Despite what must be numerous hearings of that EIC/Boulez CD [Birtwistle, Secret Theatre etc.] as a teenager (it was one of the first contemporary-music CDs I owned), I have no memory of anything after about the first minute and a half of Secret Theatre.
That's true for me for much of Birtwistle's music, too, but .... tinners, that
is rather the point of B's large-scale structural approach, I would think? His general fascination w/ labyrinths (or, moreover, the "parade form" works) would suggest that your ability to find signposts and mnemonic routes back through the piece is
intended to be compromised.
Much more to say on that, but probably not in the NS thread.
My first reaction to AC's comment is: Oh, it had never occurred to me (
'Never?!', I hear you say. Ok, well maybe I'm being just a little bit disingenuous here ...) that it was a question of problematising my listening experience, so much as his composing experience.
Or, perhaps better put, I don't see why turning the moment-to-moment logic of formal unfolding into a matter of unprecedented
contingency (which is surely what Birtwistle's into, no?) should equate to that contingent result not being repeatable and therefore potentially memorisable for a listener.
Well, that's 2 options. Any more alternatives anyone would like to offer up? Or thoughts on mine?
