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‘TIME BLOWN UP HERE AND THERE’: FORM AND RHYTHM IN HANS ABRAHAMSEN'S LET ME TELL YOU EXPLORED

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2023

Sebastian Black
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Abstract

Hans Abrahamsen and Paul Griffith's let me tell you has been received with unusual adulation since its premiere in 2013. This article explores the work's place within the broader context of European literature, music and art, before shifting to a consideration of the piece's subtle hybrid form and its unique rhythmic structures. Abrahamsen's great interest in close (but not exact) symmetrical relationships is considered at some length, and the influence of figures ranging from St Augustine to Joyce, Bach to Webern, Caspar David Friedrich to Per Kirkeby is also observed. Extensive conversations with the composer in recent years provide primary material, and Abrahamsen's fascination with the musical properties of time – its construction and its destruction – displayed in these conversations has informed the decision to structure the article around these twin properties of form and rhythm.

Type
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Information
Tempo , Volume 77 , Issue 303 , January 2023 , pp. 7 - 21
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Hans Abrahamsen, Barbara Hannigan and Paul Griffiths, Barbara Hannigan in Conversation with Hans Abrahamsen and Paul Griffiths, added by Digital Concert Hall, 21 December 2013, www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/16874#watch:16874-4 (accessed 24 May 2019).

2 Music Sales Classical, Hans Abrahamsen: Performances, www.musicsalesclassical.com/Calendar.aspx?cpn=1&ps=100&Composer=Hans+Abrahamsen&WorkTitle=Let+me+tell+you&SearchMode=1 (accessed 22 May 2019).

3 Andrew Clements, ‘LSO/Rattle/Hannigan review – Abrahamsen's masterpiece soars’, Guardian, 11 January 2019, www.theguardian.com/music/2019/jan/11/lso-simon-rattle-barbara-hannigan-barbican-review (accessed 24 May 2019).

4 Anthony Tommasini, ‘Review: “Let Me Tell You” Has Its New York Premiere’, The New York Times, 18 January 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/arts/music/review-let-me-tell-you-has-its-new-york-premiere.html (accessed 24 May 2019).

5 Paul Griffiths, let me tell you (Hastings: Reality Street, 2008).

6 Hans Abrahamsen, let me tell you (Copenhagen: Edition Wilhelm Hansen, 2013), iii [score], https://issuu.com/scoresondemand/docs/let_me_tell_you_48313 and www.-musicsalesclassical.com/composer/work/48313 (accessed 1 February 2022).

7 Griffiths, let me tell you, p. 26.

8 Private correspondence with the author, 18 November 2021.

9 St Augustine, Confessions, tr. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 230.

10 Private correspondence.

11 Eliot, T. S., The Poems of T. S. Eliot (London: Faber, 2015), volume I, p. 183Google Scholar.

12 Stravinsky, Igor, The Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons (New York: Vintage Books, 1947), p. 32Google Scholar.

13 Music Sales Classical, Flowersongs: Hans Abrahamsen, www.wisemusicclassical.com/work/21793/Flowersongs--Hans-Abrahamsen/ (accessed 31 January 2022).

14 William Robin, ‘Hans Abrahamsen: Fame and Snow Falling On a Composer’, The New York Times, 9 March 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/arts/music/hans-abrahamsen-fame-and-snow-falling-on-a-composer.html (accessed 31 January 2022).

15 Private conversation with the author, May 2019.

16 Griffiths, let me tell you, p. 137.

17 Abrahamsen, let me tell you, iii.

18 Joyce, James, Dubliners (London: Penguin, 2000), p. 225Google Scholar.

19 Wang wrote two poems with this name; the first line of the poem in question is ‘I get off my horse and give you ale to drink’. Peter Harris, ed. and tr., Three Hundred Tang Poems (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), p. 217.

20 Ibid.

21 This line is quoted in Abrahamsen’s The Snow Queen: ‘Eternity… Eternity…’. Hans Abrahamsen, The Snow Queen (Copenhagen: Edition Wilhelm Hansen, 2018), pp. 414–24 [score], www.wisemusicclassical.com/work/57908/Snedronningen--Hans-Abrahamsen/ (accessed 31 January 2022).

22 Scott, R. F., Scott's Last Expedition (London: John Murray, 1964), p. 155Google Scholar.

23 Johnson, Julian, Webern and the Transformation of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 188Google Scholar.

24 A catalogue of Kirkeby's paintings lay open in Abrahamsen's study when I visited: it was, he said, informing his work on the Horn Concerto (2019).

25 Borchardt-Hume, Achim, Per Kirkeby (London: Tate Publishing, 2009), p. 21Google Scholar.

26 Mahler, Gustav, Das Lied von der Erde (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1912) [score]Google Scholar.

27 Talbot, Michael, The Finale in Western Instrumental Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 117Google Scholar.

28 The Symphony in Three Movements is well known to Abrahamsen: during figures K–W of Nacht und Trompeten (1981), the first movement (figures 79–81) and, in particular, the third movement are quoted extensively.

29 Private conversation with the author, May 2019.

30 Private conversation with the author, May 2019.

31 See Abrahamsen, The Snow Queen, pp. 456, 467 and 483, and Hans Abrahamsen, Vers le Silence (Copenhagen: Edition Wilhelm Hansen, 2021), p. 108 [score], www.wisemusicclassical.com/work/61925/Vers-le-Silence--Hans-Abrahamsen/ (accessed 1 February 2022).

32 Private conversation with the author, May 2019.

33 Sachs, Curt, Rhythm and Tempo: A Study in Music History (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1953)Google Scholar.

34 Because 7 quavers x 7 septuplet semiquavers = 49, and 5 quintuplet demisemiquavers x 10 quavers = 50. The ratio 50:49 is musically almost imperceptible, hence my suggestion that 49:50 ⋍ 1:1.

35 Because 10 quavers x 10 quavers = 1, and 14 quavers x 14 quavers = 1.

36 Because 1 septuplet demisemiquaver at MM=60 sounds at MM=840; the tempo in bar VII.60 is MM=84.

37 This is in fact approximate, because 84 ÷ 49 = 1.71428571429… and 1.71428571429… x 50 = 85.7142857143… just below 86.

38 Maezel's metronome – that is, beats per minute.

39 Bar 4 of this example: sic erat scriptum!

40 There are no ratios of 6:7 or 7:8, so the projected series 4:5, 5:6, 6:7… is in fact a cul-de-sac.

41 Anders Beyer, ‘Hans Abrahamsen’, Oxford Music Online, https://ezproxy-prd.bodleian.ox.ac.uk:10246/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000046325 (accessed 25 May 2019).

42 Private conversation with the author, May 2019.

43 Given Furtwängler's relationship with the Berliner Philharmoniker, it is perhaps no surprise that he was on Abrahamsen's mind when composing let me tell you.

44 Beyer, ‘Hans Abrahamsen’.

45 See, for example, Yves Balmer, Thomas Lacôte and Christopher Brent Murray, Le Modèle et l'Invention: Olivier Messiaen et la technique de l'emprunt (Lyon: Symétrie, 2017).

46 Per Kirkeby in Borchardt-Hume, Per Kirkeby, p. 143.