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Abstract
After explaining Brown's concept of ‘creative ambiguity’, and discussing the idea of co-creatorship with regard to determinate and indeterminate music, a recording of Brown's December 1952 will be examined. Other works briefly mentioned are Corroboree and Twentyfive Pages. The article illustrates that, despite Brown's statement about wanting flexibility and spontaneity, he was increasingly less convinced that performers should be given broader choices when executing indeterminate notations. His solution was to pass on the final control of his works to the conductor. Using statements by Brown, the article also argues that Brown was not interested in achieving specific libertarian, social or political situations with his compositions.
Notes
[1] I maintain that the concept of open form is indeed a form in a very broad sense and it is its openness which is debatable.
[2] Compare to Nicholls (Citation2002, p. 47).
[3] According to Brown, enjoying the unexpected was an influence from James Joyce and Gertrude Stein: ‘This was a very strong thing that I felt from literature, from Joyce and Stein especially; the fact that what we didn't know exactly what they were talking about, exactly how they wanted us to interpret it. This allowed my mind, as a reader, to become a part of the actual creative process’ (Dufallo, Citation1989, p. 108). Brown has also referred to Alexander Calder's mobiles as an inspiration for open form (Brown, Citation1979, p. 82).
[4] These pieces were written between 1987 and 1992. For a thorough examination of them, see Haskins (Citation2004).
[5] The original source for this statement could not be ascertained; it is also not clear when exactly Brown made this statement, other than that it must have been before 1974, when Nyman's book was first published.
[6] One can see this in the following extract from an interview, where the interviewer refers to a rehearsal of Available Forms I, conducted by Brown: ‘I had the impression that you have one very specific concept of how it should sound …’‘Oh yes’ (Grimmel, Citation1996, p. 49).
[7] All following quotations are from this same source.
[8] The emphasis is mine.
[9] Karkoschka (Citation1972, p. 91) states that Brown performed the work in this way when he was in Darmstadt in 1964, pointing out that ‘Brown placed copies of this sheet [the score] on the music stands and conducted, thereby demonstrating without question that it was the movements of his hands and arms, and not the score, that stimulated the musicians, especially as wavelike sequences and big crescendi can only be seen in the score by an imagination also capable of seeing Strauss's Eulenspiegel theme in it. Which is what actually happened’.
[10] Naturally, this depends on the performance. There has been a practice to reproduce the score as markings on the floor and to let the musicians proceed through the notation in spatial as well as in sonic ways (for instance in performances by the Contemporary Music Ensemble, Southampton University Music Department [Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton, 19 May 2003], and by the Oxford Improvising Orchestra during the Musicircus of John Cage Uncaged[foyer of the Barbican Centre, 17 January 2004]).
[11] One can pinpoint this to the time after 1967. See Brown (Citation1966).
[12] See Brown's statements in Dufallo, Citation1989, pp. 111 – 112; and Brown, Citation1972, p. 2.
[13] Brown (Citation1975) indicates in the Directions for Performance, ‘The indicated note durations are precise relative to each other and to the eventual time value assigned to each line system’. It is only important to maintain the chosen overall duration by playing through one system with the speed of its elements relative to each other and the overall speed.
[14] Brown (n.d.) wrote: ‘The variable factors of the work are to be dealt with to any degree of simplicity or complexity interesting to the performer’.
[15] The emphasis is mine.
[16] The emphasis is mine.
[17] Of course, one can rehearse December 1952 to such an extent that there is no longer surprise and spontaneity left once the work is performed; but the possibility of the performers participating as listeners should not be destroyed by the rehearsal process.
[18] See Brown's comments on this interview in Brown, Citation1979, pp. 86 – 87.
[19] Also see Brown, Citation1979, pp. 86 – 87, where Brown defends his Folio pieces as not intended to be revolutionary.
[20] In a later interview, Brown stated: ‘I'm aware of the political and social ramifications of my musical tendencies but I never self-consciously seek to “liberate” people. It would be pretentious to think that by bringing musicians to my score I could “liberate” them. I believe in freedom, but there is no such thing as total freedom’ (Brown, Citation1979, p. 87).
[21] See Dufallo, Citation1989, p. 108.