Chance, time and space in the music of Juan Hidalgo

              DEeHTE: JUBN HIDALGO
Although Juttn Hidalgo's instrumental
work started out in Europe, eimidst the
setting of the European avant-gttrde, the
far-reaching transformations of his
musical activity probably began as a
result of his contact with America; in
particular, his friendships with David
Tudor and John Cage, whom he met in
1956 and 1958 respectively. Hidalgo
has often said that his encounters with
these two composers was decisive in his
musical development, although we shall
not go into the historical circumstances
since they have been more than amply
discussed elsewhere.
The American experience
undoubtedly strengthened Hidalgo's
musical career, in which he had begun
composing with a conventional system of
notes and then developed towards serial,
electro-acoustic and concrete techniques.
The change began in 1957 with Ukanga
(his first piece to involve the spatial
elements of sound) and Caurga, in
which he discovered the enigmatic link
between pre-determined systems and the
results of chance and non-determination
(which marked the beginning of open
music). 1959 was the most productive
year in terms of the quantity of
compositions, with numerous pieces of
'action music': the aesthetic and
operational embryo of ZAJ and sign of
the move towards electro-acoustic music
which, although resulting in relatively
few compositions, signalled a distinct
change in Hidalgo's instrumental music.
Structural serialism, chance and
non-determination, open compositions
and concrete music all appeared in the
strictly instrumental sense in 1964, with
Aulaga 2, and cukninated in the ZAJ
period. When Hidalgo reappeared ten
years later, with Tantarán in 1974 and
Rrose Selavy in 1975, his music had
already moved towards the less banal
aspects of minimalism and the
philosophy of transfiguration of the
identical, as well as his great Orientalist
phase, rooted in his study of Chínese,
Japanese and Eastem culture in Milán
and Rome between 1962 and 1964. The
Orientalist influence is greatest in
Hidalgo's latest instrumental pieces,
Zajrit of 1983 and Palpiti of 1984, in
Chance, Time
and Space in
the Music of
Juan Hidalgo
which he retums to the use of
conventional notes after the parametric
writing of much of his former work.
This Orientalist atmosphere was also
sought after by John Cage: a Zen
approach which led Hidalgo to the
analysis and trans-codification of poetic
laws and metres.
Whereas the retrospective
exhibition "Z)e Juan Hidalgo" at the
CAAM covers 40 years of artistic
creation, the instrumental musical
composition spans only 27, with a break
of 10 years in the middle. The pre-1957
work was not catalogued by the
composer, although much of it is of
great interest and has therefore been
included in the catalogue by Lothar
Siemens. Although valuable, these pieces
are examples of his work as a student
and are therefore quite different from
his work over the last 40 years.
1. The tautology of art as art
Both in his instrumental and non-instrumental
work, Hidalgo, like Cage,
interprets Ufe as a material, an
accumulation of events and
circumstances to be coUected in the
different forms of art; these forms are
therefore no more than general
symptoms of Ufe. A. Bonito OUva
describes this idea as "the acceptance of
the urban world as a unique historical
space". What inspires us to sitúate this
in the American context is the
tautological treatment of Hidalgo's
language. In both Europe and America
experimental £irt is based on the
conviction that language is the object of
art, and investigation concems analysing
linguistic methods more than
experimenting with new techniques.
However, America restricts art more
strictly to the language used, and that is
where art is defined, tautologically, as
art. Without adding more concepts.
In this atmosphere Hidalgo
acquired a considerable amount of
pragmatic confidence in the methods he
used; questioning only the
correspondence between his
compositions and the idea of art rather
than the mere specifics of his own work.
The maximal expression of this
conceptual art aróse, with no
preconceptions whatever, from the
phenomenal acquisition of language.
And although in principie the conceptual
firtist attempts to question the very
definition of art, he is actually guided by
tautology or, more specifically, by the
affirmation of a language which refers
only to itself.
It is perhaps this attitude which
led to Juítn Hidalgo's innovative
instincts, not only in the Spanish context
where he was clearly the first to make
experiments of this kind, but also in
Europe as a whole. This is true for the
whole period of his participation in the
two first courses/festivals held at
Darmstadt, with the success of Ukanga
in 1957 and Luciíino Berio's commission
for the Contemporary Festival in Naples
in 1958, and his contract with the
ORTF which resulted in the piece Elude
de stage (1961). This latter piece was
chosen by Fierre Schaffer as the basis
for a group piece which brought together
composers such as Xenakis, Luc Ferrari
CENTIO AHANTICO DEMIt M:3oe»40
and Frangois Bayle. Eiectro-acoustic
music was unheard of then in Spain,
and was only gradually making headway
in the rest of Europe, despite the
ground-breaking masterpiece Canto de
los adolescentes produced by
Stockhausen at the Cologne Studio.
