[This part of the exposition contains video examples. You can click the still images to play them]
Placing Tellur in the referential context of Murail’s early musical language provides a wealth of information that fills some of the gaps created by the work’s notation. We can infer direct points of reference such as old electronic studio effects and moving faders. Moreover, a theoretical framework emerges from this context. This framework allows us to single out factors apt to take on structural significance and map out their evolution in the processes that constitute Tellur’s musical discourse. Does this information then suffice to accommodate the kind of traditional deference to the work that the composer’s construct of an ‘ideal score’ suggests?
In her genealogical analysis, Lydia Goehr (1992) associates the work-concept with the emergence of, among others, two seemingly contradictory developments. One was a growing detachment of the composer from the performance of their music. In this detachment composers considered musical instruments in abstraction, in the form of orchestration manuals and the like, to maintain control over works without being personally involved in their performance.
The other development resulted from the requirement of adequate realization in performance, which was necessary if musical works as abstract constructs were to garner societal recognition as works of fine art. This requirement inferred a subservient devotion of the performer to the work and its composer. Such subservience, or Werktreue, was then mediated by ‘complete and adequate notation’ (Goehr 1992: 226, 231).
Of course, complete and accurate notation is not enough to create standards of ‘faithful’ rendition. As Joshua Navon (2020) argues in his study of the nineteenth-century Leipzig conservatory, Werktreue owes its prominence to a historically specific educational regime for musical performance that still resonates strongly in today’s classical music education. In reference to Foucault, he calls this a 'regime of practices:' a program of conduct of which the effects are both prescriptive and codifying (what is to be done and what is to be known). For many of us who enjoyed education in the lineage of systems like that of the nineteenth-century Paris and Leipzig conservatories,[1] the hallmarks of this regime are familiar. They include the separation of technical study and the concept of musicality (the first being necessary, but inferior to the second), and music theory education practiced and codified as a basis for informed interpretation.
Murail’s concept of the ‘ideal score’, to be homothetically realized by the performer, agrees well with Goehr's (1992: 119) analysis of the work as a regulative concept, and its associated notions such as composition, performance, autonomy, repeatability, permanence, and perfect compliance. That a performer should find the vestiges of this ideal score in Murail’s transformational processes is equally in line with the tradition of music theory as a gateway to the work’s inner life. Then it comes as no surprise that, when duly contextualized, the passages in Tellur that stick most to conventional technical mastery give a Werktreue practitioner little trouble.
A prime example of such a passage is section C. It is largely performed with standard playing techniques. Moreover, it is easy to place its multiplying neumes and echoes within the well-established traditions of performing contrapuntal writing on the classical guitar. In fact, the gravitational pull of convention appears to be so self-evident that, in this section, almost all performers whose recordings I analyzed[2] make an exception to the composer’s own instructions. They opt for a sound idiom nearer to the classical than the flamenco tradition.
Trickier are those passages that rely heavily on techniques pushed beyond the instrument’s performance tradition. These are at the same time those passages in which notation is most open. Good examples here are the striking opening sections A and B. The interpretation and nuts and bolts execution of these sections vary widely among recorded performances.
In the recordings I compared, the biggest causes of variance among interpretations are the rasgueado passages with specified attack pitches. Murail’s instructions and notation regarding this technique seem unambiguous. In his program notes[3] he writes that the attack sound of the nails has an ‘exact and controllable frequency’, and the legenda indicates that ‘each pitch corresponds to a finger’ and that one should ‘find the right spacing of these fingers which produces the indicated pitches’(Murail 1978).
However, the translation into practice proves much less clear-cut. On one end of the spectrum are interpretations that tend more toward pitch accuracy: from fairly exact (Tentor, Lev, Lamontagne, McAllister); to near exact, but slightly unstable (Andia), to exact but displaced by the octave (Stefan Koim). On the other end are recordings in which a relation to the notated pitches is not entirely distinguishable because their articulation is cloaked in a shroud of attack noise (Österjö, Márquez, Kolp, Cave, Pisanello) or because they diverge decidedly from the notated pitches (Menczel, Martinelli, Laukvik Nannestad, Taimioja, Tilk, Graneis, Rivera). Yet another variation is the prioritization of the attack pitches over the prescribed technique, creating a decided shift in sonic character and evolution (the end of section B in Márquez, Pisanello, and Simpson).
