# Clusters



## Vortex (Apr 22, 2012)

"_A tone cluster is a chord comprising at least three adjacent tones in a scale_".

Clusters have been frequently used by composers of the second half of the XXth century, but there are earlier examples. On a piano, beyond a certain number of adjacent notes, clusters have to be played with the flat of the hand or the forearm. In is Klavierstücke X, Karlheinz Stockhausen not only made an spectacular use of clusters, but also of glissandi, which in the end are arpeggiated clusters…:

http://professorbadtrip.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/stockhausen-1/

I posted on my modest blog on contemporary music a few other interesting examples of clusters by Cowell, Penderecky, Ligeti and Xenakis:

http://professorbadtrip.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/clusters-1/

Now I'd like to make a second post on clusters with additional examples… so my question to you is: would you know other works making an interesting use of clusters, which I could relate on my blog?


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

Didn't Ives write a piano piece in which he specified that a piece of wood should be used to play a massive cluster?
I can't think of the piece off the top of my head.

EDIT: I looked it up after I posted; it's Ives' 2nd Sonata, Concord, Mass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata_No._2_(Ives)


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Interesting post and harder to find examples than I thought.

One point: your blog asserts that the clusters in Penderecki's threnody "express terror and sorrow". I think it is reasonable for listeners to pick up these associations, but they weren't in Penderecki's mind when he wrote the piece. As Mr Wikipedia says: _ 'The piece-perhaps as a nod to John Cage originally called 8'37" (at times also 8'26")-applies the sonoristic technique and rigors of specific counterpoint to an ensemble of strings treated to unconventional scoring. Penderecki later said "It existed only in my imagination, in a somewhat abstract way." When he heard an actual performance, "I was struck by the emotional charge of the work...I searched for associations and, in the end, I decided to dedicate it to the Hiroshima victims".'_

A rather big cluster plays continuously through Stockhausen's _Trans_:






Plenty of orchestral clusters in Luigi Nono's _Como una ola de fuerza y luz_ (_Like a wave of power and light_).
There's even a description here: http://toddtarantino.com/hum/nono.html.

This is only the first ten minutes or so. Can't find the rest.


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## sah (Feb 28, 2012)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> Interesting post and harder to find examples than I thought.


Interesting post and more examples here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_cluster

I would like to listen to some of those pieces before the 1900's.


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## Vortex (Apr 22, 2012)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> One point: your blog asserts that the clusters in Penderecki's threnody "express terror and sorrow". I think it is reasonable for listeners to pick up these associations, but they weren't in Penderecki's mind when he wrote the piece. As Mr Wikipedia says: ........


Thanks for the additional examples and the clarification on Penderecki's intent... I should consult Mr Wikipedia more often...


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

sah said:


> Interesting post and more examples here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_cluster
> 
> I would like to listen to some of those pieces before the 1900's.


I've inherited a vinyl LP of Jean-Féry Rebel's 1737-38 ballet _Les Elémens_ so I'll have to dig that out.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

There are a few instances, or very near, peppered throughout the 500 + Keyboard Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti.

Based upon my aural memory, I wouldn't be surprised if Jean-Féry Rebel's scores would not find more than a few in his orchestral works.

Then there is the Grand-daddy of the tone cluster, who is the one who perhaps gave us its conventionally recognized contemporary notation,
Henry Cowell.

... in many a piano piece:

His first piece using them is

Dynamic Motion (1916) ~ the link shows the score. This also uses silent depress, perhaps sostenuto pedal, for another effect used by Bartok, Dohnanyi, the held pitches catching sympathetic vibrations from others played, and sounding a 'halo-like' effect of harmonics. YouTube audio quality barely makes these audible. You need a very quiet audience if these are performed in a large hall as well 





The Tides of Manaunaun ~ the link shows the score.





The Hero Sun ~ the link shows the score.





