This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the composer Kazimierz Serocki, a luminary of the 20th century Polish musical avant-garde. Once a giant of post-war music in Poland, it is unfortunate that Serocki’s imaginative, experimental, avant-garde output from the late 1950s onwards remains today largely ignored.
Serocki was wedded to the experimental ethos of the 1960s, and he blazed his own imaginative style. As a form-creating idea he decided that sound, in and of itself could be a form generating element. This path led him to invent a distinctive polyphony of richly weaving and varied sonic values.
For me, Serocki is a composer who has been influential in musical sound and in musical devices. To demonstrate his influence on my own creative work as a composer and my own interest in making sound qualities as form-creating element, I present an overview of his brilliant orchestral work Symphonic Frescoes (1964). One of the first examples in his oeuvre of “composing with sound colors”, this highly individualistic work is a dynamic exploration of bundled orchestral colors and fields of orchestrational chiaroscuro-like instrumental effects. Although intensely colorful, the piece remains autonomously musical.
In this post I have also included a quick overview of his musical language in general, to highlight how Serocki has helped me to develop a greater understanding of my own musical orientation and interests.
Serocki and Composing with Sound Color
Serocki noted that some composers of the late 1950s and early 1960s began to attach a greater significance to the element of sound color. Keen on discovering ways by which to spark a renewal of compositional forms and filled with new formal elements, Serocki believed that sound color could play a decisive role in the creative process. His compositions began to contain an inexaustible wealth of sound colors categorized in accordance with his own system of instrumental, percussive, vocal and electronic colors. These were not simple “sound effects” —he proposed to “compose with sound color” (mit Klangfarben komponieren) in a systematic manner.
According to Serocki, creating an acoustically recognisable musical form by means of different colors would only possible when “one composes with these colors”. He also claimed that any given type of colour “should be applied only once” in one piece of music. He also suggested that sound colors could,
[…] appear as lines of different timbres; their rhythmic progressions – as structures of sound colors; their sound fields – as combinations or complexes of sound colors. Thus, sound colors can be the construction blocks of musical form and are capable of replacing and representing any other music material that was considered important in the past.
( K. Serocki, (1976). Klangfarben als Kompositionsmaterial)
Symphonic Frescoes is one of the first examples in Serocki’s oeuvre of “composing with sound colors” and various combinations of sound-color structures—a tour de force of sonoristic technique.
Serocki: Sound Color and Fresco-like Structure
It is always better to listen to music rather than speak about it. If a composer cannot convince the audience with his music, then words will not help. Today I have spoken many words. But since words will not suffice, I would like to compose, before my life ends, one more such a composition that would be utterly convincing as music alone. This is the hope I live by.
(K. Serocki, (1965) Komponisten-Selbstportrait)
The first time I heard a recording of Symphonic Frescoes I was fascinated not just by the highly diverse set of timbres Serocki used to build his musical expression, but I was also captivated by its musical drama. What I was listening to was his high-energy process of arranging sonorities that, as an activity of motion, shaped a textural-rhythm that flowed at an impulsive pace. It’s as if he was grinding his own colors and applying them in mercurial fashion across a mural of abstracted musical form.
One of the fundamental elements of Serocki’s musical language was centered on his idea of “composing with sound colour”. In his works where sound color does play an unequivocal role in the creative process, Serocki’s application of it as a formal element distinctly shows why he considered it one of the most important aspects of his method of composition. In accordance with his personalized system, sound color serves as independent material that can build sequences of sound structures in various configurations. These structures can then be manipulated or layered in various ways, ultimately playing a decisive form-shaping role in a musical work. What’s more, he presented contexts of an adequate way of notating sonic phenomena, and he outlined a prescription of action for performers to play music that used such systems of notation.
