Interval Structures in the Music of Carmelo Bernaola: An Approach from PC Set Theory and Textural Analysis

Abstract

INTERVAL STRUCTURES IN THE MUSIC OF CARMELO BERNAOLA: AN APPROACH FROM PC SET THEORY AND TEXTURAL ANALYSIS DANIEL MORO VALLINA HE BASQUE COMPOSER CARMELO ALONSO BERNAOLA (1929–2002) was one of the most representative figures of Spanish music in the second half of the twentieth century and of the group of Spanish composers born between 1924 and 1938 known as the “Generation of 51.”1 His professional career coincided with other well-known musicians, such as Cristóbal Halffter, Luis de Pablo, Tomás Marco, and Ramón Barce. Despite the fact that to date several studies have been written on Bernaola,2 these have been biographical in nature and have not tackled essential questions to better understand his music from technical or esthetic points of view. There are hardly any analyses of his music developed from defined methodologies, nor is there a contextualization of the role that Bernaola played in the cultural milieu of Franco’s regime and the transition to Spanish democracy.3 The aim of this paper is to analyze a representative sample of Bernaola’s atonal works from the perspective of PC set theory, as theorized by Allen Forte,4 John Rahn,5 and more recently by Joseph T 86 Perspectives of New Music Straus6 and Michiel Schuijer.7 Several principles of this methodology are useful for explaining Bernaola’s compositional technique, which uses a restricted number of intervals to generate the twelve pitchclasses of the chromatic scale. Defined by the composer as “interval structures,” these consist almost exclusively of relations of minor and major seconds, tritones, minor and major sevenths, and minor ninths, distances which can be reduced to the three interval classes (ic): 1, 2, and 6. The prime form derived from these ic, 4-5: [0, 1, 2, 6],8 generates an interval vector very close to the all-interval tetrachord [210111]. This implies that, although Bernaola employs only three interval classes during the first stage of the compositional process of several of his works, other relations take place due to superposition, permutation, and alternation of the same distances. Although Bernaola never explained in writing the fundamentals of his own compositional technique, it is possible to deduce a type of serial structure from the analysis of his scores and from the comments he made regarding his work. This paper analyzes seven compositions written in the 1960s and 1970s: Constantes (1960), his work that is closest to twelve-tone technique; Superficie No. 1 (1961), where he first uses the aforementioned interval structures; Espacios variados (1962), one of the very first examples in Spain of mobile form; Impulsos (1968–72), which uses a personalized adaptation of serial techniques; Per due (1974), representative of the restricted use of intervals of the tritone and major seventh to generate the twelve PCs; Tiempos (1976), like Per due using sets equivalent under transposition or inversion; and A mi aire (1979), based on symmetrical intervals with respect to a central axis. Together with these examples, the sketches of the work Mixturas (1964)9 illustrate how Bernaola conceived musical structure based on principles very close to PC set theory. Moreover, a brief introduction to other pieces such as Superficie No. 3 (1963) and No. 4 (1968–1969) allows us to discuss some textural and temporal features that belong to his concept of “Música flexible,” one of the hallmarks of Bernaola’s mature production. My aim is also to study the influence that certain international figures had on the Bernaola’s esthetic. Winner of the Premio de Roma (Rome Prize), Bernaola enjoyed a stay in Italy between 1960 and 1962 that would be fundamental for his later compositional career. It was during this period that he met composers like Goffredo Petrassi and Bruno Maderna. Both Petrassi and Maderna employed intervallic serialism as a means of microstructural organization. Bernaola himself mentioned the use of interval structures as a particular characteristic of the lessons Petrassi and Maderna held in Rome and Darmstadt respectively, as shown in an unpublished 1962 document that summarizes his Italian stay.10 Interval Structures in the Music of Carmelo Bernaola 87 Although PC set theory has become a standard methodology in the English-speaking academic field for the analysis...