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Morton Feldman’s Coptic Light for orchestra begins with a static, very repetitive passage. Its sounds and musical rhetoric are far removed from Beethoven’s.
Nearly twenty minutes later, the opening is revisited.
Once again, time has had an effect. At the reprise, the upper strings revive the two-note pattern that they played at the opening: This is what creates the impression of return. However, the winds originally played similar patterns to the strings. At the return, their music consists only of isolated single attacks. There is also a murmuring underlying rhythm that was not present at the opening. The overall result is of an incomplete reminiscence, because there are more disconnected attacks and“bubbling”activity underlying the upper strings.
The distance between original and return is measured in the amount of intervening music. If hardly any music separatesthe related passages, the wait is parenthetical; if a great deal happens, the wait is more significant. Clock-time canbe a helpful guide, but only in the context of the piece's specific proportions: a minute is negligible in an opera,but nearly a lifetime in a bagatelle.
If the wait is long and the changes are subtle, progress is occurring very gradually.
If, on the other hand, the wait is brief and the changes are dramatic, the material is particularly volatile. Themore volatile the material, the less likely that it will ever be recuperated in its original form.
For instance, consider the opening of Beethoven's Bagatelle , opus 126, no. 1. The main theme is presented. It is then immediately repeated in itsentirety. The repetition is embellished: it is more rhythmically active and reaches higher in register.Change is immediate, making the repetition more dynamic and progressive.
Compare the Beethoven to the following passage from Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring . In the excerpt, a ruminative melody is presented. Then, after a shortwait, the melody returns.
Once again, the transformed version follows closely on the heels of the original. In this case, the changes arealmost cataclysmic! The theme is presented more boldly and in a higher register. The texture is ferocious andagitated, with rapid rhythmic figuration and more complex, strident harmony.
In both the Beethoven and the Stravinsky, the volatility of the material is a signal that it will never be recovered inits original form. Local impermanence makes large-scale stability less plausible. If a musical idea is so restlessthat it can barely "hold onto itself" when it is immediately repeated, it makes it less likely that the music will ever be ableto recuperate itself exactly.
When the original passage and its return are further apart, time's effect may be a reflection of the original's inherentstability or volatility. But it also reflects the power of the intervening music to leave its mark. In The Odyssey , Ulyssses' tribulations and love affairs do not mar his triumphant reunion with his family: He is ableto reclaim his wife and son. On the other hand, experience is not so kind to King Lear. During the play's first scene,he banishes his most faithful daughter, Cordelia. They are eventually reunited. But the catastrophic events that haveoccured in the interim cannot be undone: His beloved daughter dies in his arms.
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