Musical form

In Music, and more specifically in Classical music, the form , in its generic direction, either a structure indicates, or a tradition of writing, making it possible to register the work in the history of the evolution of musical creation. Joined with a title of work, the various musical forms - Symphony, Concerto, Prelude, Imagination, etc - indicate then, is the structure which was built during the ages, that is to say a particular Musical genre, a composition which evolved/moved in the centuries - opera, Danse S, etc In both cases, the concept of form returns to a category of work having one or more criteria more or less strict suitable for a structure - number of movement S, general Architectonique, proportions, etc One speaks also of formalism when it is made use of a certain technique of composition - Serial music - where a category of work respects a certain number of uses, theoretical or historically induced. But if the contents of the music are unutterable, immanent, its inscription in the temporal screen of our present prints at the same time a structure and a form to him, which carry out in us unverifiable transformations by the conscience. The organization of the music is of a intellectual nature only if it is considered it afterwards as a conscious structuring that the theory could solidify.

The musical form like creation of the unicity of work

Unit of time

The musical form to us is progressively revealed unfolding of the work: each moment is in power one moment with a future, a projection in the unknown. It is the direction of the very beautiful title of a work of Henri Dutilleux which proposes to plunge us in the mystery of the moment . The Swiss theologist Hans the USSR von Balthasar, to point out this importance of time him, to us, delivers this judiciously musical metaphor of the human condition: “Thus Made confidence at time. Time it is music; and the field from where it emanates, it is the future. Measure after measurement, the symphony is generated itself, being born miraculeusement from an inexhaustible reserve of duration. ” The Temps falls under the direction of the arrow of time conceptualized by Ilya Prigogine. The order which the type-setter sets up built an opened system, based on the Proportion as on the risk, on the rational one as on the indescribable one. The music creates its own rules of adaptation to the evolution.

Unicity of work

Registered in the Time, the musical form cannot thus, essentially, compare with the others forms artistic, pictorial, architectural, or others. Musical formalization is in fact before a a whole highlighting. Form and structure are thus difficult to distinguish. The structuring intervention of the Audition builds an interior listening at the Compositeur on the one hand and an active listening of the listener on the other hand. This perception is circumscribed in the duration, which makes it possible to concede a formal unit with the work. The unit is the condition first, but it is worked out only because there are redundancies, oppositions, comparisons, conflicts… The preliminary structuring of the material by the type-setter precedes in time the stage by formalization. It is a methodological stage of the Création since it proceeded at the same time of the spirit and poetry. The musical form will then reveal in its development a structuring of the esthetic Perception, which can be carried out starting from the ideal models (sonata form…) or starting from material itself, this one dictating of the immediate intuitions to the type-setter.

Gestalt

According to Boris de Schlœzer, theorist inspired by the Gestalt psychology , only this formal cohesion of work, the totality globalisante of his organization, provides him an intrinsic direction and Immanent, where the music means itself and gets a certain communicative feeling with those which listen to it. In fact, the music falls under a “lived” time which gives its direction to the musical work. If the contents of the Musique are unutterable, immanent, its inscription in the temporal screen of our present prints a structure and a form to him.

Making precede its design critical gestaltist, from Schlœzer comes to distinguish Structure and forms from there in the following way: the structure lies in the fitting of the parts conceived in order to constitute a whole, a unit. The form, it is this whole as such, i.e. the way in which work arrives at the unit. Essentially and by need, the musical work would be thus well perpetually reference of the whole to its parts and the parts to the whole. But only the formal unit, the harmonious cohesion of the components operates this surplus of expression which expresses the gasoline even work, its unicity. This approach makes it possible to replace musical creation in the psychology of the Perception, stresses the importance of this reciprocal influence of the whole on the parts.

The conscious thought which locks up the man within the limits of his own identity, is exceeded by this whole made up of the relations which maintain every moment, all the facets - conscious and unconscious - which make the quality of a musical work. Thus, this one is characterized by the two features from its formal creation which are on the one hand the process and on the other hand its Structuration. No type-setter can knowingly fix his expression in a declaratory process fixed beforehand, without limiting itself. Starting from the contents, of a built material, the structure of the work evolves of perception to the reception.

