Task: Variable metre is a fascinating process introduced by the German composer Boris Blacher, principal of the Berlin Hochschule until 1970, and an enthusiast for jazz and electronic devices too. His Piano Concerto No 2 for variable metre is entirely structured on this principle. Use the library or internet to find out more about Blacher and the concept of variable metre. Listen to his second Paganini Variations on Spotify. Make notes on what you find out about him, and on your response to his music in your listening log.
This is a brief research point on the compositional technique called Variable Meter, introduced by German composer Boris Blacher. I’ll briefly mention a few key elements of Blacher’s biography, which will help to contextualize his work and then develop a discussion about the compositional technique of Variable Meter, how it is used by Blacher, what effect it has on the listener and some potentially interesting uses for this technique.
Boris Blacher (1903-1975) was a German composer, librettist, and educator. Having trained as a mathematician and an architect, he rose to prominence as a composer and educator in particular after the Second World War, and was president of the Academy of Arts in Berlin1,2. His varied compositional output saw him write works for opera, ballet, instrumental ensembles, and instrumental solo, among others. He incorporated various novel compositional techniques in his work including aleatory electronics and serial techniques such as tone-rows and variable meters, which will be discussed below in some further detail.
Traditionally, Western music is subdivided in meters or time, of which the basic units are the beats and bars of a composition. This generally underlines the way that western music is organized in time. According to Bruhn, attempts to challenge performers and listeners with highly variable and irregular time formats will often lead to a discomfort that results from either “over-stimulation” or as an “annoying distraction likely to obscure rather than illuminate” the composer’s intentions (Bruhn, 1994).
Variable Meter is a serial compositional technique developed by Boris Blacher in which the compositional focus is on the systematic variations on the divisions of time within a piece. By systematic and serial it is understood that the variations in time within a composition follow a series or a pattern, as decided by the composer. In this way, when the expectation of regular time and meter are subverted by variations in time, and new order or pattern emerges from the regimented compositional structure of the piece, a new value can be interpreted from the organization of time within the piece as forming part of the form and function of the composition and not just a “musical element” .
Blacher composed “Ornaments: Seven Studies on Variable Meters” in 1950 for solo piano, which is the clearest example of this compositional technique utilized as a key component of the compositional process and of the form and function of the composition itself. The first piece can be looked at as an example of how this technique is used and how it’s communicated to the performer.
There are a few key elements from the excerpt above that can give a hint of the importance of variable time in the composition. The first thing we notice is that there is no time signature indicated in the traditional sense (after the clefs and before the key signature). Rather, we see that a sequence of numbers is added beneath the tempo indications:
2 3 4 ... 8 9 8 ... 3 2 ♪
This notation communicates the pattern to the performer without having to read the time signatures, as would traditionally be the case. The performer knows that the main subdivision is the eighth note, and that the number of eighth notes in a bar follows the sequence:
2/8 3/8 4/8 ... 8/8 9/8 8/8 ... 3/8 2/8
This is a way for the composer to have a highly engaging piece of music that utilizes variations in time as major component of the composition. Similarly, it provides enough variation to keep the listener engaged to the point that the pattern can be discerned rather quickly, but does not encourage the listener to disregard time altogether due to unrelatable variations in time. This is a compositional technique which, as Bruhn puts it, “results that combine intricate artistic conception with utter playfulness on the composer’s side, cerebral puzzlementwith immediate visceral “understanding” on the listener’s side” (Bruhn, 1994).
References: 1. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Boris-Blacher 2. Bruhn, S., 1994. Patterned Time: Boris Blacher's Play with Variable Metre. Symmetry: Culture and Science, 5(3), pp.287-302. Recording: Gobel, H. 1996. 'Ornamente, sieben Studien über variable Metren: 1. Vivace' Boris Blacher: Das Klavierwerk. Bühl: Bella Musica. [online] Sheet music: Blacher, B. 1950. Ornamente, sieben Studien über variable Metren. Berlin: Bote & Bock. [online]