The concerts of the 50's and early
60's, and later the ZAJ events,
graphisms, cards and books, were
intemationally recognised as conceptual
expression Hnked to American-style
tautology, and they prefigured a specific
chapter of modemity. At one time the
well-known group Fluxus tried to
persuade Juan Hidalgo to join them. But
the ZAJ concerts created their own
independent atmosphere, rejecting the
ambiguity of associating with more
mainstream currents; they chose to
express themselves with actions using
everyday gestures, sounds and noises.
These gestures represented a change of
focus towards the basic realm of
existence; a privileged position in a
complex system of relationships which,
to quote Oliva again, "accepts both
sound and silence, musical Instruments
and the lack of Instruments, the coded
seriousness of concerts and the irotüc
valué of silence in place of sound".
Juan Hidalgo's radical stance in
the development of his career makes him
Spain's most International artist, at least
in the field of aesthetic innovation.
Likewise, he is the musician who has
made the greatest contribution to the
avant-garde. His work before, during
and after ZAJ appears in every
compendium of contemporary creation.
In this hght, Spanish aesthetic
experimentalism, through the work of
Juan Hidalgo, has contributed to
enriching intemational thought rather
than being limited to merely reacting to
extemal movements with a greater or
lesser degree of genius and originality.
With Hidalgo, it is a Spanish ñame
which takes an innovative step of worid-wide
importance.
2. Systems and chance; transgressive
premises
Equally as important as Juan Hidalgo's
innovative work, which paved the way
for others, is his indifference to the
dogmas which, to a greater or lesser
extent, have dictated the development of
contemporary art. Surprisingly, having
made his first impact on the European
scene at the Darmstadt courses, Hidalgo
rapidly abandoned both the structural
serialism which had been the hallmark
of these events since the teachings of
Boulez, Stockhausen and Berio, and the
integral serialism which had been
imposed by Boulez for decades. It is
important to recognise the suffocating
influence of these doctrines in order to
fully evalúate Hidalgo's freedom in
choosing to move towards a more
American-style tautology, which enabled
him to evolve constantly from wíthin his
own imagination, rather than conform to
external rules. This freedom of choice
may even have unfairly blackened his
reputation on an intemational level, and
even led to criticisms of his not strictly
instrumental pieces as actions wholly
lacking in musical interest (a criticism to
which John Cage's work was also
submitted by the prejudices of Euro-centric
superiority).
In JJkanga, Hidalgo rehearsed the
mathematical rigour of serialism with
great success. Mathematics is, of course,
the basis of serial music; borne of
Schonberg's dodecaphonic system which
was limited to the pitch and frequency
of sound. Serialisation was concemed
primarily with the duration and
dimensión of time in metres and
rhythms which, along with pitch and
intensity, form the main organisational
parameters of musical sound. The
simultaneous permutations and
combinations of these series led to what
was known as integral serialism.
But as well as the central element,
mathematics was also the downfall of
serialism. Juan Hidalgo discovered this
when composing Caurga, also in 1957.
He admits that this piece was, in serial
terms, "less strict than Ukanga,
although I also worked the sound
material 'strictly' for more or less the
first half of the piece. From then on, I
decided there was no reason to maintain
strict loyalty to any taboo or technical
procedure. Gods also die. I then decided
to continué 'freehand' until the end,
inventing a structure for the material
note by note. Paradoxically, when I had
finished that second half, the result was
just as homogenous as the first. Nobody
would know where I finished with one
process and where I started with
another; the process of 'inspiration'.
From then on, I lost all interest in serial-structural
music".
This discovery of the affinity
between hermetic structure and non-structure,
and the adoption of an
attitude like Hidalgo's, was considered
puré transgression in 1957, since it
rejected a priori what could amount to
many years of European and American
musical creation with less imperialistic
serial dogmas. Mathematics is the
operational consolé of serial rotation,
but it is also its ruin. The serialists
eliminated the last remains of traditional
language and, consequently, "arbitrary"
freedom; for them, the subject's emotion
generates emotion in the language,
which is unacceptable. They therefore
incorpórate rhythm, intervals,
longitudes, grades of intensity,
automated bells as melodies, etc., into
the strict order of the dodecaphonic
process of pitches: a mathematical
rationalisation which had never before
been attempted in music.
