by Fred Moleck
Participatio Actuoso . . . at Another Level
Last week my young composer friend showed up with the score of an aleatory music composition by Anthony Braxton. Aleatory music is music by chance.The work is scored for various instruments including piano. Like many late twentieth-century “music by chance” works, there are copious instructions on how to perform it.
Braxton’s scores have precise directions on how the music is to be organized. Sometimes diagrams, not words, name his compositions. Frequently, they bear numbers and letters that look very mysterious.
All in all, it takes a careful reading by each performer to see what Braxton wants them to do and where to position themselves.
That’s just one example.
I couldn’t help but think back to when I taught music history classes at a regional women’s college, where boys from the regional men’s college could matriculate.
I loved teaching contemporary music. These classes were somewhere around the mid 1970s. John Cage was hot. Electronic reel-to-reel tape recorder music was even hotter.
In class we simulated a John Cage lecture from his book Silence. Then we did some homegrown work, which required the conductor to take the individual parts of a composition and throw them into the air.
Where each piece landed determined who would play the part. We all took it very seriously and even rehearsed various parts after several toss-ups.
We scheduled it in a concert. We had fun, the audience didn’t.
In all of these “performances” it appears that the people performing the music were enjoying it more than those who were listening to it
I’ve been fascinated over this practice of the performing group becoming passionately involved in the music making while the audience stares at the group intensely but with glassy eyes.
Sitting in the concert hall and listening to a series of what sounded like disjunct sounds performed indeterminately made sense only in the mind or the subconscious of the composer.
I know my mind had a hard time perceiving any organization.
On a more mundane level, I began to think about what other experiences we have in which the performer is more “into it” than the audience.
Square dancing or contra dancing come to mind. After one or two sets of do-si-dos and grand right and lefts, as a spectator I become unengaged—not that I ever was. The dancers are smiling and greeting each other and moving somewhat gracefully with their feet close to the ground. Yawn.
Another disengaging musical experience for me is listening to madrigals. I love to sing madrigals around a table with other singers. After three madrigals in a choral concert, though, I demand a part book so I can sing. Since the book is not provided, I zone out. Yawn number 2.
Does this principle extend to liturgy? For example, does the person who is doing the ritual moment get a lot more out of it than the people to whom the moment is directed?
Such as:
—listening to the cello part in a Taizé piece.
—listening to the choir sing, “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom” over and over again.
—listening to the third Kyrie eleison in chant Mass VIII. I love singing it. I hate listening to it.
The current fiddling around with the documents to redefine participatio actuoso to include listening without any spoken or sung participation provides the experience, which is not too different from listening to the choir alone sing Taizé or watching a performance of John Cage’s “Variations IV.”
Anglican choral evensong provides the opportunity to have the congregation participate by listening with closed mouths.
Cool . . . but the Catholic experience provides times for singing and times for listening. I need both. So does the church.
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@earthlink.net