Textural Music/ Sound Mass

• a Trend of the later 1950's
• shaping music through its larger sonic attributes rather than as an accumulation of individual elements
• Sound Mass composition minimizes the importance of pitches in preference for texture, timbre, and dynamics as primary shapers of gesture and impact
• developed from the modernist tone clusters and spread to orchestral writing by the late 1950's
• Sound Mass obscures the line between sound and noise
  

Examples:

Makrokosmos I by George Crumb
(1972)

• Crumb combines conventional piano techniques to form a synthesis
• Each piece is associated with a sign of the zodiac
• Makrokosmos requires special techniques: pizzicato using both the finger nail and the finger tip, muted tones, production of harmonics on strings
• Strings should be clearly marked with bits of tape. Modal parts for harmonics should be indicated with tiny slivers of tape on the string
• mystic, surreal
• full range of piano, inside and outside, tried to use all possible techniques
• innovative, extended techniques combined with conventional techniques

Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima ~ Krzysztof Penderecki
(1960)

• String ensemble not organized in the normal five part groupings, each instrument has its own part
• traditional textural components such as melody and harmony absent
• chromatic bands/clusters - listener perceives undifferentiated mass of certain width and dynamic level
  
• form is thus primarily determined by the transformation and development of generalized shapes
• Penderecki ignores the distinctions between pitch and noise, drawing from a wide spectrum of available sounds
• Proportional Notation = the temporal placement of musical events is approximate
• Graphic Notation = nontraditional symbols represent musical information
• Extended Techniques = between the bridge and tailpiece, playing behind the bridge, striking sounding board with fingertips

Chamber Concerto for 13 Instruments Part I ~ Gyorgy Ligeti
(1969)

• four woodwinds, two brass, five strings, two keyboard instruments
• "micropolyphony" - a simultaneity of different lines, rhythms and timbers
• 4 movement work

1. cluster micropolyphony - polyphonic and contains "micropolyphonically interwoven lines that merge together to form a homogeneous texture"
2. homophonic and static
3. mechanical in the manner of clockwork
4. insainly virtuosic presto

• imperceptible entrances and exits

Atmosphere ~ Gyorgy Ligeti
(1961)

• 52 individual parts
• Formed clusters from separate components that changed constantly to produce subtly transforming internal patterns - micropolyphony
• Opening cluster chord that spans 5 octaves
• Slow changes in dynamics