During the 1960’s the generally accepted aesthetic among composers was that musical elements should not repeat. This was a “rule”, which according to Serocki resulted in a musical forms that prevented listeners from understanding and experiencing the musical organization of the work. He wanted a reboot, and his solution to this issue was his introduction of new formal elements that would be based upon his notion of sound color and sound color as fundamental constructive element. Serocki felt this was a necessary and fundamental component that was being neglected by composers, and in perhaps one of his best known statements he said,
“Never in the history of music has sound colour been the composers’ and musicologists’ ‘favourite’ Even though the presence of sound color was generally accepted, it was considered as something secondary and unimportant, a bit like a maidservant, who after many years is treated almost like a family member, but actually she is not one.”
In Symphonic Frescoes, Serocki’s application and balancing of sound colour is very convincing in the role it plays in the creative process. This work is packed with an inexhaustible richness of sound colors that appear categorically, and in accordance with his own system (instrumental and percussive colors). Sound color is applied in a highly individualized and systematic manner.
According to Serocki, creating an acoustically recognizable musical form that uses different sound colors is only possible when “one composes exclusively with these colors” . He also claimed that any given type of color “should be applied only once” in one piece of music. Additionally, sound colors could appear as lines of different timbres; their rhythmic progressions – as structures of sound colors; their sound fields – as combinations or complexes of sound colors. Thus, sound colors can be the construction blocks of musical form and capable of replacing and representing any other music material that was considered important in the past.
How can we explain the relationships between his various timbres? In Symphonic Frescoes it is clear that Serocki’s composing with sound colours was inherently based—and dependent upon—the transformations of timbres and their combinations. The fundamental importance to his sound color concept is that each timbre has its own specific sound quality, and he emphasizes the uniqueness of each sonic entity so that it will be heard and recognized as such. Once a sound color appears in his work, such a sound color does not lose its value as material to be reused later on. It can reappear, and in each case enter into a “refreshed” sonic relationship with other timbres through layering, juxtaposition, etc. For Serocki, composing with sound colors was a highly personalized compositional technique and rooted in the composers acoustic imagination.
The title Symphonic Frescoes may inspire a listener to imagine fresco images, or specific painting ideas or moods. As a direct consequence of Romanticism, the listener may even disregard the patterns of musical form. Serocki himself said that his piece had “nothing to do with painting or sculpture”, although he did admit that the musical structures were arranged in a “fresco-like manner”. The word “fresco” in some languages denotes freshness and novelty. Was the composer inviting to the listener to have a new musical experience?
Ireneusz Kaczorek presents a provocative analogy between the wall painting technique (al fresco) and the composition of Serocki’s work. In it there are four stages which I cite from the POLMIC website:
creating the “sinopia”, i.e. a draft of the work, a general outline of the whole and the various sound structures
drawing the contour, i.e. outlining sound “planes” and “bundles
mixing the colours, i.e. successively and simultaneously putting them together
applying successive layers of paint, i.e. developing structures and making complex arrangements out of them.
The role of the “sinopia” is the preparatory drawing in movement I of the composition, an underpainting that provides the basis for all sound ideas in Symphonic Frescoes. In the remaining movements, timbres and sound color are juxtaposed, transformed and developed by Serocki in a variety of ways. In the Kaczorek interpretion, these techniques are connected with painting techniques, e.g. applying strokes (sound color and streaming texture-rhythm) or creating a chiaroscuro-effect (reflected sound waves) that split two timbres. The final part of the work draws from musical elements introduced in the first movement.
Drawing analogies between the creative processes applied in a musical work and a technique for mural painting is interesting. However, it is not known whether or not this was Serocki’s creative or conceptual intention. Granted, the way in which musical material are presented in this piece may be understood as corresponding with the stages of fresco technique, but in my view only minimally. Parallels between underpainting and Serocki’s first movement are perhaps convincing due to his exposition of sound colour and timbres. In my view it his strategy of arranging sound color structures and the formal-function of those structures that I interpret as “fresco-like”.