The wide variation in execution applies equally to passages in which the attack pitches are less strictly notated, such as in line 5 on the first page of the score, or most of section B. To highlight just one variable: in some recordings, the changing pitch space that is suggested in the score is clearly audible,[4] in others it is largely obscured by resonance and attack noise.[5]
In my analysis, I have given attack pitches in rasgueado passages structural importance. Across a dispersed process, they help articulate the following general evolution in harmonicity in sections A and B:
Timbre-harmony in the fifth octave of the harmonic of spectrum F0 → (crossfade to A2) → Noise (i.e. extreme inharmonicity) → (inharmonic timbre-harmony) → Harmony with overtones of G2 and A4 (harmonic spectrum F-1).
In so doing, they spotlight an elemental feature of Tellur’s construction: the directional exploration of the continuum between harmonic sound and noise. And while attack pitches figure most prominently in the first sections, the fact that they briefly sneak into section E, right after the work’s climax, and reappear more prominently in the final section G, only reinforces their thematic weight.
The approach I laid out requires a rendition in which all attack pitches are as close to the notated specifications as possible, and the evolution of attack pitches is salient enough in the texture to be clearly perceived.
However, one could equally make good arguments for an approach that does not require precision and prominence of these pitches. Given the fact that specified rasgueado attack pitches are an extremely rare occurrence in guitar literature, it is not unreasonable to think of this notation as utopian or practically ill-informed. Such situations are not uncommon occurrences in 20th– and 21st–century guitar literature, and guitarists are trained to come up with their own practical solutions to such impasses.
Another interpretation, more charitable to the composer, could make the pitches suggestive of a certain kind of texture. After all, in music that approaches sonic manipulation as wholistically as this, pitch no longer fulfills the same role it did in traditional parametric composition.[6] Why could it, in certain contexts, not be given the kind of flexibility that rhythm or tempo are often afforded in more traditional repertoire?
For example, Pablo Márquez is a very accomplished guitarist with considerable experience in recent repertoire. I find his 2008 live recording an impressive demonstration of a died-in-the-wool performer’s flexible and creative problem-solving.
His version does not open with a timbre-harmony, but with a noisy texture that shrouds barely perceptible, rapidly executed attack pitches.[7] From the perspective of my analysis, a ripple of seemingly small variations in the execution of the opening lines easily becomes a wave. The dispersed process of a timbre-harmony in the gray zone of (in)harmonicity, evolving to noise, and then back through timbre-harmony to harmony, is no longer possible.
Instead, the variation between rasgueado textures in section A becomes more subtle (from noise with a hint of pitch, to unpitched noise). In section B, Márquez’s choosing an alternative over the technique prescribed in the score creates an even more significant divergence of textural evolution. In his version, the attack pitches do not descend into recognizability nor gain prominence. They fade out. It is instead the muted pitches fingered by the left hand that ascend to meet the range the score requires. Rather than a 16-note cluster of undefined attack pitches that descends into a timbre-harmony, the result is a sliding harmony that ascends to a well-defined four-voiced chord.
For comparison, I put my own 2021 live rendition of this passage in section B below.
My rendition differs from that of Marquez in two regards:
- the muted pitches descend to make space for attack pitches to emerge;
- the attack pitches descend from high, noise-like clusters into timbre-harmony, of which the fusion is helped by low muted pitches. (After this passage, timbre-harmony first evolves to harmony, and finally to melody at the beginning of section C).
Márquez’s and my interpretations clearly share the same general outline of an ‘ascent’ followed by a descent, and we both try to realize it through processes of gradual transformation. But, to use an imperfect simile, from the perspective of my analysis, the way we get from point A to point B is about as similar as two versions of a sonata with a bunch of different notes in the themes and a completely different recapitulation. Different heuristics can clearly lead to significantly different compositional structures.
The discursive context of Tellur suggests that a performer attempting a faithful rendition analyzes the work in terms of gradual transformational processes. This is their effort to divine the ideal score which is codetermined by an instrument of process, which in turn interfaces with their unconventioned practical heuristics. It is a system of which all parts are mutually contingent, and—most importantly—of which the configuration is extremely mobile. This systemic mobility is compounded by the use of open notation, as well as by the use of time brackets in a musical language that stresses the importance of perceived (as opposed to measured) time (Murail 2005d).
