"What Makes It Go": Motion in Wuorinen's Grand Union

Abstract

“WHAT MAKES IT GO”: MOTION IN WUORINEN’S GRAND UNION DAPHNE LEONG N SIMPLE COMPOSITION, CHARLES WUORINEN WRITES, “The ‘physical elements’ of music—the tones—are actually inert locators, while the ‘empty spaces’ of music—the intervals—give meaning to the locations, and are what make music go” (1979, 20). The sense of motion inherent in this description reminds me of David Lewin’s famous definition of interval as “a characteristic directed measurement, distance, or motion from s to t,” given s and t as points in a symbolic musical space (1987, xi). Both Wuorinen’s and Lewin’s statements also evoke for me the real and metaphorical motions involved in musical performance. This essay explores the visceral kineticism of Wuorinen’s Grand Union (1973) for cello and drums. Focusing on details of the surface, rather than on underlying compositional structure or process,1 the essay explores the opening of Grand Union and asks “what makes it go?” It looks at how the passage moves through space, where space is defined by pitch, time, timbre, dynamics, and other features. Although it does not explicitly address performative action, such motion—actual and imagined—forms the context for my interpretation. The essay begins with several remarks by cellist Fred Sherry, for whom the piece was written, and percussionist Tom Kolor, who recorded it with him in I 150 Perspectives of New Music 2001.2 Their remarks, and a comment by Wuorinen, preface my analytical exploration of the piece’s opening.3 Grand Union was written in 1973 in honor of Fred Sherry’s 25th birthday.4 The title has multiple meanings: it refers both to the Grand Union chain of supermarkets, of which Sherry’s father and uncle were executives, and to the union of the piece’s two instruments. This union depends in part on the choice of drums and the manner of playing them. The score, the opening of which is shown in Example 1,5 suggests “Tenor and Field Drums, for example,” and indicates “[medium sticks].” However, according to Sherry, the drums were originally to be played with the hands. The piece’s first percussionist, Richard Fitz, used a combination of hands and sticks. Tom Kolor chose Chinese tom-toms and bongos, and played with his fingers. These choices facilitate the union, or timbral interaction, of the drums and cello, and also affect the balance of the two. (Both Kolor and Wuorinen commented on the danger of drums overbalancing the cello.) Grand Union’s kineticism depends on the complementarity of drums and cello. The long notes of the piece are especially vital. Over his lengthy acquaintance with the piece, Sherry has been particularly concerned with the shape of these notes—with their “life” and how they develop. “As the performer you know the secret of what’s going to happen but the audience doesn’t know it. You can’t force them to know something but you can suggest that something’s going to happen by the shape of your tone on the long notes.” Color can be “open, tight, . . .”—an infinite choice for the cellist as for the percussionist. When asked about technical challenges, Sherry mentioned passages that were “way high,” and, almost as an afterthought, remarked that he “had to have every bowing and fingering perfect.”6 Grand Union’s meters change almost every bar. For all three— Wuorinen, Sherry, and Kolor—the notated meters are real. Wuorinen was adamant that the notated meters “are not merely administrative units: they are crucial in the organization of phrase structure” and function as “patterns of stressed and unstressed pulses, organized hierarchically.” Kolor said that one needed to play the meters. Sherry stated that cellist and percussionist need to “understand the barline together,” and conducted the piece while imagining it silently; this improved his performance when practicing it physically no longer could. In the analysis that follows, I take the notated meters literally. What Makes It Go: Motion in Wuorinen’s Grand Union 151 EXAMPLE 1: WUORINEN, GRAND UNION, SECTION 1 (MM. 1–19) Copyright © 1973 by C.F. Peters Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by kind permission. %" "%# Æ !'' !'' " " Æ ! $ Æ " Æ ! ""%# "&! \^ \ ^ \^ \ ^ 152 Perspectives of New Music The dynamic energy of Grand Union—and...