Introduction – music, sound and space: transformations of public and private experience

Abstract

When new instruments will allow me to write music as I conceive it, the movement of sound-masses, of shifting planes, will be clearly perceived in my work, taking the place of linear counterpoint. When these sound masses collide, the phenomena of penetration or repulsion will seem to occur. Certain transmutations taking place on certain planes will seem to be projected onto other planes, moving at different speeds and at different angles ... We have actually three dimensions in music: horizontal, vertical, and dynamic swelling or decreasing. I shall add a fourth, sound projection ... [the sense] of a journey into space. Today, with the technical means that exist and are easily adaptable, the differentiation of the various masses and different planes as well as these beams of sound could be made discernible to the listener by means of certain acoustical arrangements ... [permitting] the delimitation of what I call ‘zones of intensities’. These zones would be differentiated by various timbres or colours and different loudnesses. [They] would appear ... in different perspectives for our perception ... [They] would be felt as isolated, and the hitherto unobtainable non-blending ... would become possible. (Varese 2004 (1936): 17–18)