Experiment in Time

The music is spare. It also manages to be both intricate and delicate. The vocal line is continually pulverized and reassembled--hurled at the listener in fragments, sent darting and swooping with almost maniacal power. And behind it much of the time, the brasses chatter, the winds and strings flow and stretch and blend into an uneasy harmony. The sense of unease, in fact, is what gives strength to the score, suggesting not lack of control but a roiling dramatic energy.

Structure & Sound. As if the sounds of Composer Lukas Foss's Time Cycle are not startling enough, the piece is curiously episodic--only 20 minutes long and based on four disparate texts.

sbSong I is from W. H. Auden's We're Late:

Clocks cannot tell our time of day For what event to pray Because we have no time, because We have no time until We know what time we fill . . .

sbSong II is from A. E. Housman's When the Bells Justle: When the bells justle in the tower The hollow night amid Then on my tongue the taste is sour Of all I ever did

sbSong III is from Franz Kafka's Diaries: This last week was like a total breakdown. . . . The clocks do not synchronize; the inner one chases in a devilish, or demoniac, or at any rate inhuman manner; the outer one goes haltingly at its usual pace,

sbSong IV is from Friedrich Nietzsche's "O Man! Take Heed!" from Thus Spake Zarathustra: One! O Man! Take heed! Two! What speaks the deep midnight! Three! "I slept, I slept--" Four! "From deep dream I awoke:" Five! "The world is deep," Six! "And deeper than the day."

Although all four pieces of text deal with time, and although the score is studded with the clang of bells and the tock of clocks, the music reflects the text primarily in structure rather than in sound.

Conductor's Compliment. Foss's experiment in time is so challenging that at its premiere, almost two years ago, Conductor Leonard Bernstein insisted on playing the piece a second time for a discriminating 400 that lingered at concert's end to try to find out exactly what they had heard. (Said Lenny to the 400: "I compliment you.") Since then, many a conductor has deemed Time Cycle worthy of one, if not two, hearings, and it has become a frequently performed modernist work. Last week at the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ont., it was played with Foss himself conducting from the piano. Festival Co-Director Glenn Gould praised it as "the most important work in the last ten years."

The Stratford performances were interrupted by sessions of "controlled improvisation" in which the performers tried to make musical comment on the material. Although the improvisations left the crowd bewildered (Foss considers them optional), the piece as a whole brought an ovation. Composer Foss, who now plans "to withdraw from the improvised approach." may add to . Time Cycle by inserting poems in Italian and French. But he was more than satisfied with last week's performance. Said he modestly: "It's a good vehicle for musicians when the performers are up to it."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.