The inconsistency of these norms,
which are only superficially objective in
a strictly ordained system, becomes clear
in their inadequacy with respect to
structural relations in the course of
music, which they are wholly incapable
of altering. The principie is a linear and
static idea of music: the exact
equivalencies and correspondences
imposed by total rationalisation are
based on the prior supposition that what
is identical in music is also identical in
reality, in a sort of schematic spatial
representation which exeludes all
expressive diversity. This is quite the
opposite to the path chosen by Hidalgo
who, in his reaction against the
machine-based utopia of serial
automatism, dedicated himself to open
forms and non-determined aspects,
although he did not completely exelude
electronic and mathematical principies.
In this sense, he shared the reactions of
Várese and Xenakis.
The French engineer Edgar Várese
proved that the experiences of a
technological worid can be
communicated musically to great effect
and with no misgivings about the
'scientification' of art. Although Várese
íes
171
contributed substantial technological
aspects to composition, his aim was not
to achieve puerile scientific content but
to créate a space in which to express the
tensions that new music was on the
point of losing. Várese was the first to
undertake a bold, methodical
exploration of the undiscovered territory
revealed by Schónberg's dodecaphony,
the bruitists and other pioneers. The
revolutionary pieces he produced after
his emigration to the United States
culminated in Ionización. While he was
working on this piece, he had the idea of
creating a musical laboratory where
experiments might lead to the discovery
of new methods in the conscious or
chance-based manipulation of acoustic
material. This plan, which did not see
the light until 20 years later in Paris,
provided the framework for Hidalgo's
experimentation and led to the creation
of his two electro-acoustic pieces in
1961: Etude de stage and Música en
cinta.
However, it was the investigations
of the Greek musician Inannis Xenakis
which put mathematics and sound
engineering at the heart of musical
creation. He was concemed with musical
time and space from a mathematical
point of view, and particularly in terms
of the calculation of probabilities. He
invented estocastic music, based on
serial events, and symbolic music,
founded on the theory of wholes and
mathematical logic, and he introduced
scientific chance into his work, as a
factor capable of being a constructive
principie. Chance, which is not scientific
but spontaneous and consciously
provoked as a constructive principie, is
present in all Hidalgo's open music and
in the electro-acoustic pieces he
developed, both during his friendship
with Xenakis and under the guidance of
Fierre Schaeffer in Paris.
It is worth pointing out that this
factor of non-determination appeared in
Hidalgo's work at a time when music
was primarily concerned with the
rationalisation of logical processes.
Hidalgo was one of the first to recognise
the seed of self-destruction in the
growing complexity of serialism's linear
micro-polyphony, precisely because it
was acoustically identical to the
discourse of chance. In pieces like Ciu-music
Quartet, both Offenes Trio and
Wuppertal 2 Pianos (all composed in
1959); Kuutamo (1961), Roma 2 Pianos
(1963) and the two 1961 electro-acoustic
pieces quoted previously,
Hidalgo foUows Várese in the effects of
juxtaposing rhythms, bells and djTiamic
intensities which produce the
macroscopic level that the linear
categories of serial composition were
unable to achieve. The arithmetic of the
relations between intervals and beUs,
and the geometry of the spatial
surroundings, produce expression
without necessarily revealing a half-intuitive,
half-analysed calculation of
probabilities. The listener hears a
"global acoustic occurrence"; an art of
puré reason because it incorporates both
intuition and emotion.
"The Gods also Die", wrote
Hidalgo in the programme notes for
Caurga, referring to the system and
perhaps also to the gurús of serial
structuralism (in particular, to the great
figure of Boulezism, since Stockhausen
and Berio had already moved away from
serialism before the French composer).
We cannot underestimate the historie
valué of Hidalgo's contacts with the first
crisis of integral serialism, which
resulted from the fact that the new types
of soimds were too extensive to be
delimited. Hidalgo's experience with
Caurga showed him that the composer
who prepares his material
mathematically beforehand deprives
himself of the possibility of changing the
general form, and therefore of
controlling the material. The use of free,
Creative gestures is therefore not a
stubbom bid for control, but a desire to
fulfil the poetic potential resulting from
a rupture with method. Hidalgo spoke of
his experiences in foUowing and
breaking the rules, which led him to
discover the possibilities of chance. In
short, the parímietric combinations of
frequency and pitch, duration, intensity,
bells or rhythm, seem more appropriate
to computers and not to human
composers who can, and must, choose
between the vast range of possibilities.
Obviously, their selection depends on
personal subjectivity, and therein lies the
Creative personalisation of music.
Absolute predetermination inevitably
leads to a new irrationalism, since the
dream of the theorists of ultra-precision
can only come true in the realm of
irrationality.
