Lutoslawski and the Future of Aleatoric Music

by: Sascha Jacobsen

"It was in that year (1960) that I heard an excerpt from his (John Cage’s) Piano Concerto and those few minutes were to change my life decisively."

W. Lutoslawski

John Cage began a completely new movement in contemporary music when he introduced elements of chance in his compositions, and influenced many of the avant-garde composers of his generation. Witold Lutoslawski took this idea of aleatoricism and elevated it to its current state where it remains, at the forefront of compositional techniques. While Lutoslawski’s idea of controlled aleatoricism is very different from Cage’s indeterminism, the two techniques are connected, and perhaps represent the two extremes of possibility in aleatoric composition. It is difficult to asses how much influence these two composers will exert on the future of avant-garde music, but I firmly believe that their great influence will surface and cement itself in the progression of composers that carries on the legacy of Stravinsky, Bartok, and Schoenberg. Lutoslawski was also influenced by these three great composers and was able to incorporate aspects of their innovations into his own works without surrendering any of his own uniqueness, and it is this which I believe will give him his place in history as their equal. I wish to focus on those elements of Lutoslawski’s composition that pertain to aleatoricism, and to discuss its evolution and possible future.

The Piano Concerto by Cage that Lutoslawski was so influenced by was an aleatoric piece. The score does not indicate specific pitches or rhythms but instead uses a graph system to dictate the general flow of the piece. Cage’s form of aleatoricism allows for little or almost no control over the actual sound of the performed music. He often does not indicate specific instruments, pitches, rhythms, or dynamics. He leaves those aspects to the discretion of the performer, and so to a large extent, the performer shapes each specific performance. Two performances of the same piece may sound entirely different. Cage also composed pieces for many non-traditional instruments, or even non-instruments, i.e. newspaper, cactus, tree branches, a popcorn popper, etc. This type of extreme indeterminism is in line with a way of thinking that connected music to performance art and to all sounds that occur naturally or unnaturally in any context. This freedom was a way to shed all ties with the western tradition and to create a music that was truly "new". This music is now categorized as experimental music.

Whether or not the pieces were successful or beautiful in themselves is entirely subjective, yet Cage’s influence on his contemporaries is undeniable. In his 1957 article "Alea", Boulez, while defending his own form of aleatoricism, suggests that it is superior to Cage’s. The two had met in 1949 and Boulez was attracted to the idea that pieces might change in detail and form from one performance to another; however, he condemns "The individual (who) does not feel responsible for his work, but merely throws himself by unadmitted weakness, by confusion, and for temporary assuagement into puerile magic." This is clearly aimed at Cage and my view is that Boulez feels very insecure about giving up any rights of composition to the performer, a fear which Lutoslawski shared as well.

Boulez also states that chance is to be absorbed in musical structures which depend on a degree of latitude, perhaps in tempo, an idea which coincides with Lutoslawski’s approach. In works such as Structures and Le Marteau sans maitre, Boulez attempts to put this into practice. In Le Marteau, Boulez is concerned with making the movements "an idea of discontinuous time thanks to structures which are interwoven instead of remaining partitioned and watertight." In Structures, Boulez moves from determinacy to indeterminacy, thus requiring the performer to make certain musical decisions. The Third Piano Sonata was influenced by French poet Stephane Mallarme’s poem, Un coup de des (A throw of the dice) which attempts to create a musical score out of a literary composition. Just as Mallarme was interested in making music out of poetry, Boulez was interested in making poetry out of music. Chance is a central element in Un coup de des and inspired Boulez to write in a non-linear form. In the Third Piano Sonata, Boulez plays with the idea of chance in musical form, where each movement can be arranged in eight different ways, and the performer can choose the route that the piece will take. This is similar to the Chain technique that Lutoslawski used for his Chains I, II, and III, except that the form is fixed but the conductor can determine when to move from one section to the next. Ultimately, Boulez would abandon these aleatoric elements in his compositions, and Lutoslawski became the sole bearer of the aleatoric flag.