Procedure and process

Musical creation adopts theoretical strategies (generic), which evolved/moved in the history of the music, of the strategies intended to impel the change, the movement, starting from collective bases. These rules, these systems, can approach a law of organization (as the English term of procedure hears it) or a processual semantics, i.e. not so much that which even relates to the procedure it, the strategy of the change, but well the phases of this change, makes the process of it. This concept of process directly supplanted the other concepts of structuring of the music, such those which created musical objects, architectonic elements of a structure to be defined. From a duality objects/structure, one passes in the Sixties to a duality material/process. How did one appreciably pass from the vision procedural (where the form is preestablished, confined by the theory) with a vision representing a process? By a set of experiments on the sound one and the life, and by an analysis of the reports/ratios of the whole to its parts. The observation of traditional material and the new representations proves that the music is always in a structured movement which fixes the degree of stability of such or such moment, and the contribution as of its points of anchoring at the whole of work.

Musical modern music and forms

In the Modern music, the type-setter vis-a-vis a rich sound material of its own expressivity, of its capacity of immanence, is only brought to coordinate the need for a formalization of the processes and the constraint of the relations which the laws of the perception of the abstract layers of the musical one release. The function report/ratio - form really any more does not have of importance on the level of the creation which unceasingly takes the risk of new. Only the relationship between the material (acoustic model, musical transposition) and the induced function (by nature or destination) provides the criteria of a possible formal integration. To create new organizations of the musical functions which would be addressed less directly to the hierarchical organization of the developed form than with the interest of the listener who hangs his reception there, became a new concept translated by the musical material idea. All these concepts which direct this search for a history of the reception are transformed into little time of founded modern concepts to take part in the evolution of the forms

This integration of a new material caused a new dynamics of research, based at the same time on the intrinsic properties and extrinsic of material, and on the conditions of the perception of the musical one. It is to say that it geared down the formal characteristics of material and thus the rooms for maneuver of the representation upstream. At the same time nine in its vision and the possibility of its organization, this material questions the artistic conscience of the Compositeur S (all that the theory expresses virtually and which practice seeks to carry out). The poetic musical one seeks to make correspond the virtues of the representation to the depths of the imaginary one. It cannot put up any more with psychosensuelles limits; it is brought to invite the diversity of the relations maintained inside the sound one to construction new, and musical perceptive functions.

Thus moving away from the polarized hierarchy around the tonal function, and exceeding parametric combinations of the serialism of the Sixties, dialectical of the form and bottom, the conscious one and naturalness, was thus established which led to forge new dimensions with the representation, to build an atypical expression, deprived of close functional connections. The musical direction and the scheduling of the form are some more solidarized even; as Lev Koblyakov explains it:

“The indissociable unit of material and the organization means that both are generated together and that the least change in material affects also the organization.”

Functionalities

Formal balance thus manages to be maintained thanks to a functional balance anticipated by the type-setter. Analysis of the macroscopic and microscopic perceptive functions (perception of the variance and the repetitions, beam of remanent indices, controls dissonance…), and of the phosphorescent memory, moved by articulations which act like recalls, allows to intervene pertinently on the perception of the total structure. Microstructure and macrostructure have the same level of ductility whose musical composition did not fail to seize. The new, and essential phenomenon in the contemporary esthetic intuition, it is that this comparison can find in nature immanente each sound, at the same time as in the total structure of work. It allows the taking into account of this totality of meetings or oppositions of the phenomena (harmonicity or inharmonicity, texture, balance…). This ambivalence of musical material imposes two logics: local, and another total. In so far as this dualistic prerogative can be the subject of an organization, it tries to preserve the unconscious figures of the intuition, to which all the musical formalisms return. These formalisms, dependant on certain material aspects of the music, are pressed on the acoustic laws and the components of the its the such durations, the heights, the intensities or the stamp which become thus formal attributes. The relationship between these Paramètre S specifies an special attention, and make of them Attribut S of the perception of the form.

The musical form and other elements of the composition

The concept of form is thus not apprehended directly. Only the listening of work, its unfolding in time, allows perception of it. Historically, the Type-setter which named a work by attaching it to a precise form, could indifferently refer to its generic aspects (i.e., with its destination), or to its structure (i.e., with its architecture), even to both at the same time - generic aspects and structural aspects being often overlapping. It is thus quite naturally that a semantic slip occurred, and that many terms indicating various forms - Motet, Fugue, Aria, Rondo, etc - took on distinct directions, sometimes close to the concept of Musical genre, sometimes close to that of musical Structure.

a notorious example is that of the word “sonata” which, according to the context, can indicate the “kind” sonata, or the “structure” sonata of an unspecified musical genre.

Form and structure

The form is thus distinguished from the structure, in the sense that the same form can completely - according to work considered, the type-setter, the uses of the time, etc - adopt such or such structure.