Chance, intuition and luck are
always factors in the work of the human
mind, and even more so in Juan
Hidalgo's "open" music and his pre-ZAJ
action music, the 1959 Armónicos Series
which , from the first to the sixth action
gradually elimínate Instruments from the
total of sLx with which it began,
maintaining the visual and scenic
tensión surrounding each of them for
identical lengths of time (one hoiu^ and
three minutes each); the Carta para
David Tudor (1961); the four
Armandias (1964), of imspecified
duration except one fixed at 13 minutes,
which involve one or two grand pianos
and between three and eight pianists...
Chance, intuition and luck are
central elements in the ZAJ period, in
the Etceteras and, above all, in Los
halas of 1966, which use instruments of
any sort, in any quantity, and making
any kind of sound.
3. The theory of space
Years ago. Hidalgo wrote the text "Time
and Space in My Musical Instrumental
Process" which has now been
reproduced in the CAAM catalogue. In
the first few lines he defines music as "a
temporal-auditory process of sonorous
objects, with a conventional beginning
and end partly determined by the
composer and partly by the sonorous
material used. Henee we can deduce that
the characteristic of this process of
presentation and linking (language) of
sonorous objects implies, sine qua non,
its temporality; TIME is therefore the
most important and inevitable vehicle of
sonorous material and musical
grammar. But in order to expand
physically, sound also requires another
essential atmospheric factor: SPACE.
Therefore, to expand on our previous
definition, we could say that music is a
temporal-auditory-spatial process of
sonorous objects with a conventional
beginning and end partly determined by
the composer and partly by the sonorous
material used".
This is a worthy definition.
Temporality is obviously an essential
part of the nature of music, whereas
spatiality is not, since the original idea
of space emanates from sight or touch
more than sound. The concept of space
in terms of the opposition between 'fuU'
and 'empty' has existed since time
immemorial; space, then, is a puré
receptacle, a continuum without
individual properties. To put it another
way, things are not partially made of
space; it is space which emanates from
them. Therefore, space is not a reaUty in
itself, but something defined by the
position and order of bodies, be they
material or immaterial (like sound).
Except in functional models which do
not uphold an ideology of sound in
space (for example, the position of
choral and instrumental groups in
Baroque oratories), the spatial
dimensión was generally irrelevant in
music. Not until the 20th century did
the conceptual development of this
dimensión begin; particularly with the
impulse of electro-acoustic music. It is
worth studying this in greater depth
since it constitutes one of the most
characteristic traits of Hidalgo's work.
Ahead of its time (like all
Hidalgo's intuitions and experiments),
Ukanga gave equal valué to space and
time. The score, written for five
instrumental groups, prescribes the
physical position of each group so that
the sounds "move, pass from one group
to another, interfere with or complement
each other during this movement, bump
into each other and strengthen each
other", to quote Hidalgo. These
movements, inextricably linked to the
idea of space, were inspired by the
diversification of sound sources in
electro-acoustics, and then began to take
shape with instrumental sources. Like a
"universal container" of physical bodies
(of which sound is one), Hidalgo's space
breaks through the barrier of visual and
tactile perception and actually becomes
audible. The elements of distance,
capacity, immensity, etc., are therefore
enriched with new operational contení,
such as the movement of sound
organised in artistic groups. The
difference between mathematical and
sensitive space is no longer exclusively
empirical, since there is no longer a ciear
distinction between two series of things
(one stationary and the other mobile),
but between two possible series of
operations. The operation in acoustic
space, which is inseparable from the
operation of time as a duration and
process, also opens up new horizons for
imaginary space as opposed to real
space. Whereas real space is finite, and
limited by the universe of things,
imaginary space goes far beyond the
things present, and contains a vast
number of other possibilities. In this
sense it is potentially infinite. What is
decisive musically speaking is that the
spatium as a distance between two
points (the interval or void) can be filled
by the operational movement of sound
and by its own norins of interval, which
is not only sound but the puré
correlation of space and time.
During the 50's, Juan Hidalgo
sensed the space-time continuum in
Einstein's theory of relativity, and
incorporated it into his work. It was only
in 1953, 4 years before Hidalgo wrote
Ukanga, that Einstein had succeeded in
adding the electromagnetic field to the
four-dimensional space-time continuum
which already included matter and
gravity, thereby completing one of the
most brilhant scientific breakthroughs of
the century. This historical reference is
essential in order to sitúate Juan
Hidalgo's concems and instincts in an
ideological and scientific framework,
during the first years of his avant-garde
experiments, which were undertaken
along with other remarkable European
and American composers.
