An analytic approach to Horacio Vaggione'still1
Martin Laliberté · Contemporary Music Review · 2005
Horacio Vaggione's music is a true challenge for the musical analyst, both for its technical complexity and its artistic depth. This article aims to suggest some promising analytic approaches to his piano and tape piece Till—arguably a turning point in the composer's evolution—classifying characteristic material and creating typologies of them. After an initial consideration of the context of composition, the analysis proceeds in three parts. In the first part, the tape is investigated between the meso- (middle) and the microscopic temporal levels and a typology of the sound objects is established. In the second part, the piano's complementary temporal field is examined and a corresponding typology of the musical figures constructed. Finally, the modalities of interaction between the tape and the piano, their complementary temporal levels and their ‘common vectorisation’ are considered.