Home 1. Introduction 2. Markers 3. Archive 4. Audible Markers 5. Visible Markers 6. Notational Markers 7. Conclusion
3.1. Integrated Silences 3.2. Inherent Silences 3.3. Silent Discourse 3.4. Meta-Silences 3.5. Silencings
In this example from Vox Balaenae (1971), George Crumb is carefully scripting silence and has precisely notated the desired embodiment. Note the indications of gesture on the last, inaudible phrase: “play in pantomime,” “hold attitude,” as well as the very precise indication of timings underneath the fermatas (5 and 7 seconds, respectively). Crumb is creating a visible echo of the previous phrase. This is a silence that must be seen in order to be heard.
Figure 2: the ending of George Crumb’s Vox Balaenae (Edition Peters: 1971)
I have performed this piece many times, but I find it extremely difficult to end convincingly. The disembodied playing of the last unhearable notes can easily look artificial on stage. But like many of Crumb’s musical ideas, it becomes a question of theatricality. Emphasizing the gesture makes it more effective. It is the opposite of Morton Feldman’s world (Intermission 6) of subtly still silences. In Crumb’s magical world, the performer must theatrically embody the silence.1 In Feldman’s more austere sound world, the performer usually seeks physical stillness and a minimum of gesture. And yet, both experiences could be described as dreamlike, probably due to the relative lengths of the silences.
Crumb has created a literal marker for silence: a pantomime of playing, which is acoustically silent, although visually not so. His ending critically reflects our capacity for retroactive hearing (connection) and a drawing out of the frame at the end of the composition (disconnection); these silences are (therefore) simultaneously not and knot.