Here we shall not go into detall of
this early assimilation of the time-space
process in Hidalgo's open work, of his
experiments with non-determination and
chance, or the hints of it which were
already present in his parametric scores,
the concrete music mentioned
previously, all his pieces of action music
and, above all, the concerts and events
of the ZAJ period. Yet in all these pieces
we can see the embryo of an explicitly
visual and spatial language which has
been Hidalgo's primary concern during
many of his creative periods. Perhaps
my opinión is coloured by my affinity
with music, but I have always believed
that the inspiration for all Hidalgo's
work stems from his musical creation,
and that he has achieved his most
impressive creations as a composer
above all else.
The spatial factor continued to
play an important role in instrumental
pieces such as Ciu music quartet and the
two Ojfenes Trio (open trios), although
in both these cases the position of the
Instruments is undetermined rather than
fixed by the composer; at each
performance the material can change
according to the distribution of the
sound sources. Milán Piano, Wuppertal
Dos Pianos, the very interesting Roma
Dos Pianos and Aulaga 2, composed
between 1959 and 1964, all incorpórate
spatial elements and, sometimes, by
means of assimilation, they also
incorpórate noises made by the
performers using undetermined sound
sources (which naturally involve visual
action), as well as all the sounds present
in the segment of space in which the
performance takes place.
These pieces fuse symbolic
discourse and expressive discourse. The
former conveys references (notes or
indications in the score), and the latter
adds the emotions or altitudes of the
performers who are influenced directly
or indirectly by the composer.
In a note about Palpiti, Hidalgo
says: "1 realise that I have not explained
anything about the technical side of this
music, or about its structure, ñor about
how I used the Japanese texts as its base:
all that is just the mechanics. Music is
only for listening to". This tautology is
characteristic of the American influence
generally attributed to Juan Hidalgo, but
it also shows his resistance to describe
methodology in a way that would
remove the magic or mysterious aura of
his music. Wittgenstein has said that
what can be demonstrated cannot be
said. "What language reflects cannot be
represented by language" and "we
cannot use language to express what we
mean in language". These ideas evoke
nietaphors, a meta-language which
reinforces the mystery behind the way
the 'concrete' expresses the 'abstract'.
For Hidalgo, the process of discourse is
always supported by intuitive thought.
Intuition provides the content of truth,
and discourse gives it form. If music is
just for listening to, then its fomi must
reveal the truth of the content and make
it intelligible: this truth of content is
what language can reflect but not
represent.
171
17!
Hidalgo's spatial experimentalism
can be seen in Intermezzo, his most
recent piece, which he composed in
1986 for four large bands situated
between 20 and 30 metres apart. The
pubhc sit all around the first band,
between the first and the second, the
second and the third, and all around the
fourth. The bands play the same piece in
unisón, and the score is completely
closed, excluding all elements of non-determination.
Each band has a
conductor, and on each music stand
there is a flashing light which acts as a
metronome. In spite of the planned
exactitude of time, the spatial situation
of the bands and the public is a dynamic
factor which transforms what in theory
is rigid and unified into mobility and
displacement. The different distances
between all the points of acoustic
reception (the members of the audience)
redefine the space based on sound in an
operational series which is closely linked
to the idea of space as an "incubator"
inside which the different positions of
the bodies and their relationships are
dissolved.
Another invention of this century
which Hidalgo developed ahead of its
time was parametric writing. When
graphism abandoned traditional note-writing,
it could either invent a new
form which would inevitably suffer from
the same limits, or else it could be
reduced to one or several space-time
parameters with no need for the
deceptive array of symbolic writing. Of
course parametric writing is open by
definition, and leaves great scope for
invention by the performer. In the pre-
ZAJ period, Hidalgo invented his own
form of note-writing on a five-lined
frame in pieces such as Milán Piano and
the two Aulagas. All the parameters are
represented by Hidalgo's own graphic
symbols, which are not radically
different from classical notation.
Selective parametric writing also appears
in Etude de stage, which specifies
sounds, silences and just five orders of
diu-ation for both. It also appears in
Música en cinta, where four magnetic
strips, each over 11 metres long, record
the altemating silence or sounds in
centimetres. The score for Roma dos
pianos establishes the number of sounds
for each piano in sequences of minutes
and seconds. The only sound soiu-ce is
the whole piano keyboard: 88 sounds in
all, in time sequences of ascending and
descending scales. There is not a single
note in this score, which contains only
words and numbers. Each performance
inevitably results in a new, entirely
different piece, which is precisely the
composer's aim. This is achieved, on the
one hand, by manipulating the
parameters of duration and frequency
(which are specifically time-related)
and, on the other hand, by altering the
dimensión (such as the centimetres on
the magnetic tape) which translates time
into space.
