What Do I Hear Now, Groupwise?

[1] Groupwise (1983) is a chamber work from Babbitt's third stylistic period consisting of flute (doubling alto flute and piccolo), violin, viola, violoncello, and piano. The structural foundation of compositions from this period is known in the literature as a superarray, a composite of multiple simultaneously unfolding all-partition arrays (Mead 1994). In a paper presented at the 1989 SMT national conference, I argued superarray compositions appear to be fundamentally different from the compositions of the preceding periods (Scotto 1989). They appear to embody a change in the aggregate compositional process where the perception of aggregate boundaries is essential to aurally differentiating one aggregate, the basic linear and columnar unit of aggregate composition, from another. The pitch duplications generated by a superarray obscure the perception of chromatic completion, which is one method of aurally differentiating aggregates. Perceiving aggregate boundaries in a superarray composition is analogous to perceiving state lines on a cross-country drive of the United States. The map directing the trip indicates crisp divisions between all states. The experience of those divisions while driving can be crisp, imperceptible, or anything in between. Sometimes, especially in the Plains States, the map may be the only indication that a state line has been crossed. Other times, the change is crisp and immediately detectable, such as crossing the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon, to Vancouver, Washington.[2] In a later article, I argued superarray compositions might also signal a change from a generative model of motivic structure to a holistic model where the development of motivic material is a non-hierarchical and non-teleological process (Scotto 2002). In this model, motives are analogous to plateaus that form from areas of coagulation and rise above a plane, and then they collapse and are absorbed back into the plane. Their common planar origin makes all plateaus motivic. Although the plateaus emanate from the same source, they can be structurally non-equivalent as well as similar or even equivalent. Associations among plateaus create a constantly developing non-hierarchical and non-teleological motivic surface. The contrapuntal arrangement of component arrays in the superarray of Groupwise facilitates making associations among plateaus. Moreover, while the pitch duplications of the superarray may obscure crisply perceiving aggregate boundaries, they may actually facilitate making structural associations among plateaus, which will also facilitate hearing the effect of aggregate changes (rather than their boundaries) as the piece progresses.[3] The all-partition array functioning as the building block of the superarray for Groupwise consists of six simultaneously unfolding twelve-tone rows and fifty-eight partitions. To fill out all fifty-eight partitions, the array uses all forty-eight members of the row class, and the beginning and end of a group of six rows divides the fifty-eight partitions into eight subgroups or blocks. The D-hexachord 6-32[0,1,2,6,7,8], which generates three hexachordal areas, serves as the foundation of the twelve-tone row for Groupwise. Row pairs within each array block are hexachordally combinatorial, and since each row pair represents one of the D-hexachord's three hexachordal areas, each block contains rows from all three hexachordal areas (Mead 1994).Example 1. Hexachordal area assigned to the pitch ranges of the string instruments.[4] The instrumental assignment of all-partition arrays in Groupwise suggests the work is a chamber concerto for flute with accompaniment. The superarray consists of five complete all-partition arrays. The pitch range of each instrument is divided into three pitch-spans (low-range, mid-range, and high-range), and a pitch range is assigned to a hexachordally combinatorial row pair from one of the three hexachordal areas. The hexachordally combinatorial row pairs for the flute and piano all belong to a single all-partition array while the hexachordally combinatorial row pairs for the violin, viola, and 'cello belong to three different arrays. …