AW.: RE: Ferneyhough answers

Email between Daniel Wolf and Brian Ferneyhough:
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Dear Professor Ferneyhough:

There has recently been some discussion of the use of microtones in your
scores over the Alternative Tuning List. The principal question is whether
the indicated quartertones are intended to be played as precise
24th-root-of-two intervals or as inflections of 12-tone equal temperament
pitches, without precise intervallic ratios. Your answer would be much
appreciated.

DJWolf
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ear Mr Wolf,

Thank you for your query. The answer to the question depends on which work
you are discussing. For instance, in 'Adagissimo' I specify exactly
tempered pitches for the 2 violins, and inflectional pitches for the viola
and cello. In general, one might say that I regard ALL pitches as
contextually inflectional - in 'classical' 12-tone works (Schoenberg et
al.) the performer really has to judge where exact tuning is structurally
necessary and where intervallic qualities need to be 'enhanced' by
directional distortion. I regard microtonal harmony somewhat differently
that semitonal, in that, for me, the former is predominantly concerned with
instability, disbalance i.e. microtonal pitch distribution tends, via local
instability, to push vertical alignments towards other states. Voice
leading is thus replaced by a form of dynamic decomposition within the
verticality itself. Although similar effects may be achieved in semitonal
sonorities, the effect is much less pronounced. I always write with a view
to connoting to the performer the degree of meaningful deviation this or
that microtonal formation requires. This is a question of larger
compositional technique considerations, not of abstract generational
theory. Does this answer your question?

best regards,

Brian Ferneyhough

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Dear mr Wolf,

Further to our exchange on microtones: I should emphasise that, for me, it
is vital to so utilise microtonal elements that NOT their absolute value is
central to the cognitive act, but the listener's ability to 'hear AS' i.e
that the musical context provide the frame within which the hierarchical
locatedness of any given element can be functionally assessed. The tonal
system provides one such powerful system whereby even starkly deviant
intervals can be 'heard as' whatever their notional identity happens to be.
This has always been a problem in my mind with special tuning systems which
do not contain this leeway. MY own research in microtonal domains has
always been aimed at establishing analogous referential frames. The
fundamental issue with microtonal composition lies in composition, not the
microtones.

BF

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Dear Professor Ferneyhough:

Thank you for your answers. May I forward a copy of your messages to the
Alternative Tuning List? I think that they will be read there with great
interest.

In your first message, you wrote:

"I regard microtonal harmony somewhat differently
that semitonal, in that, for me, the former is predominantly concerned with
instability, disbalance i.e. microtonal pitch distribution tends, via local
instability, to push vertical alignments towards other states."

This sounds very much like an implicit, empirical "theory" of consonance and
dissonance and voice leading, albeit one where "pushing" instable
verticalties is not equivalent to tonal resolution. Limiting this discussion
to quartertones, it does happen that the 12 intervals added to those in the
12-tone set tend to fall at points of minimum consonance (in any of the
standard models of consonance and dissonance, with those pitches close to the
7th, 11th, 13th partial possibly excepted). Have you articulated this
"theory" anywhere more explicitly?

I don't quite follow your sentence:

"I should emphasise that, for me, it
is vital to so utilise microtonal elements that NOT their absolute value is
central to the cognitive act, but the listener's ability to 'hear AS' i.e
that the musical context provide the frame within which the hierarchical
locatedness of any given element can be functionally assessed."

I understand (and happen to agree with) the emphasis on composition and the
act of cognition, but don't quite understand where this functional location
might be. Are some sorts of ideal relationships (rational or not) intended
to be projected by the notation and performance and construed by the
listener, or is the "frame" simply constructed in real time from the actual
performance data?

I find it striking that your statement

"The tonal
system provides one such powerful system whereby even starkly deviant
intervals can be 'heard as' whatever their notional identity happens to be.
This has always been a problem in my mind with special tuning systems which
do not contain this leeway."

describes a distance to both the just intonationalist and the Babbitt-style
twelve-toner, for whom the notated and played pitches are intonationally
umambiguous with regard to location within the given intonational
environment.

With best regards,

DJW

*************
"I should emphasise that, for me, it
is vital to so utilise microtonal elements that NOT their absolute value is
central to the cognitive act, but the listener's ability to 'hear AS' i.e
that the musical context provide the frame within which the hierarchical
locatedness of any given element can be functionally assessed."

Put more directly, I believe that absolute cognitive values of musical
statements are not primarily derived from the recognition of unambiguously
quantified variables (pitches), but that pitches must be extrapolated from
context - in other words, hearing something AS a C# rather than a Db
(regardless of its actual objective frequency) is extremely important to
the cognitive assessment of context. The same is true for microtonal
intervals, and it is incumbent on the composer to make clear what a
particular pitch is meant to be identified as, even if the actual realised
pitch deviates to a greater or lesser degree from the absolute. Any viable
microtonal system must provide for this possibility.

BF

PS Please feel to pass on these jottings if you feel that they are germane
to your discussions.