In the pre-ZAJ years, Hidalgo's
imagination and methods of expression
involved a whole range of different
Instruments and systems. Towards the
end of this period he created Ja-U-La
(1964), inspired by three readings of the
Chinese poet Wang-Wei. This piece was
perhaps the first to use the exact
measures and epigrammatic concisión of
Orientalist aesthetics. It consists of four
verses, each containing se ven Chinese
ideograms, making a total of 28
ideograms. The number and order of
verses imply three readings, which lead
to the three movements of Ja-U-La;
Hidalgo's most refined, concentrated
and perfect piece of chamber music from
this period. Whether or not it is
dedicated to John Cage, the title is the
Spanish translation of his súmame, and
in the short bursts of sound in the first
movement, the syllable Ja is clearly
audible: a nervous, jolted sound which
contrasts starkly with the progressively
static nature and the increasing pitch of
the next two movements, U and La. The
contemplative nature of these last
movements, with their indisputtibly
spatial elements clearly visible in the end
notes and metaphors, balances the
dynamic fleetingness of the first, clearly
temporal piece. Five bows, two
woodwind Instruments and a small Afro-
Cuban drum called a tumba are
sufficient to highlight another typically
spatial element: bells in movement.
4. Theory of time
After the important ZAJ years, Hidalgo
retumed to instrumental music with a
piece I am particularly fond of:
Tamarán, or Gotas de esperma para
doce pianos de cola, which was created
in 1974, a decade eihev Aulaga 2 ana
Ja-U-La. During this long gap, Hidalgo
was dedicated mainly to the activities of
ZAJ; the use of everyday gestures,
attitudes, sounds and noises which, as
we mentioned previously, represent a
sort of focus on the basic realm of
existence.
Significantly, Tamarán picks up
the thread of space-time
experimentation in the parametric score
from 10 or 15 years previously. The
piece lasts 40 minutes, plus the 15
seconds of the final harmonic resonance,
and ideally it requires 12 pianists and
12 grand pianos situated in a cLrcle, like
the numbers on a clock face, with the
audience in the middle. The rainfall of
notes resulting from the pressing of keys
and the direct suspensión of sound on
the strings, bombard the listener and
créate a highly effective sound pattem.
In practice, it is difficult to use 12 grand
pianos and so Juan Hidalgo usually
performs Tamarán live as the 13th
pianist, with 12 previously recorded
sound sources positioned in a circle.
He performed this mixed versión
(recorded and live) in Las Palmas in
1990. As well as its spectacular spatial
aspect, the piece is particularly
interesting in that it presents the
counter-type of the romantic grand
piano's acoustic principie: the non-resonance
of notes. The action of the
hammers on strings is immediately
suspended by placing a hand on the
strings, and the scale of notes remains
floating in the air; a process which
inverts the relation of cause and effect.
The liberated resonance gives no
consistency or physical perspective to
the note played, which is reduced to a
'hammering' of the harmonious melody.
And the melody consists of altematively
vague or defined elements, which
encourage the sequence of motives (due
to the dominant intensities of the
harmonic base itself), or else spray the
sound spectrum haphazardly with
expansive pitches and decreasing
volumes.
However, this esoteric language
organises the apparent chance of the
"hidden side" of the instrument in an
almost mathematical way; something
which had hardly ever been attempted
before. What is more, the relation
between the suspended string and the
free string becomes dialectic in a musical
field which had been hmited to the
hnear relation between the note played
and the harmonic resuit. In this way, the
single discourse becomes dual and
conflictive. Perception can split and
foUow the most satisfactory course, or
else effect a synthesis in the course of
the 40-minute piece, during which
Hidalgo undauntedly stands, with one
hand on the keyboard, the other on the
strings and his eye constantly on the
chronometer, expressing one aspect of
his instrumental thought.
The score develops to the
máximum the time parameter, which is
essential to order the polyphony of
sounds from 12 theoretic sources. And
just as we have spoken of the
importance of space in Hidalgo's work,
his ideas and experience of musical time
are equally evocative. To a certain
extent, his thought echoes what is
academically known as Hebraic. The
Hebrews conceived time as a series of
temporal perceptions in the form of
beats, thereby intemalising time and
tuming it into what we normally cali
duration and temporality. Beats is, in
fact, the translation of one of Hidalgo's
latest instnunental pieces, Palpiti, which
he composed in 1984. But the time
factor is equally important in Rrose
Selavy (1975) and Zajrit (1983), in a
sense which, in order to differentiate, we
could cali Greek. These titles bring
Hidalgo's musical catalogue to an end.
Rather than consider it from a purely
chronological point of view, I prefer to
study it in blocks of global ideas, which
are present in some or all of his creative
periods.
Without going into too much detall,
I would like to look at how Rrose Selavy
{Tamaráris correlative piece) reflects the
Greek criteria of time in terms of the
concepts of 'here and now', cyclically-repeating
series, and even the idea that
etemity is superior to mere temporality.