Although evolved from Cage’s ideas, Lutoslawski’s approach to using aleatoric elements is completely different. Primarily, Lutoslawski concieved a very specific texture, having a fixed harmonic and timbrel function. His concern was one of total control over the outcome of the "chance" elements. All pitches and rhythms are fixed, and the only element of chance is how these cells interact at slightly different tempi and starting points. This combination of timbre and texture, formed from the combination of each instrument’s fixed rhythm and melody played without regard to its relationship to the other instruments, creates a new and previously unheard of dimension in the western music tradition.

The Jeux venetiens are the first works in which Lutoslawski displays his new techniques. There were considerable problems in how to write out the score; these were eventually solved by his wife, who was experienced in drafting. Each aleatoric section is marked by a signal, usually a short rhythmic motive, that serves as a cue to move to the next section.

In his book, A Theoretical study of the Late Music of Witold Lutoslawski: New interactions of Pitch, Rhythm and Form, Michael Klein attempts to categorize these dimensions as regards to register in the following way: width, weight, cardinality, and density. Width refers to the range, from top to bottom of the aleatoric section. The weight of a pitch collection refers to distribution of those pitches in a certain register. Cardinality refers to the number of different pitches that occur within a given collection; since much of Lutoslawski’s music uses all twelve tones, the cardinality does not change. In his later pieces, however, he reverts to using less pitch classes in his music and therefore achieves a lower cardinality. The density is derived from taking the cardinality and dividing it by the width. This system of analyzing Lutoslawski’s music is extremely efficacious and allows the variety of different textural effects achieved in the aleatoric sections to become more easily understood.

Analyzing the opening section up to rehearsal 1 of Lutoslawski’s Third Symphony using this method, I find that the width of this aleatoric section is five and a half octaves, from EE to b3. The coarse measurement of the weight shows that the octave from c1 to c2 is the heaviest. The cardinality, like most of the piece is twelve, as in twelve note chord. Finally taking the width of 66 semi-tones (5.5 octaves) and the cardinality of 12, I find the density to be approximately .18, a relatively low density.

Looking at a more climactic section of the piece, the ff section at rehearsal 72, which leads to the climax of the piece, I find the following: The width is two octaves and a semi-tone, from d sharp to e2, considerably smaller than the opening section. The weight is at a higher register, focused heavily between e1 to e2. The cardinality is 12, again a twelve note chord. The density is much higher here at .48, out of a maximum of 1; a density of 1 would mean that all available pitches in a given width were being used.

The final chord of the Third Symphony, which sounds at rehearsal 102, just before the final unison rhythmic motive that both begins and ends the piece, is an interesting eleven note chord. The missing pitch is a b, which is the dominant of the final note of the piece: e.

One conclusion I can draw from this method of analyzing is that Lutoslawski tends to have a higher density in the more climactic points. In the Third Symphony, these climactic points also tend to be in the higher registers. There are examples in the Third Symphony of sections with cardinalities lower than twelve, i.e. the section beginning at rehearsal 77; however this section is metered and therefore not aleatoric. The Fourth Symphony tends to use less aleatoric sections and to use less twelve note chords, which was a tendency in all of his last works.

Lutoslawski was a master of large scale form. His symphonic works are among the most successful of recent times. His use of aleatoricism is not just a means of achieving some new color or texture for its own sake but is an integral part of each composition. Some critics point to the fact that his last compositions use less aleatoric counterpoint, and rely on more strictly metered material. This is true, but does not point to a loss of faith in this method, rather it shows his desire, in his maturity , to compose more refined and better calculated music. (Bartok experienced a reduction in dissonance and more reliance on melody in his later compositions as well.) Lutoslawski defends the conservatism of his later works by stating:

"One of the important steps here was to invent a method of writing thinner textures; I reached it only a few years ago... It was not so because I delighted in sound masses-- I simply lacked suitable tools for writing in a thinner texture."

It is important to cite some of the influences that can be seen in Lutoslawski's music. John Cage has already been cited, not as a musical influence, but as a theoretical or ideological influence. Musically, the influences of Bartok, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg are quite strong. Bartok’s use of night music clearly influenced Lutoslawski and similar textures can be heard in many of Lutoslawski’s works. Influence from Stravinsky’s stress on rhythmic development can clearly be heard in the Concerto for Orchestra. Stravinsky’s role as an innovator was evident to many composers of that generation, even though some, such as Boulez, rejected his neo-classicism.