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The same, video of young player - you can see what is involved





Reel ~ another young player on video in recital





Here is Cowell's rather pretty "The Snows of Fujiyama" (1924) Where the clusters are 'handy,' i.e. fitting under the hand, pentatonic, and played by fingers vs. fists or forearms.

I'm far less up on Cowell's orchestral works, but it seems, oddly, he did not transliterate tone clusters for orchestral use.

For instances like the Ives sonata, many a pianist has prepared a fitted board with felt, a 'negative' to fit neatly over the entire cluster. The prepped device is sitting handy just above the fallboard, and is set quickly, silently in place, pressure applied, rendering the cluster very pitch-accurate and of an even dynamic.

On piano, a prepared harmony preset via silent depress and sustained with the una corda pedal can accomplish a very dramatic effect of a broad cluster played, the damper pedal then applied - soon after the damper pedal is released: with the una corda still holding those pitches silently deptressed, this cantilevers those pitches past the event of the cluster. The effect is somewhat like, 'the mist (or cloud) clears, revealing....' [This effect perfectly transliterates to orchestral writing as well.]

Similarly, a relatively narrow to wide cluster can be silently depressed and held by the una corda, leaving the remainder of the keyboard free to be played either _secco_ or with use of damper pedal, again to make use of the resulting sympathetic vibrations and the resulting resonating harmonics.

Other composers from the early 20th Century:

Cowell studied under Leo Ornstein; that bad boy composer also used clusters in some piano works. I'll leave it for another to comb through the lot of his 'bad boy' (very) piano pieces, piano quartet, etc. to find those. 
At a not much Later date, too, George Anthiel used them; I'd almost bet money there are numbers of them in any of the three sonatas for violin and piano.
Someone else can look through the many player piano studies of Conlon Nancarrow, I'm certain a few could be heard there.

One later use I know of:
Tom Johnson ~ Etude for player piano No. 1; (1994) This is a clinical study, the pitch material one wide cluster, the verticals slowly shift to a very slight rhthymic flange, or 'offset,' then go to near glissando like passages, which then phase. If not a favorite listen for background dinner music, imo, a very cool piece.
Video shows the keyboard in action....





I'm clustered out now


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Can any musicians on the forum confirm whether Schnittke's Concerto for Piano and Strings counts? It SOUNDS cluster-like in places where the piano clashes against the string melody, but my ignorance of the technical side of things means I can't really comment.


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## Romantic Geek (Dec 25, 2009)

How about the first song that shows up in Ives' collection of 114:


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

elgars ghost said:


> Can any musicians on the forum confirm whether Schnittke's Concerto for Piano and Strings counts? It SOUNDS cluster-like in places where the piano clashes against the string melody, but my ignorance of the technical side of things means I can't really comment.


There are definitely clusters in that Concerto, (at least in the last movement) I can remember certain passages containing clusters.

edit - beginning @2:38 and later 5:45 you can see the pianist playing tone clusters.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

galina ustvolskaya, also known as "the lady with the hammer" for a good reason used a lot of clusters


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

See this fantastic "total cluster" (it uses all the notes of the chromatic scale that can be available in the register of the organ keyboard). The organist uses a towel here :


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

aleazk said:


> See this fantastic "total cluster" (it uses all the notes of the chromatic scale that can be available in the register of the organ keyboard). The organist uses a towel here :


I was just reading about this piece the other day. The original scheduled premier was cancelled because a rehearsal at a different location caused the machinery of the organ to catch fire.
http://www.classicalarchives.com/work/140648.html#tvf=tracks&tv=about


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

There are definitely clusters in that Concerto, (at least in the last movement) I can remember certain passages containing clusters.

edit - beginning @2:38 and later 5:45 you can see the pianist playing tone clusters.

Thanks - that was one of the sections I had in mind.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

There are definitely clusters in that Concerto, (at least in the last movement) I can remember certain passages containing clusters.

edit - beginning @2:38 and later 5:45 you can see the pianist playing tone clusters.

Thanks - that was one of the sections I had in mind.


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