Hilomorphism processes in spectral music

Doctoral student: Gabrielius Simas Sapiega
Supervisors:

Abstract

Gabrielius Simas Sapiega

The idea of Hilomorphism as a teleological view that emerged in the works of ancient philosophers remains relevant today. One of the most important and significant aspirations penetrating into the new principles of composition—the desire to unfold the micro-processes hidden in sound like one of the musical materials — begins to appear with the emergence of spectralism and its theoretical discourses, when a single musical sound is treated as a “living organism”. Not surprisingly, the creators of spectral music trying to explain in detail the specifics of this principle of composition paid very close attention to the structural and relevant philosophical connections.

It is obvious that not only the researchers of that time, but also the artists focus on certain processes that lie within the coded materials, or in other words in the objects themselves as a teleological perspective. These, so to speak, rather Platon- ic-Aristotelian ideas are beginning to be incorporated into the field of aesthetics or structure of music embedding spectralistic ideologies and choosing appropriate tools for composing the work.

For analyzing spectral music, I choose the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle as a basis for designating the field of the network of concepts regarding matter and form. It should also be noted that the emergence of hylomorphism theory in both philosophy and other fields of scholarship and art has drawn new perspectives of view, thus it is not always possible to remain authentic to the original ideas, that’s why some of the statements in this report may not be entirely consistent with the theory itself. The most important aspect, in the opinion of the author of the work, can be summed up to this statement—matter and form are equally significant to each other and united into an indivisible communion.

Based on the insights about unity in Plato’s philosophy, it is expedient to define that all the processes and elements used in spectral music are conceptualized in this report as unified, and the hierarchically “lower” parts are represented at “higher” levels, forming an organicistic theory of a musical work. For the respective reason, two important goals are set: (1) to define the directions of material exploration, to summarize the aspects and ideas of idealistic philosophy as well as the concept of matter in music, and finally (2) to reconstruct the platonic unity found in spectralists’ works.