The open notation plays out in several aspects, among which proportional notation within time brackets, sparsely prescribed long amplitude evolutions, and undefined transitions between sonic textures and playing techniques. Of course, choices made in the realization of this open notation all interact with each other and with the guitarist’s technical heuristics. Disentangling their collective effect would be a tricky operation. Instead, I will provide three recordings. All three were made by myself, in different periods of my engagement with the work. Even though there is a clear continuity in approach between them, they illustrate the effect different interpretations of the open notation can have on the global discursive function of Tellur.
I made the first recording at a home studio in 2013. The second recording is a studio recording from the summer of 2019 (which can be found in its entirety on the front page of this exposition). The third one is a single-take recording made for a video production at the ruins of the Coudenberg Palace in February 2021. The recording of 2013 is the outlier. Still, the different environments of the 2019 and 2021 recording sessions (a recording studio in summer and an unheated underground ruin in winter) caused elements in my interpretation to shift enough to be structurally noticeable.
The ways in which these three recordings differ are numerous, but I will point out a few to clarify how they illustrate my point.
One of the biggest differentiators is the shape of their dynamic envelopes, a structural factor not to be underestimated in Tellur’s long drawn-out processes.[8] The recordings from 2021, but especially of 2013, have more compressed envelopes. The dynamic envelope of the 2019 recording is more dramatic in shape. In 2021, with the winter cold in an unheated space, there was a technical cause (cold fingers) that turned interpretational. However, while technical limitations surely played a part in 2013—the work was still relatively new to me, I also made an interpretative decision to play the opening passage at ‘concert volume’—meaning, I played the indicated pppp loud enough to be heard ‘in the back of the hall’.
Another very noticeable difference is the lower speed and higher emphasis on periodicity in the 2013 version’s repeated figures in section A. To my own ears, this has a considerable effect on the perception of duration. For example, even though they are roughly the same length, the first time bracket feels considerably longer in the 2019 version than it does in that of 2013.
Transitions and relations between sonic textures also differ between the three versions. The 2013 version is again the outlier (although there are also subtle differences between the later versions). A clear example is the sonic texture that follows the first three accented attacks.
First, there is the rasgueado tremolo on G after the ‘brusque movement of the faders’, with its attack pitches moving upward until they disintegrate in noise. In the 2013 version I interpreted this material first and foremost as a continuation of the repeated G in the tremolo figures that precede it. A side effect of this approach is that the resonance covers the attack pitches—of which I have pointed out the structural significance earlier—for much of the rasgueado. In the later versions this material is interpreted more as an extended resonance of the accented G that precedes it. This allowed me to skew the textural balance more toward the attack pitches and accentuate their upwards movement.
Similarly, there is a subtle difference in the texture change following the subsequent accented A4 harmonic. Again, the 2013 version (1:04) emphasizes continuation, an approach also advocated in Rafael Andia’s recent performance guide.[9] On the other hand, the later versions keep a sense of shifting textures. This helps realize a stepwise evolution of the textural shifts that follow the three accented attacks: from a marked to a minor shift that gives way to the accents being absorbed into the underlying sound mass.
Finally, there is the issue of time brackets, and the challenge of marrying measured and perceived time. Rafael Andia advises that the time brackets in Tellur should be followed scrupulously, as they are the result of meticulous calculations derived from theories on musical perception. However, this claim can be refuted. By comparing the sense of time with the chronometric time in the 2013 and 2019 versions, I have already illustrated that the perception of duration is highly context-dependent. A more mundane illustration of this point is that any kid can tell you that ten minutes of boredom feel longer than 20 minutes of fun.
The composer’s own writings give a more realistic account, mentioning freehand-drawn duration functions, and an emphasis on the relationship between durations and ‘event density’ (Murail 2005a: 154; 2005d: 236). But even this account raises serious conundrums. A phenomenal temporal perception is converted into a measured one, but how do we make up for the unavoidable loss of information?
I, for one, noticed my sense of time in a quiet studio differed greatly from my sense of time when playing for the small audience of the video, audio, and organization crew at the ruins of Coudenberg. That difference translates to a noticeable difference in the relation between absolute durations. Once again, the onus of decision lies with the guitarist, and when we adopt Murail’s spectral attitude, a local temporal shift inevitably leads to a shift in global structure.
Confronted with the disappearance of old certainties (the relative stability of performance conventions and abstract instruments) and with an open notation, the performer-interpreter is left to fill a sizable power vacuum with personal judgment and handicraft. In a compositional language in which all aspects of sound production are up for controlled manipulation, the resulting mobility of Tellur’s system of correlations indeed has strong structural ramifications.