Thus, the “Prelude”, when it indicates the form introducing a opera: the prelude of Carmen of Bizet revêt the “structure” of a Rondo (ABACAD), while that of the Gold of the Rhine of Richard Wagner weaves freely a “sound decoration” adequate, without following particular “structure”. In its original direction, the prelude indicated only what precedes the greatest part of a work - cf the preludes and runnings away by Jean-Sebastien Bach.

the structural aspects associated with a form, must be regarded as component a simple nonconstraining groundwork. Nonthe compliance with the rules inevitably does not exclude a work from the form taken in model.

For example, the “Symphony”, form characteristic of the periods traditional and romantic, is traditionally described like the succession of the four following movements: slow allegro , , minuet and rondo . However it is very easy to find symphonies whose framework moves away more or less from this “ideal plan” - for example, the Symphonie n° 34 in major C K. 338 of Mozart contains only three movements, while the pastoral Symphonie of Beethoven contains five of it -: in spite of these structural exceptions, such works must obviously be regarded as belonging well to the form “symphony”.

Malheureusement, it should be noted that the term of “form” is often employed like synonym of “structure”, which involves some new confusions fatally: for example, “Binary format” for “ binary structure ”.

For example, if one says that the second movement of such Symphonie is written in “ form of Lied ”, that does not mean by no means that it is about the “form Lied” - which raises obviously of the vocal Musique and not of the symphonic Musique -, but although “ its architecture follows the structure usually associated with this vocal form ”, namely: WITH B A'. One sees that an expression such as “ form Lied ” can, according to the context, to return to a true form, or to a simple structure.

If the word form is used like a pure synonym of “musical Structure”, it returns in fact to the definition even of the structure, organization of the components of a work: its compositionnelle architecture, its unfolding, the fitting of the musical ideas, their imitations, their resumptions, etc

In fact, celebrate it Théorie of the musical forms, elaborate at the 18th century by J. Mattheson, J.A. Scheibe, J. Riepel and H.Chr. Koch, is in fact a “theory of the musical structures ”.

To avoid confusions, it would seem preferable to use the term of “structure”, rather than speaking about “form Lied”, “Binary format”, about “Sonata form”, etc One would speak thus about “structure Lied”, “binary structure”, “structure sonata”, etc Cependant, the term “forms”, taken in the direction of “structure”, is of an employment still very frequent.

For more details on this concept, to consult the article musical Structure.

Form and kind

The form is also distinguished from the kind. However, it approaches some, on the condition of admitting that the concept of “kind” can be spread in an arborescent way.

For example, the kind “Instrumental music” is divided into several branches: the kind Chamber music, the kind concerting Music, the symphonic kind Music, etc This last kind is subdivided in its turn in several subbranches : the kind Symphony, the kind opening, the kind Symphonic poem, the kind Ballet, etc They are these subbranches - Symphonie, opening, Symphonic poem, Ballet, etc - which are traditionally regarded as forms.

One will note that according to the context, several terms being used to indicate the various musical forms, can also return to the associated Musical genre.

For example, if one says “ Wagner composed thirteen operas ”, “ Yesterday evening, Pierre listened to a whole opera ”, “ Don Giovanni is the opera which I prefer ”, the three occurrences of the word “ opera ” return to the musical form, i.e. with the “unit” - a work specifies, even not identified - being able to be entered and distinguished within a unit.

On the contrary, if one says “ Jean-Sebastien Bach written forever for the opera ”, “ Pierre often listens to opera ”, “ the Cantatrice S of opera are almost always diva S ”, the three occurrences of the word “ opera ” return this time to the musical genre, i.e. with a “multiplicity” of works of comparable nature, constituting as many elements not comptabilisables .

On the other hand, one could not say “ Yesterday evening, Pierre listened to all beautiful a canto ”: the beautiful word “ canto ” thus indicates exclusively a musical genre, and not a form. In the same way, one would not say “ Pierre either often listens to concerto ” - but rather “ Pierre often listens to concerting music ” -: the word “ concerto ” thus indicates exclusively a musical form, and not a kind.

In a diagrammatic way, the “kind” indicates the together , while the “form” indicates a element this unit: the “kind” corresponds to the branch of the tree, the “form” corresponds to the fruit; in other words, “the form is the final element kind”. It is seen however that the difference between the two concepts is extremely thin.

See too

Internal bonds

List of the musical forms
Acoustics musical
random Music

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