This poliedricitá of Greek mentaüty (as
the Italians say), is the structure of Rrose
Selavy; "six oíd pieces for six sound
sources", which are played on a
xylophone, a grand piano and, finally, an
electronic 'feed-back' system. The score
is purely numerical. Five notes, from C to
G, are the only material of pitch, and
they are represented by the numbers 1 to
5. The various combinations and
repetitions of these nimibers are the basic
structure of the xylophone music, which
is unashamedly repetitive for the 42
minutes of the piece. This represents the
here and now, whereas the sounds of the
piano (first played on the keys, then in
pizzicatti on the strings, 'muted', played
with drumsticks on the wooden soimd-box
and finally played back with an
electro-acoustic 'feed-back' system)
represent cycUc repetition. The etemal is
in continuity untíl the infinite; a concept
which it is perfecdy possible to represent
in the structiu-e of the piece. In fact,
Rrose Selavy is subtitled Un etcétera sin
fin.
The impact of this polyedric music
is inseparable from a complex
perception of time, which can express a
wide polyphony of pitches, duration and
rhythms, in juxtaposition with the
feelings of the piano player as the only
structural pattem. Strictly speaking, the
score only stipulates the xylophone
piece, leaving the piano freedom in
terms of the duration of each number or
note, as long as it abides by the octaves
indicated.
In a sense this is time as a mobile
image of etemity, or the passing course
of a presence which does not end. Time
and movement come together in this
music and revive the idea of time as
movement or as something closely
related to movement. The numeric score
of Rrose Selavy is a surprising echo of
Aristotle when he says that time is not
exactly a number, but it is a kind of
number since it can be measured, and it
can only be measured numerically. Such
references would take us too deeply into
the links between graphism, sound and
philosophical debates. Suffice to say that
Hidalgo's intuition makes reference to
these intellectual concepts
spontaneously, without leaning on them.
Perhaps HidíJgo is not concemed with
the acoustic demonstration of a
particular concept of time, but his music
is, and it therefore lends a certain
intelligibility to these ideas. This is the
case because the image of time resides in
the soul and could even be considered
the life of the soul. "The time of the soul
risas from its depths, and therefore from
the depths of Intelligence" (Plotino).
5. Self-will and autonomy of the
material
Let US first recall Hidalgo's definition of
music which we quoted previously: " a
temporal-auditory-spatial process of
sonorous objects with a conventional
beginning and end determined partly by
the composer and partly by the sonorous
material used". Of great importance is
Hidalgo's emphasis on the dual
influence of the duration: one which is
voluntary and can be controUed by the
composer, and the other which belongs
entirely to the material and can not be
controUed. This recognition that the
material has a life of its own, that it
moves with its own time and duration, is
an instinct which leaves scope for
unpredictable, unrehearsed outcomes.
By this I do not mean the unpredictable
results of accidental music or the
irmumerably diverse outcomes of open
music; instead I refer to the recognition
that any musical piece has a
hypothetically autonomous life and
duration. Musical time (and, by
extensión, abstract time) is a past which
is no longer, a present whose course can
not be stopped, and a future which does
not yet exist. Time, strictly speaking,
does not exist. In his Confessions, Saint
Agustín refera to the past as what one
remembers, the future as what one
hopes for, and the present as what holds
one's attention; past, future and present
are therefore synonymous of memory,
hope and attention. Could there be any
better way to define the temporality of
music, or any more eloquent explanation
of material first as memory and then as
hope? Hidalgo's music, which is often
entrusted to the moment of performance
and the co-creative capacity of the
musicians, is pm-e motion and
changeability: its aim is not to become
something different from what it was
originally and therefore remain frozen in
a new state, but to be constantly
different. Therein lies the enlightening
idea of the material constituting a third
source of will: extemal but not uru-elated
to the composer and performer.
Those who are concemed about
the potential historical 'cataloguing' of
17J
174
Hidalgo's work should take into
consideration the durability of his music,
which results from the autonomy of the
material, its radical non-determination
and consequent transformational
dynamism. It would be impossible for
this music to suffer from being 'fixed'
historically or converted into a 'museum
piece', since its duration can never be
frozen in a succession of identical
moments. It simply lasts until it ceases
to live, being transformed every time,
and its space-tinie reality is
instantaneous. If we compare several
recordings of the same piece from
different dates, we can see that the same
title does not mean that the pieces are
identical. In the later versions, the
different interpretations and
performances also incorpórate the more
recent elements of culture, taste and
sensitivity. It would be erroneous and
pretentious to claim that Hidalgo's
music (as well as Cage's) belongs to a
specific moment in history which has
now passed. Its openness means that it is
imbued with the spirit of time, in such a
way that it belongs in the category of
classics (as inevitably as its increase in
social recognition) which defy all
'petrification'; its continual innovation is
limitless. Although Hidalgo's
revolutionary work suffered rejection
and discomfort among the critics and
general public when it was first
performed, its saving grace resides in its
resistance to Nietzche's test of etemity,
disregarding the altematives of fame or
oblivion in the cruel world of
permanence which goes beyond
temporary trends.