Aporia?
In the past three decades, a growing body of scholarship in performance studies has challenged the old conception of the ‘transparent’ (classical) performer who serves as a window to the work for the listening audience (e.g. Cook 2001; Dunsby 1995; Rink 2018). The active role of performers in the composition process, and the role of performance canons in the signification of scores, have become bustling areas of research. Distributive models of creativity have gained entry into a theoretical field that before fixated on written musical texts.
The historic examples adduced to support the notion of distributed creativity usually involve the acts of performers (e.g. Whittall 2017). It’s therefore no surprise that among this group, the distribution of the creative act across a complex ecology of human and non-human actors has long been an open secret.[10]
In recent years, several performers have tried to share their experiential insight on this topic. Tanja Orning (2017) and Stephan Österjö (2008) have discussed several of the issues this exposition touches on, such as the functioning of the work-concept and the use of unconventional performance practice in recent music. Similarly to what I have presented, Österjö approaches classical performance practice as a Foucauldian discourse that involves historical context, theoretical analysis, and performance traditions. But, unlike my project, his thorough account analyzes his own direct and recent collaborations with composers, which logically have quite different dynamics then than interpreting a work in absence of its composer.[11]
Orning’s discussion of her research on Pression by Lachenmann also has relevant similarities with this exposition. Even much more than Tellur, Pression is a work that relies on extended techniques and the notation almost exclusively prescribes physical action. Orning (2017: 84) uses, among other ideas, Fischer-Lichte’s term 'perceptual multistability' to describe the coexistence of her faithfulness to the composer’s intentions and the physical particularity of the body that is uniquely hers.
However, an important distinction with my own project is that Orning presents the creative assertion of the performer’s personal physicality as a way in which Lachenmann very explicitly challenges the traditional work-concept. Orning’s application of the work-concept to Pression is therefore what Goehr calls 'derivative'. We can classify it as falling under that concept, even though the object [in this case Pression] was ‘not brought into existence with that concept in mind or within the specific part of practice associated with it’ (Goehr 1992: 253–54).
Even still if, as a rule, performers tend to take on creative weight in classical music, then that also applies to the traditional—or ‘original’—way of dealing with works by absent composers.[12] In other words, certain common configurations of creative distribution perfectly fall within the regime of practices associated with traditional Werktreue. For example, among classical guitarists traditional deference to the work has not suffered from Segovia’s hotly debated editions of his commissioned repertoire,[13] or from the coexistence of David Russell’s sober interpretations and Eliot Fisk’s creative fireworks.
However, there are practices of creative distribution for which this is not the case. After all, a regime would not be one if it does not delineate allowances. Conventionally, one does not do things like recompose the theme of Beethoven’s fifth symphony or change its meter. The interest of this exposition lies in a complicated kind of relation to that line of conventional acceptance.
Tellur’s musical language does not enjoy anywhere near the widespread familiarity of Beethoven’s fifth. However, after studying the context of Murail’s music, it would be strange to conceive of Tellur’s composer function prescribing nothing more than the vague outline of ascents and descents its existing performances have in common.
After all, in the rest of Murail’s catalog, a far more detailed and largely standardized notation suggests a much higher degree of conformity. Even Tellur’s own copious verbal instructions (6 pages in total), though obviously not entirely successful, are at least a very well researched effort on the composer’s part to keep the performer on a tighter course.
Reinforcing this point, in an interview with Andia (1984), Murail mentions he did not want to compromise the principles of composition he used for orchestra or chamber music works. He follows that up by saying the extended techniques in Tellur are inscribed in an extremely rigid formal logic. But the common ground between Tellur’s performances is too slim to support the level of formal detail the composer conveys in theoretical writings on his own early works—hence my failure to generalize my personal analysis.[14]
Tellur’s mobile system of correlations brings Werktreue to a discursive aporia. It is blocked from two sides. On one side, new sonic possibilities revealed by electroacoustic music have outgrown the abstraction of instruments as practiced in traditional orchestration manuals. Murail’s instruments equally defy ideal fixation, like in Schaeffer’s theories. They become an instrument of process, not a priori based on common points of sonic reference, but codetermined with a specific work’s musical discourse.
On the other side, this instrument of process does not live in the electronic studio, where the composer can sculpt and control the totality of the sounding result. It is projected onto traditional instruments, and has to interface with performance practices that lie outside of a conventional space equipped for the ‘adequate’ (or in Murail’s words ‘homothetic’) realization of works.