I am skeptical of the Kaczorek presentation. It seems rather that Serocki structural process followed a traditional musical dramaturgy, the expressive consequence being a shaped advancement to a peak of intensity. Regarding the overall shape, Symphonic Frescoes is divided into four strongly contrasting sections linked attacca (actually I see it as a three movement work with the third movement divided into two distinct sections at m. 151 with the advent of the sonic idea of rapid, aperiodic note repetitions. This is Serocki's personal “stamp” in this work). The form of this piece was also indicated by Serocki himself (the third and the fourth parts are joined seamlessly) emphasizing at the same time that each movement had a different “musical character”.
K. Serocki - Division between part one and part two of movement III (at m. 151) in Symphonic Frescoes
On the surface, movement I of Symphonic Frescoes is a projection of timbral ideas. The second movement is the symmetrical movement of textures. The third movement (first section) is defined by percussive textures, and the (second section) is a mixture of recalled textures from the previous movements; this includes the expansion of a signature sound color of Serocki which is the aperiodic repeated pitch.
The second section of movement III is the gravitational center of Symphonic Frescoes. The musical process here clearly advances towards a peak of intensity, whereby geometric event-groupings of sound colour form complexes that advance through the temporal field at the fastest pulse-tempo in the piece (quarter note equals 180 at m. 151). During this stage of movement III Serocki brings back sound color ideas and figures from previous movements, such as his mobile-like structures of dense vertical sound colour that is shaped by harmonic expansion and contraction in the strings (which is a significant shaping device in movement II). Another important “refresh” is his signature texture of aperiodic tonal repetition, which he exploits until its timbral conclusion as a homogeneous and glittering sound mass that also serves as an extended anacrusis into m. 481. This point is the peak of intensity and function-expressive goal of the work, begun by six fff accented vertical clusters (seperated by chiarascuro) in all instrument groups excluding the strings. At the coda (m. 486) Serocki continues with six more accents of diversified timbral/sound color complexes, resulting in a highly active cadential process.
K. Serocki - Aperiodic tone sequences shape an extended upbeat before landing on m. 481, movement III
In the below example, I have isolated sound color “units” at the beginning of movement III in order to illustrate how Serocki develops relations between various timbres. Sound color units first appear in lines that migrate into different coexisting sound colors, achieved through a process of layering and formal geometric positioning that form a fresco-like rhythm of sound color complexes.
K. Serocki - Development of lines of sound color in movement III of Symphonic Frescoes
In the above example I demonstrate how the fresco-like structure of the work stems from cellular openings of sound colour that Serocki then freely interprets. In other words, his exposition of sound colors and layering of timbres into sound color complexes is primarily achieved through gradual introduction and accumulation of instrumental parts. As single lines of sound color appear, they are gradually, symmetrically and successively layered in ways that lead to a “fresh” but specific sound result.
At the broad formal level, Serocki’s layering of individual lines of sound color generates a number of points of intensity that globally shape the universal musical process. Activity and forward motion is a very important device in this work, and this is emphasized by his mastery of both juxtaposition and his fresco-like exploitation of symmetrical geometric timbre-shapes that generate a forward driving textural rhythm. Even complexes of rhythmically neutral sound colours are animated by Serocki’s choices of articulation.
In Symphonic Frescoes Serocki’s process of sound affirmation is very natural. It is clear that he was fascinated with sound color manipulation as a fundamental component of the work, and for him this created windows toward enriching it by exploring various sound sources. As I have become more familiar with the music of Serocki, what’s apparent to me is that he was interested in discovering a new collection of valuable timbres with which to build musical expression. It was on this point where I discovered a composer whose creative ways corresponded with my own composer interests and sensibilities. For me, with his emphasis on timbral value as the critical basis for a composition, Serocki provided me with an “underpainting” from which I could model the sound world that I was imagining.
