Conference Agenda

Historically, instrumental synthesis – the technique whereby a composer orchestrates the constituent partials of a given timbre into a harmony – has conventionally been understood as part of spectralism’s project of medium specificity, the means by which the composer can “journey [in]to the interior of sound, to observe [its] internal structure.” (Murail 2005) Instead, this paper theorizes instrumental synthesis as essentially mimetic (O’Callaghan 2015), viewing it as an internally contradictory technique that plays out dialectically from the early work of the French spectralists to its reception amongst composers in the present day.

The first half of this paper establishes instrumental synthesis as a paradoxical mimetic technology by reading the early writings of spectralists alongside their compositions, suggesting that the technique was capable of both bolstering a musical discourse’s abstract, non-representational credentials by appearing to touch on the real of sound qua sound, and facilitating a non-abstract logic of representation. This is seen in the most explicit deployments of the technique from the 1970s (e.g., Gérard Grisey’s Partiels and Tristan Murail’s Ethers), in which the porousness between timbre and harmony rested on the presence of a referential timbre that functioned as a supplemental vouchsafe, or “a plenitude to a plentitude” (Derrida 1978), that is imitated through harmonic representation. In these examples, spectralism’s project of medium specificity is shown to rely on an essentially mimetic logic in spite of the two terms having been historically opposed (Lessing 1984; Albright 2000).

The second half of this paper turns to how more recent generations of composers, amidst an environment where technology and technique have been increasingly disarticulated from institutions, have more explicitly embraced the mimetic capacities of instrumental synthesis. Drawing on the work of composers such as Eric Wubbels, Carola Bauckholt, and Simon Steen-Andersen (amongst others), I demonstrate that these more recent uses of instrumental synthesis have come to embrace the dual nature of mimesis (Lacoue-Labarthe 1989) as a logic of representation that both points to outside the immanent concerns of abstract musical discourse, and problematizes the immediate relationship between source and referent.

This paper explores the role of rhythm and meter within the context of musical borrowing. Existing literature typically emphasizes pitch and formal structures associated with borrowing along with their extra-musical implications—an approach also evident in studies of John Adams’s borrowing techniques (Hardie 2010; Rörich and Jankowitz 2005; Sanchez-Behar 2015 and 2023). However, the way rhythmic and metrical aspects are incorporated from source materials into new works is still underexplored. This gap is especially notable in Adams’s case, given his fascination with rhythm and meter, particularly pulsation (Adams, Jemian, and de Zeeuw 1996). Adams’s Absolute Jest (2012) serves as an ideal case study, where he borrows fragments from Beethoven’s late works and places them in what he calls a “hall of mirrors.” This raises important questions: How does Adams manipulate late Beethoven materials through his pulsation practice, and how do these choices shape the associated metrical processes?

To contextualize the borrowing techniques in Absolute Jest, this paper first proposes a framework for Adams’s pulsation practices, drawing on John Roeder’s (1994) theory of pulse stream and incorporating insights from other scholars who have individually explored this aspect (Buchler 2006; Everett 2015; Fyr 2011; Kleppinger 2001; Skretta 2015). I further identify three specific techniques in Absolute Jest. First, the temporal characteristics of the borrowed materials are employed and developed within passages of the new work. Second, these passages exhibit an interplay of multiple pulsation layers, highlighting significant events and fostering metrical processes. Finally, a rhetorical moment, often coinciding with a quotation, marks formal boundaries and concludes the preceding metrical progressions.

Overall, this paper contributes to the growing literature on rhythm and meter in post-tonal music by theorizing and illustrating how Adams engages with pulsation. Beyond previous approaches focused on pitch structures and referentiality, it broadens our perspective on musical borrowing by foregrounding rhythm and meter, showing how the metrical features of borrowed fragments can be refracted and transformed, and how quotations can effectively create pulse and quasi-pulse streams that interact within complex rhythmic textures.

Derivations of the phrase “silence is the canvas” commonly appears in Rebecca Saunders’s scores and epitomize her treatment of a dialectical relationship between sound and silence. Through extended techniques and notational precision, her compositions expose sounds to rigorous examinations, revealing a sonic universe different than postwar-era composers who concentrated on new colors and textures. Lachenmann, for instance, integrates non-standard playing techniques to construct uncommon sonic arrays, while Grisey, among other spectralists, emphasized timbre by manipulating the spectrum of partials. Yet, Saunders’s exploratory approach to composition goes beyond allusion to such predecessors. She often isolates a technique or figure seemingly taken for granted as part of musical convention––then, recasts it into a new sound concept through microscopic exploration. This creates intertextual linkages between works as she interrogates sound sources. I highlight Saunders’s aesthetics through stylistic and intertextual analysis, establishing relevant concepts for timbre-centric readings of her works. Building on literature arguing for foregrounding timbre as an object of analysis (Dolan and Rehding, 2021), this paper focuses on her music for strings, demonstrating how an elemental idea evolves across works, placing timbre at the forefront.

Saunders’s compositions for strings often feature a common gesture unique to bowed string instruments that results deliberate timbral interplay: an up-bow, double-harmonic trill glissando. Building on Robert Hatten’s gesture theory, my analyses of Saunders’s works Fletch for string quartet (2013), Still concerto for violin and orchestra (2011), and Solitude for solo violincello (2013) examine how each different treatment of the gesture elevates timbre to a principal factor. I propose that Saunders’s approach to gesture reorients timbre as Hatten theorized it. In her works, timbre does function as an essential imagistic gestalt––a cognitive and physical component, encompassed in gesture. Timbre also transforms to a perceptual and analytical level above gesture. Reframing timbre and gesture for Saunders’s works could provide a meaningful use of gesture theory for twentieth- and twenty-first-century pieces that do not rely on common-practice style conventions. Working from a “severely reduced palette of timbres,” Saunders creates new, expanding spectra of sounds, while eschewing traditional melody, harmony, and sometimes pitch.