Page 130 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

Musicological perspectives on composing 119

Bahle’s research has been met with scepticism even in the more recent past,
despite being appreciated to some degree for demystifying the process of
composing. This scepticism was partly due to the following issue: to what
extent can generalising statements be extrapolated from individual studies?
How to go beyond the simple addition of individual observations is a funda-
mental concern for all such analyses. Quantitative results have a debatable
epistemic value: composers’ ways of behaving and proceeding will above all
display similarities and differences. Entirely misguided, however, are general-
isations that are meant to provide, for example, “evidence for the pattern of
three successive phases of development” (Bahle 1939: XIII) that no artist
can avoid.
For all the above reasons, there were very few analyses of the process of
composing in the second half of the 20 th century. Moreover, the books by
Ursula Stürzbecher (1971) and Ann McCutchan (1999) can hardly be called
scholary works: Stürzbecher had conversations with 20 composers (among others,
György Ligeti, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Helmut Lachenmann,
3
Werner Henze and – for the first time – a woman, Grete Zieritz ) without any
questioning strategy or theoretical background. Similarly, although
McCutchan, who consulted an equivalent number of American composers,
does have a rough pattern of questioning, she shows no specificepistemological
interest or methodical procedure either.

4.1.3 Composers’ self-reflection on their composing as a whole
Composers’ observations on specific aspects of the process of composing are
widely available. For that reason alone, this section only deals with examples
that reflect on the entire process and represent it in writing. I will also refrain
from trying to trace basic patterns and making comparisons. Questions as to
whether sketches were made or a piano was used, whether collaboration with
musicians was sought, whether notes were written on the computer or with a
writing implement, would require a much wider field of survey to give clear
answers. I would, however, consider such quantitative results to be only
moderately interesting. I am exclusively concerned here with the following
dynamic: what intentions and interests might be perceptible behind each
representation of the process of composing that extend beyond the specific
composing habits and technical aspects of composing? I will also be restricting
myself to a few exemplars to discuss certain fundamental and period-specific
aspects.
It seems that, well into the second half of the 20 th century, there were no
composers who concerned themselves of their own initiative with the process of
composing as a whole. And yet some responses to surveys, such as Hausegger’s
and Bahle’s questionnaires, were relatively extensive and therefore enable us
to draw at least a partial picture of the various phases of work genesis. In
addition to these two surveys, Richard Strauss also took part in a further
survey in 1910 on the limits of what could be composed. Interestingly, in his