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Shapes and Designs is another work in
what has turned out to be an on-going concern of mine with the possibilities
of translating visual shapes and designs into musical structures. Earlier
works along this line are my Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee
and American Triptych, the latter being based on paintings by Jackson
Pollock, Stuart Davis and Alexander Calder. This preoccupation is based
on the premise that certain—not all, by any means—but
certain
visual or geometric shapes can be translated into musical designs, if one
equates the vertical aspect of a visual design with range or register,
and the horizontal visual aspect with time.
In this work, each of the four movements represents a musical realization of certain basic simple visual designs. The four movements are: I-Intersecting Triangles, II-Links, III-Arcs, IV-Wedges. In the first movement the left triangle is represented by the strings starting with a single pitch in the high register and gradually fanning out along the hypotenuse in a downward broadening pattern to the low register of the basses. Before the strings break off, low woodwinds enter—at the point where the two triangles intersect—and in a gradual rising shape build a second triangle. The “height” side of this triangle is represented by the abrupt cut-off of the entire orchestra. The second movement consists of thirty-one measures of music for percussion and strings (played percussively). At the conductor’s discretion, these “blocks” of sound are repeated in a variable pattern which in its entirety will form a chain made up of various-sized links of this material. Each link is delineated by the clear return to measure one. In the third movement . . . a series of arcs—both upward and downward—radiate from a sort of fulcrum: middle C in the strings. The curve of each arc is determined by the size of the musical interval employed. Thus there are quarter-tone arcs (both rising and falling) in the muted horn and flute, respectively; semitone arcs, also in the flute and open horn; major seconds in the clarinet and bassoon; minor thirds in the oboe and trombone, etc. Each arc has its own rate of unfoldment, from the slowest (the quarter-tone arcs) to the fastest (major thirds) played by the violins and tuba at the apex of the piece. The fourth movement consists of three superimposed wedges, one for each instrumental choir in the orchestra. All three wedges are identical in shape and content, except for variations in size. Thus the largest wedge, played by the strings, is mirrored by the next largest one in the brass, but being smaller, both vertically and horizontally, it also comprises a smaller range and is of shorter duration.
Gunther Schuller
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