# Stream of consciousness ideas in music - Do they exist?



## Rhombic (Oct 28, 2013)

In literature, among a vast number of other ideas, I thought that stream of consciousness as used by James Joyce and Virginia Woolf could be exceedingly interesting in music: a series of apparently juxtaposed thoughts that are somewhat difficult to understand because of the rapid succession of emotions and feelings. However, these are perfectly coherent and ordered, so it may be perfectly used in music (note that it is the exact antithesis of Xenakis' compositional technique, while also differing greatly from Schönberg's methods and other 20th century artistic movements in music).

Does stream of consciousness, or a similar perspective, exist in music? If so, could anyone point out any composer that comes to mind – you could also comment on a particular composer whose music resembles this idea.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Improvisation.
Examples: Classical - Richard Barrett (Dark Matter), Jazz - Take your pick.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Keith Jarrett on piano. Amazing improvisations.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

the classical development section can be at least partially thought of as a stream of consciousness, imo.


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## Guest (Oct 24, 2014)

Beethoven's Fantasia for Piano and Chorus (Op. 80)?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Rhombic said:


> Does stream of consciousness, or a similar perspective, exist in music? If so, could anyone point out any composer that comes to mind - you could also comment on a particular composer whose music resembles this idea.


I know you already mentioned him as different, but Schoenberg's period between 1908 and 1923 was the first thing that came to my mind. The music is constructed by association, like stream of consciousness.


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> I know you already mentioned him as different, but Schoenberg's period between 1908 and 1923 was the first thing that came to my mind. The music is constructed by association, like stream of consciousness.


This is what Schoenberg said about op 19:

My goal: complete liberation from form and symbols, context and logic.
This multicoloured, polymorphic, illogical nature of our feelings, and their associations, a rush of blood, reactions in our senses, in our nerves; I must have this in my music.
It should be an expression of feeling, as if really were the feeling, full of unconscious connections, not some perception of "conscious logic".

This shows clearly in this music, although one senses the old world too (Strauss and Brahms, mainly).


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> I know you already mentioned him as different, but Schoenberg's period between 1908 and 1923 was the first thing that came to my mind. The music is constructed by association, like stream of consciousness.


You can start with some of Schubert's _through composed_ pieces, and then follows Schumann, with an 'excess' of musical ideas connected more by a 'right' intuition than anything formalist, structural, or technically musically related. Francis Poulenc often follows the intuitive vs. structural path. Ligeti, in pieces like _Lontato_ and many others work this way.

Though 'structures' and devices at work to keep a work cohesive can be found in a lot of Morton Feldman works, those too, are mostly choices based upon the composer's intuition.

As usual, between literature and music there are no actual twins of the literal in music, but only analaguous parallels.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

PetrB said:


> You can start with some of Schubert's _through composed_ pieces, and then follows Schumann, with an 'excess' of musical ideas connected more by a 'right' intuition than anything formalist, structural, or technically musically related. Francis Poulenc often follows the intuitive vs. structural path. Ligeti, in pieces like _Lontato_ and many others work this way.


Right indeed. I'll add that the word "Fantasia" or "Fantasie" is actually supposed to connote a form free of the usual shapes and thus composed according to the composer's own imagination.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

So I wonder if a paradigm stylus phatansticus piece of music, like the "cadenza" in Brandenburg 5, fits the bill.

This sort of free flow of ideas, like a dream, is something which interests me a lot. It's central to British baroque keyboard music, Byrd's Fantasias for example, though it's hard to find performances which bring it out (Haakinen is a good example.) Some of Farnaby's music is another example I think.

I wonder if a more modern example of stream of conscious in music is in Messiaen, in the Livre du saint sacrement, and in the Méditiations sur le mystère de la sainte trinité? The music seems all about the juxtoposition of randomly different textures. Again both pieces hard to pull off - hard to reveal a plot, a story, without destroying the steam of consciousness element at the same time.

*Petr* - can you give me a clear Schumann example so I can think about what you're saying? Some parts of the piano sonatas maybe?

The comments above about Schoenberg are interesting. Thanks. This whole question is fascinating.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

The finale of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 4 is roughly ABA' in form, but the lengthy B section is best described as a stream of consciousness that leaps from one idea to another associated with it in a melange of waltzes, polkas, gallops, and so forth. He never again did any movement so daring in any of his later symphonies.


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

Berio's Sinfonia, particularly the 3rd movement, seems like it would fit the bill.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

SuperTonic said:


> Berio's Sinfonia, particularly the 3rd movement, seems like it would fit the bill.


Very interesting the juxtaposition of Mahler's music!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

DiesIraeVIX said:


> Very interesting the juxtaposition of Mahler's music!


And quotations from just about every major composer from Bach to Boulez!


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

^ The only one I recognized was of Beeethoven. I finished listening to my new disc yesterday, the Eötvös interpretation.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> And quotations from just about every major composer from Bach to Boulez!


At 11:05, "_I have a present for you_".

Haha, genius!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I always thought this piece by Wendy Carlos, *Timesteps, * flowed along like an aerial-shot stream of consciousness thing. It's supposed to be a trip through time. Since a lot of people here have probably not heard it, I'm posting this video.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Charles Ives, a near contemporary with James Joyce, seems, to my ears, to have mastered a "stream of consciousness" type of impressionism in such works as the movements of the so-titled _Holidays Symphony _, the Symphonies 2 and 4, and the _Concord_ piano sonata. Traversing those works by Ives is sort of like reading_ Ulysses _or the _Wake_. Not easy, certainly, but worth the work to me.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

A lot of Chopin and Schumann are; any kind of "poetic" music can be. Terry Riley, certainly; all Indian music is designed to "take you on a journey." John Coltrane.
Any music which seems to embody the thought process can do this. Fantasias are attempts at preserving improvisations.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

In James Joyce and Virginia Woolf you've mentioned two novelists whose work was directly influenced by the operas of Wagner. The "stream of consciousness" idea is traceable in no small degree to the "orchestral interior monologue" by which Wagner, through the permutations of the leitmotiv technique, delineates the changing mental and emotional states of his characters. Writers were impressed by this concept of music as a direct expression of the subconscious and sought a similar effect by literary means. There are a number of studies of the subject, including:

http://www.amazon.com/Joyce-Wagner-...d=1414303008&sr=1-1&keywords=joyce+and+wagner

http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Wagne...14303563&sr=1-1&keywords=wagner+british+novel


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> In James Joyce and Virginia Woolf you've mentioned two novelists whose work was directly influenced by the operas of Wagner. The "stream of consciousness" idea is traceable in no small degree to the "orchestral interior monologue" by which Wagner, through the permutations of the leitmotiv technique, delineates the changing mental and emotional states of his characters. Writers were impressed by this concept of music as a direct expression of the subconscious and sought a similar effect by literary means. There are a number of studies of the subject, including:
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Joyce-Wagner-...d=1414303008&sr=1-1&keywords=joyce+and+wagner
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Wagne...14303563&sr=1-1&keywords=wagner+british+novel


Thanks for that. Have you read either of these things? Can you recommend one of them?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Thanks for that. Have you read either of these things? Can you recommend one of them?


I'm afraid I'm only glancingly acquainted with them.


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