Composers today are still feeling the influence of Stravinsky. In the dialouge between Don Crockett, Steven Stucky and Steven Hartke, which appears in volume 10 of the Contemporary Music Review, these three prominent Los Angeles based composers explore the topic of Stravinsky’s influence on composers of their generation. They agree that composers are still looking to works such as Le Sacre du printemps for rhythmic and orchestral inspiration. They also agree that Lutoslawski achieved a high degree of success in his use of aleatoricism not merely as timbrel color but as an integral part of the form in his compositions. Crockett also praises the return to melodicism that he hears in Lutoslawski’s later works. Since these composers do not use aleatoricism in their music, they collectively view Lutoslawski as an enigma and not as a revolutionary. There is a younger generation of composers burgeoning now that may have a slightly different view. A number of composers utilize a similar aleatoric method in their pieces, although usually not to the same extent as Lutoslawski. Maria Grenfell includes a short aleatoric section in her piece Concertina for Double Bass, Cello, Clarinet, and Orchestra, and Peter Boyer uses it for effect in his tone poem the Titanic. Finally, the new generation of Polish composers includes many who are latching on to Lutoslawski’s ideas.

Lutoslawski mastered his use of aleatoric counterpoint to such an extant that I believe other contemporary composers are hesitant to utilize it more fully in their compositions for fear of not comparing to his standards. In this sense he was a truly unique composer, for no other composers have been able to achieve such success with aleatoricism. The sound of his compositions, although sonorist in nature, are more recognizable because of this distinct aleatoric counterpoint. Eventually he found that he could get a texture similar to that of the aleatoric sections using traditional notation, and this is evident especially in the Fourth Symphony. For me, this shows that Lutoslawski was successful in notating timbres that he pre-cognisized and was not merely using aleatoricism for the sake of technique. The actual sound of his music was more important than the compositional techniques employed.

Shoenberg has been criticized for just that-- allowing the organizational system to rule the music. Shoenberg’s apparent influence is felt less and less these days and although his theoretical contribution was so important, his later compositions are rarely played. Lutoslawski took from Schoenberg in much the same way that he took from Cage; the idea of using twelve tones appealed to him, not in the sense of serialist, but adapted into Lutoslawski’s own method of using twelve note chords. These twelve note chords first appeared in the climax section of Music funebre.

The ultimate influence that Lutoslawski will have on contemporary music in the 21st Century will not be apparent for some time. Will composers stick to traditional methods of rhythmic organization? Will the new innovations be purely theoretical or mathematical? Will there be more neo-classicism or neo-whateverism, or will minimalism prevail because of its audience appeal? Two things, however, are for certain: change, and the reaction against conservatism. In his conversations with Celestin Deliege, Boulez makes the bold statement that:

"A civilization which tends towards conservatism is a declining civilization because it is afraid to go forward and ascribes more importance to its memories than to its future. Strong, expanding civilizations have no memory: they reject, they forget the past. They feel strong enough to be destructive because the know they can replace what has been destroyed."

6. Klein, Michael Leslie, A Theoretical Study of the Late Music of Witold Lutoslawski: New Interactions of Pitch, Rhythm and Form, UMI Dissertation Services, 1995.

7. Crockett, Don, Stucky, Hartke, Crockett: Conversations in Los Angeles, Contemporary Music Review, volume 10, part 1, 1994, p. 51-73.

8. Lutoslawski, Witold, Symphony No. 3, J. & W. Chester/Edition Wilhelm Hansen London Limited, 1984.

Currently, contemporary music is in state of extreme flux. This, I believe, is caused by the technical revolution that through computers is breaking down the barriers between cultures and erasing the geographic boundaries that existed heretofore. Music is becoming less nationalist and more internationalist, and the difference between genres such as art music and pop music are being blurred. All of these factors will come into play when history decides the fate of Witold Lutoslawski. Some already view him as too idiosyncratic to have a tremendous influence, yet it is this individuality that I believe will propel him into the position of being one of the most influential composers of the 20th Century.