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
This example is from Psalom for four saxophones by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Noted Pärt interpreter Paul Hillier comments:
So many of his works incorporate such frequent and sometimes extensive silences that they become thematic in effect and must be ‘played.’ (Hillier, 1997, p. 199)
By “played,” I think that Hillier means that the silences are not there to be counted, but rather to be felt, stretched, and interpreted by the performers. The silences in Pärt are precisely notated, but in reality, they are played as highly malleable. They are both elastic and tangible.
Giving an insight into singing both the music of Pärt and the vocal music that inspired him, American musicologist and singer Laura Prichard writes:
One of the strange things about singing Renaissance music for me has always been holding your own ‘part’ and counting the rests before you come in with your own voice part. You would think that your head would be full of ‘sound’ during that time—but if there is no written cue, I have always felt a strong sense of ‘silence’ due to my own part being a rest—and not so much a sense of listening to the other performers until I can start to make sound myself. (L. Prichard, 2021, private correspondence)
Prichard’s silence is an invisible, unshareable, perhaps alone silence—the silence within a piece of music that is being performed around you and within which you sometimes have your own voice and sometimes not. A similar experience was already described in the late medieval period by music theorist Franco Colonis:
[…] Colonis links the role of silence to the listener-performer: namely, the observation of ‘vox amissa’. When a certain voice is silent (vox amissa), the singer is to listen to the sounding voices (‘vox prolata’). Silence here is an active mode of listening, not merely a kind of passive emptiness. (Hodkinson, 2007, p. 28)
In our era, the music of Pärt induces us to listen to the vox prolata, the sounding voices, much in the same way Pérotin did 800 years earlier in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. But in recordings of either composer’s work, these particular silences lose substantial impact—the listener should be in the space with the performers. And not just any space: a particular reverberant space, which will let one experience the silence more intensely. This may be ironic because that same reverberation prevents the notes from fading away; their persistence after the musicians stop singing is what draws us into the spiritual experience of silence.
The use of silence in Pärt’s music has been commented upon often enough, generally as contributing to a perception of the music’s spiritual nature. (Hillier, 1997, p. 199)
Indeed, silences contribute to the music’s spiritual nature—as do Pärt’s compositional elements of repetition, slowness, simple percussion, clear vibrato-less singing, and much space between the notes.
In Thresholds, music philosopher Marcel Cobussen suggests that Pärt’s music gives occasion for silence to occur (Cobussen, 2008, p. 117), a very different experience than the perspective Cage gives us of presenting the sound(s) of silence. Evidence for this suggestion might come from the choice of venue. In Cage’s sound world, a performance of 4’33” can happen anywhere; but in Pärt’s world, a venue with resonance is essential. For its experience of silence, his music relies on architecture—enormous rooms and stone cathedrals. In a dull and non-resonant room, his silences will sound empty. Hence, in my terminology, Pärt’s silences are often architectural silences (see Chapter 2). The situatedness of the architectural venue gives it power, echo, and resonance. The architecture becomes a major influence in the resulting performance, reflecting the sound back to musicians and listeners.
I am not arguing that silence per se does not exist in Pärt’s music. Rather, I am arguing that there are two major kinds of silence in his music, both of which contain a fair amount of sound:
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Firstly, the non-notated and intangible silence behind the music, which is a spiritual or mystical experience amplified by the ritual and architectural context;
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Secondly, the notated and very tangible resonant silence developed through the long rests, which relies on the architecture for its impact. Due to the extended resonance of the space, this performed silence is usually audible as reverberation, hence also non-silence.
As Cobussen remarks, the most intriguing and powerful silences around Pärt’s music are not the notated rests nor their interpretation. The most powerful silences are those to which the music gives affordance: a spiritual silence beyond the sensual.
Pärt’s carefully constructed music is searching for silence, searching for that which is beyond the sensual. His music is orbiting around silence, around an empty place, circling around ‘something’ that it can never reach or achieve and what music itself is not. (Cobussen, 2008, p. 117)
The music of Pärt and other composers often inspires a spiritual stillness. Whether the silence appears to be behind the music or the music behind the silence, the result is similar: an experience of stillness, a surrender to the music and the silence before and behind it. The music gives us silence so that we may live the silence through the sounds. “Mastery and expertise play their part, but also of utmost importance is a moment of surrender that cannot be planned” (Cobussen, 2008, p. 121).