The discursive context of Tellur invokes a work-concept associated with certain delineations of practice, certain stabilities customarily offered by performance traditions and fixated abstract instruments. Yet, at the same time, it makes those delineations impossible. It is openly associated with a traditional kind of Werktreue which it at the same time undermines. From what I have found, that makes this project different from previous scholarship on twentieth-century cases that complicate the work-concept (and its relation to distributed creativity) in classical music. If they do not concern direct composer-performer collaborations, those cases are works that are considered to openly challenge traditional notions of the musical work.[15]
All things considered, the discursive aporia that plagues Tellur’s composer function is sizable. Yet I have not found it to be a practical one. This research project is then meant to shed light on a site within my practice. On that site a traditional kind of Werktreue coexists with a kind of performer agency that falls outside the regime of practices through which that Werktreue is enacted. I would not classify this coexistence under Goehr’s notion of the derivative work concept, though in the future it might perhaps be of use to scholars who would like to expand this notion. Again taking after Foucault (1986)—and with some metaphorical leeway—I prefer to call its peculiar contradiction the heterotopia of the practice room (HOP).
Foucault’s conception of heterotopia is famously vague and open ended, yet has inspired an impressive body of academic work (Palladino and Miller 2016). In Des Espaces Autres, he describes heterotopias as places that both reflect all the other sites within a culture, and at the same time invert and contest them. They are real sites that ‘suspect, neutralize, or invert the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect’ (Foucault 1986: 24). In my own words, the discourse of the heterotopia simultaneously reflects and contests the ‘mainstream’ from which it stands apart.
For the current discussion, my concept of the HOP is limited to the space within which I practice Tellur. Though I suspect the term might prove useful for the analysis of other contemporary music practices, I by no means want to pretend that the scope of this analysis is wider than my dealings with this particular work.
I also do not pretend to take into account the vast context of scholarship that has been written about Foucault’s concept of heteropia. I used it, open-ended as it appears in his writings, as an inspirational point of departure. My experience of practicing Tellur resonates with some of its most important characteristics. To begin with, the mainstream which the HOP simultaneously reflects and contests is a tradition of classical music performance, built around the regulative work-concept and its associated ideals and regime of practices.
The HOP also resonates with the principles Foucault lays out for his systematic description of heterotopias. Two of these principles are relevant to the current discussion.[16]
The first principle is that heterotopias are probably part of every culture, and that we can classify them as either crisis heterotopias or heterotopias of deviation. I classify the practice room as a crisis heterotopia: a privileged place to which the performer retires temporarily because he is in a state of crisis in relation to society, before returning to the public eye with a rendition cloaked in the composer’s name—and the image of unproblematic Werktreue intact.
The second principle is that the heterotopia can juxtapose in a single real place[17] several sites that are in themselves incompatible. The heterotopia of the practice room juxtaposes two incompatible kinds of Werktreue: one more traditional, found in the rest of Murail’s catalog and writings; and another in which the contributing agency of an individual performer has a much broader field of play. And this juxtaposition is related to other incompatibilities. A first is the traditional removal of the composer from the sonic realization of their work; versus an electronic studio practice in which the composer directly sculpts sonic phenomena. And a second is the traditional instrument with its performance practices; versus that of an instrument of process, explicitly contingent on a particular musical discourse and open to the extended, 'new' possibilities of electronic sound manipulation.
A final important trait Foucault ascribes to heterotopias, is that they have ‘a function in relation to all the space that remains’ (1986: 27). He describes this function as unfolding between the extreme poles of creating an illusion or a compensation. In my experience, the HOP functions as a space of illusion. Like Foucault’s example of the brothel as a space of illusion, it exposes all spaces it stands apart from as ‘still more illusory’. In the brothel, the illusion is the coexistence of the bliss of intimate mutual affection and the power structure of patronage [my interpretation]. In the practice room, it is the coexistence of old familiar, reliable, and prestigious Werktreue with the excitement of a larger and messier world of classical music after the wars—and its electronic studios, graphic scores, etc.
Though there are many dissimilarities with my case (e.g. I don’t think the practice room has a figurative madam), I find it useful to pursue the example of the brothel a bit further. One can conceive that illusions of its kind are often enacted with full conviction, and simultaneously full acknowledgment of their illusory status. In the HOP I experience a similar dynamic. Tellur’s context persuades me the piece was conceived and written under the guidance of the work-concept. It offers a rich context of ideology, music theory, and artistic artifacts that facilitate not only a convinced, but also a thorough enactment of traditional Werktreue.
