality,it is as limitedas the mind
of the individualwho feeds it material. Like the computer,the maS18
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THE
LIBERATION
OF SOUND
chines we use formaking music can only give back what we put into
them.But, consideringthe factthat our electronicdevices were never
meant for making music, but for the sole purpose of measuring and
analyzingsound, it is remarkablethatwhat has alreadybeen achieved
is musically valid. They are still somewhat unwieldy and timeconsuming and not entirelysatisfactoryas an art-medium.But this
new art is still in its infancy,and I hope and firmlybelieve, now that
composers and physicistsare at last workingtogether,and music is
again linkedwith science, as it was in the Middle Ages, thatnew and
moremusicallyefficient
devices will be invented.
-Edited and Annotatedby Chou Wen-chung
* 19"
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