Paint remnants (Resztki farb) for oboe and tenor saxophone (2016), is my composition that follows a structure consisting of three sections each with their own clearly defined “character”. Athough musically diverse, each structure has the quality of being connectable to other structures and this ultimately forms a unified progression that can be recognized by the listener as a relation with respect to form. The large-structure model contains three clearly defined sections:
Paintbrush sounds (Brzmienie pedzla)
Drips and splashes of color (Krople I rozpryski koloru)
Color fields (Pole kolorow)
Rooted in my own acoustic imagination, each section of Paint remnants contains smaller structures that are based exclusively on my own individual and specific sound color choices. Sound color serves as construction blocks to the micro and macro structures, and their distribution mirrors Serocki’s condition that sound colors appear only once. This technique allows me to create a diverse musical situation that guarantees that a listener will recognize those timbres as unique.
In the first example from the mucical score, the initiating sound colors are exposed. As I freely develop relations between the oboe and saxophone timbres, I am simultaneously cultivating a forward-moving textural-rhythm.
M. Gatonska - Exposition of initiating timbres on page 1 of Paint remnants.
The next example shows how the first section of Paint remnants flows effortlessly into the second section of the work. Here, the saxophone has gradually migrated from its initial timbre of percussive colors and effects to one of fixed pitch. The saxophone is now a new line of timbre that I transfer (in color) over to the oboe at Letter B. Both instruments are eventually layered into a fresh field of coexisting sound color that is shaped by a distinct registral and “character” change on p. 6. Overall, the rhythmic activity indicates a progressive forward movement that is briefly interrupted at the Senza tempo/Misterioso before the process of intensification is “refreshed” in the oboe Letter B.
M. Gatonska - Lines of timbre as forward motion activity on pp. 4 and 6 of Paint remnants.
In the third section (Color fields) the multiphonics in the oboe and saxophone form surfaces or complexes of coexisting sound colours; the rhythmic progression has been neutralized in activity, but the forward motion is maintained by my use of the spectrum of dynamics. In this instance, I have animated what are rhythmically neutral complexes of sound colour through my choices of articulation, in this case — amplitude.
M. Gatonska - Sound fields shaped by variating loudness on p. 10 of Paint remnants.
In my composition Beneath Hemlock Tabernacles for cello quartet and pre-recorded soundscape (2013), I have isolated units of timbre in order to illustrate how I freely interpret and develop relations between various structures of sound color. In this example taken from pp. 2-3 of th score, timbral structures appear in a fairly geometric array of complexes. From these complexes, I export individual sound colors and layer them into new sound colors, thereby creating fresh combinations that result in fresh complexes. My personalized mosaic approach, or my fresco-like positioning of sound structures in combination with my process of layering is shaping the forward-directed rhythm. In turn, I am generating a number of points of intensity that shape the universal musical process. Sound colors are the fundamental construction blocks of musical form in Beneath Hemlock Tabernacles.
M. Gatonska - Development of timbral relations on pp. 2-3 of Beneath Hemlock Tabernacles.
Timbre #1 and variants= rectangles Timbre #2 and variants= ovals Timbre #3 and variants= triangles
Sharing the same formal-expressive goal of Symphonic Frescoes, the final passage in my work Ecotopia, Environment I for symphony orchestra (which is the first work in my Ecotopia orchestral set) shapes the gravitational target and conclusive apex of intensity. Parallel to the end of movement III of Symphonic Frescoes, my musical process is also clearly advancing towards a peak of intensity at the final stage of the work. In the example below, recurring structures of harmomelody form a layered complex that advances and accelerates towards Letter N, the peak of intensity and fastest tempo-pulse of Ecotopia, Environment I (quarter note equals 200). Not unlike Serocki’s homogenous mass that functions as an extended upbeat and that arrives on the highest peak of intensity in Symphonic Frescoes, this final passage from Ecotopia, Environment I serves a matching functional-expressive purpose.
M. Gatonska – Harmomelody and accel. shape the extended upbeat that lands at Letter N, Ecotopia, Environment I