I get to apply the most densely ramified body of knowledge I have access to as a musician. After all, I am in large part a product of thousands of hours of music training and study in the lineage of nineteenth-century regimes, such as the conservatories of Leipzig and Paris.[18] Indeed, I have shown in this exposition that I went to great lengths in my faithfulness to the work and its composer function. I have tried to understand the historical stake of its music and—prompted by Murail’s writings— I have developed a detailed theoretical analysis as the gateway to its ideal score.
In a sense, this was very committing. Engaging with Tellur and its composer function means embracing Murail’s spectral attitude and its indebtedness to the sound-sculpting electronic studio. In other words, I accept that every perceivable aspect of sound production is subject to the kind of process-oriented manipulation described in the composer’s theoretical writings. At its most interesting this becomes an exercise in denial of habitual crutches, a continuous re-appraisal of my practice and the conventions encrusted in it—gifts from the messy world of post-war renewal.
However, this is not an act of pure submission. The transgressively mobile system of mutual contingency between ideal score, abstract instrument, and unconventioned practice is continuously there as a reminder of this heterotopia’s illusory status. In Heideggerian (2001) terms, in my practicing Tellur a matrix of available equipment is involved towards the “adequate” realization of the work. At the same time, the transgressive bandwidth of my performer agency renders pieces of this equipment unready-to-hand. They lose their pre-ontological transparency and become available for ontological analysis and redesign.[19]
To put it succinctly: the illusion of Werktreue is broken as it is cast. I have found that this dynamic engenders a continuous, embodied, reflection on knowledge lost and gained, and on the extent to which one is privy to the knowledge generated by the power structures one helps enact. It is in this conscious exploration that the HOP reveals the spaces from which it stands apart as ‘even more illusory’.[20]
While theoretical insights on the work-concept naturally impact one’s practice, the embodied nature of this reflection makes it all the more impactful. It continuously informs my interpretation of Tellur and has greatly influenced my subsequent work—though the latter falls outside the scope of this exposition.[21]
A small but significant example of the issues I considered was the question of performing Tellur on electric guitar to explore traces of the electronic studio more explicitly. My first experiences quickly made clear that this would make true commitment to an illusion of Werktreue unsustainable. The particular tension between the instrument of process and the classical guitar is, I think, a key element of Tellur. This is not only so because it is the first thing mentioned in the composer’s program notes. It is not even because the instrument of process is supposed to be stacked on top of a traditional one (the ‘traditional’ electric guitar sounded far enough removed from my experiments for that to be the case).
A marginal instrument in classical repertoire, the modern guitar has existed in friction with (often pianistic) demands of non-guitarist composers since they first started writing for it in the early twentieth century. The idiomatic struggle this tension generates is part of our Werktreue practice. It has resulted in a rich body of know-how, a particular creative dialect. To classical guitarists, there is a kaleidoscope of struggling beautifully, elegantly, innovatively against our instrument in service of the work.[22]
As an example of this dialect, let’s look at a seemingly inconsequent detail from the first minute of Tellur. There is a nerve-racking quality about this passage, with its never-ending flurry of delicate attacks. For me, this gives the following self-imposed and risky transition between rasgueado patterns a worthwhile shine, even if it might seem throw-away on its surface:
Reversal
The rasgueado transition above is small and relatively contained but, as my discussion of attack pitches suggests, small variations in playing techniques can equally shift Tellur’s constellation of contingencies in significant ways. Being conscious of this fact has highlighted that I first began to study Murail’s writings—and spectral techniques in general—because I wanted to play Tellur. My theoretical understanding of Murail’s spectral work, and my practicing Tellur, took shape simultaneously. I have and am still discovering the many implications of this simultaneity. It is often impossible to know whether an insight first appeared in words or under my fingers.
Other commentators have pointed out the influence of performance practice on theoretical discourse. Though developed from a theoretician’s point of view, Nicholas Cook’s (2001; 1999) proposal of a horizontal relationship between theory, performance, and musical notation is a useful framework here.[23] Because Cook (2001) equates performance with an enactment of social relations,[24] I would add two elements to his horizontal network: relations to non-human agents (musical instruments); and a relationship to the body in excess of what is socially learned.