6. Beauty as a result
Here I would like to refer to the last
instrumental pieces, which were inspired
by Hidalgo's interest in Eastern culture.
Zajrit and Palpiti were written between
1983 and 1984, and their structure is
based, respectively, on the first fifty and
last fifty short poems, called wakas or
tankas, in a coUection of poetry
attributed to Fujiwara Teika, a Japanese
poet of the 12th and 13th century,
whose work Hidalgo had encountered in
a phonetic Italian translation called La
centuria poética.
In these pieces. Hidalgo retums to
the conventional system of note-writing,
thereby linking up with his first pieces
of chamber music, although he retains
some open elements which depend on
the moment of performance.
Zajrit is written for a percussionist
(with vibraphone, three tom-toms -low,
médium and high- and one steel drum).
As well as playing the Instruments, the
performer is required to use his own
voice to make characteristically Japanese
utterances which act as another
percussive element. The poet's 50 tankas
are converted into the musician's
numerous zajrit. This word, made up of
ZAJ and rit (alluding to rite or ritual),
symbolises the meaning of the piece. All
the written notes, chromatic half-tones
in different octaves, represent one
syllable of the poetic text. Each zajrit is
both a self-contained element and an
integral part of the overall process. The
extremely refined sounds, the cómodo
ma fermo tempo indicated by the
composer and translated into slow
movement, and the infinite, open spatial
perspective all créate a magical musical
trans-codification of zen thought, like a
gesture of contemplative nature. From a
theoretical point of view, the greatest
impact lies in the syllabic combinations
of poetic language which are then
changed into the syllabic combinations
of musical sound. In each of the 50
pages, the original poem is like a basie
series which unfolds polyphonically, or a
minimalist element repeated in the
trans-figurative perspective of this series,
without displacing the rhythm. Time
seems to give itself up to the horizontal
vastness of space. The hypnotic effect
and the swing between the sonorous
image and a kind of drowsiness which
seems to multiply it, are broken only by
the beating of the drum at the end of
each poem, as if to signify a new
paragraph. The score alindes to
everything, although it is not all directly
stipulated. The indeterminate elements
lose their radical nature in order to
heighten the poetic charge of one of the
most beautiful pieces of music created in
recent times.
Palpiti was written for a clarinet,
vibraphone, cello, piano and violin. The
last 50 wakas in Fujiwara Teika's
selection are ordered in a numerical code
of series of ten, each introduced bv one
of the different Instruments. The piece
unfolds in this way until it reaches the
lOOth poem, which is the absolute
centre of the composition, and then is
played again, inverting the order of the
poems and instrumenta. The poetic sense
of this inversión stems from the powerful
field of gravity between the centre and
the extremes. Once more in Hidalgo's
work, chance and calculation are
parallel; previous control and the
mystery of casual results tum out to be a
false pair of opposites in the sense that
they are in fact acoustically similar. It is
like a rediscovery of Caurga, 30 years
on. Although this later piece specifies the
indications of time and intensity and
indicates the exact metric valúes on the
musical score, it still retains an element
of improvisation.
Why do these beats have such an
impact on us? Mainly because of a
sense of security in their polyphonic
proportions which exelude mathematics
and are based entirely on an apparently
simple, even playful structure, like
almost all of Hidalgo's work. The
instinct of musical beauty springs both
from the trust in the material and the
skill with which it is performed, as well,
in this case, as the effectiveness of the
instructions given to the performers. In
many ways, Palpiti is another of the
greatest pieces of chamber music created
during the last part of the 20th centur)'.
*********
I would like to conclude with a short
summary of the ideological parameters
on which this article was based: the
radical tautology of Hidalgo's musical
art, his personal discovery of the
parallels between closed systems and the
results of chance, and the idea of time
and space as operational factors in
music. Henry Moore called time and
space Sensoria Dei: the senses of God, or
the sensorial organs of divinity. In short,
ideal entities with no clear physical
existence, in which an instant becomes a
duration and what is fixed tends towards
movement. All in all, I think I have good
reason to repeat that Juan Hidalgo's
most important work has been created
in the field of music.