The HOP generates and reveals particular dynamics in these relationships. For example, the technique I use to play the attack pitches at the end of section B is quite particular to my own heuristics.
I don’t remember the exact moment I discovered it. I recall I started to experiment with alternatives to the technique prescribed by the score, because it did not work with my soft fingernails. Most importantly, I remember its discovery was accidental and uncontrolled.
Accidental movements generally play a large role in my developing extended techniques, be it in classical practice or improvisation. If I need to be able to repeat an accidentally discovered technique long term, I first analyze its choreography more consciously—the exact position of the finger, sensation of pressure, shoulder engagement, etc. For this specific technique, I remember analyzing the mechanical ins and outs of its sound production only years later, when colleagues began to inquire about its workings. Without going into nitty-gritty detail, it turns out it is not easily replicated by others, and is perhaps tied in part to the particular shape of my index finger.
The particularity of the technique is that it creates clear attack pitches with controlled timing (I can execute the pitches in a variety of rhythmical configurations and tempi). A useful point of comparison is the recording of Rafael Andia whose approach to attack pitch prominence is otherwise pretty similar to mine. Andia’s technique necessitates a rapid (grace-note speed) execution of the attack pitches and causes a loss in pitch prominence, compared to the preceding rasgueado texture.
On the local level, he manages the transition with a jump in tempo—perhaps to avoid big gaps in the texture. On the meso level, the idea that the attack pitches connect to the first harmonic in section C becomes less convincing and so less useful. This in turn changes the structure on a macro scale. Below, a schematic comparison between Andia’s and my own recordings.
While my own theoretical analysis of Tellur played a role in pushing technical experimentation, the excitement over a small technical solution equally steered my analysis. The local, meso, and macro-level structure of my interpretation is in part the result of a split-second loss of motor control and a sense of novel achievement. That sense of achievement itself is tied to the varied performance history of a few notes in Tellur’s score. Like a nice turn of phrase can bend a speech, musical discourse is easily bent to fit an inventive finger flick—and so I think it should.
There are many other examples of such (small and bigger) inversions in my recording. In a sense, the HOP encouraged me to seek out and embrace their creative gratification as far as the illusion stretches. Perhaps, most noticeable is my use of a pick at the end of section C and the beginning of section D. The idea of using a pick co-developed with the notion that this is Tellur’s climax. These notes in such high positions on the bass strings resonate much less than the hexachords at the peaks of Tellur’s other ascents. With the strumming techniques the score prescribes, Tellur might come off as if it has three equal peaks or a climax at the end of section F. The plectrum serves to both push the volume past what is possible with finger technique, and to add considerable noise to the sound texture.
There is now a choreography that needs to be accommodated. Picking up the plectrum takes a bit of time, and to prepare that I lengthen the resonant chords that lead up to this moment.
Given the extra gestural space I have now inserted, I find the prescribed dynamics for the interceding rasgueados lack impact. To make up for this I enhance the crescendo that accompanies their chordal expansions.
Finally, after the pick has served its function, it needs to be disposed with. I drop it on the ground right before section E, which incidentally adds a bit of choreographic flair to the intense descent of section D bottoming out (though this is of course not noticeable in the recording).
By inferring theory from practice, the exposition has begun to loop back on itself. To complete the reversal, let’s return to Tellur’s gambit: the guitar of sustained sound masses. This bizarro guitar entered in dialogue with the often-tortuous practical counterparts of abstract guitars that slept in my fingers years before the idea of the instrument of process crystallized in my mind. Even with all its historical contextualization, I cannot but think that the experience of Tellur’s bizarro guitar, talking back and forth with its many older cousins, is mixed into the foundations of the theoretical framework I presented in the first part of this exposition.
With my three-part narrative now thoroughly unstuck into two-way traffic, it should be clear that every bit of it is permeated with my personal performance practice. The cumulative idiosyncrasies that mark my contribution to the realizations of Tellur’s tablature score—and its unconventional technical demands—equally co-determine my understanding of its discursive context.[25]
I hope that at this point my written words have begun to reflect the creative dynamic that characterizes the HOP. I hope you, the reader, have experienced a convincing traditional performance study with all its fidelity to the work and its composer function and had it rendered illusory. Maybe, now, these old performance studies look more illusory still, and so might artistic (research) experiments that propose explorations of the work-concept free from its associated regime of practices—though that last claim is perhaps better left for another discussion.