# When Time Stands Still.



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I'd quite like to understand what goes on in moments which people describe as making time stand still. Could you just contribute some examples so we can see if there's something in common happening? Of course, there may be no consensus, which in itself would be interesting.

I think there are some in Prokofiev for example.


----------



## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

I think it’s means there is no audible rhythm, like the opening of Mahler’s 1st symphony with the violins just playing an A (I believe) for a very long time


----------



## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

In his _De Tijd_ (Time) Louis Andriessen tries to give musical expression to his own experience of 'when time stands still'. He describes it this way: "_What stimulated my writing the piece was a unique experience which gave me the feeling time had ceased to exist; the sensation of an eternal moment. It was more than perfect inner peace. A euphoria which was so potent that I later decided to write a piece about it."

De Tijd _draws on this text from St. Augustine’s _Confessions_:

_"If only their minds could be seized and held steady, they would be still for a while and, for that short moment, they would glimpse the splendour of eternity which is for ever still. They would contrast it with time, which is never still, and see that it is not comparable. They would see that time derives its length only from a great number of movements constantly following one another into the past, because they cannot all continue at once. But in eternity nothing moves into the past: all is present. Time, on the other hand, is never all present at once. The past is always driven on by the future, the future always follows on the heels of the past, and both the past and the future have their beginning and their end in the eternal present. If only men’s minds could be seized and held still! They would see how eternity, in which there is neither past nor future, determines both past and future time. Could mine be the hand strong enough to seize the minds of men? Could any words of mine have power to achieve so great a task?"

This paper is a study of the phenomenon of the perception of timelessness or suspended time in music:_


https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.18.24.3/mto.18.24.3.noble.pdf



_



_


----------



## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I have a few examples (below) of where *I* feel time 'stands still' but they're only personal observations and are quite different moments both stylistically and as far as musical accompaniment is concerned. One is a chamber music moment in Janacek's 2nd String Quartet and it's where Janacek said that the earth moved for him (his obsession with his young, unrequited love was total at this point) and the other one is from a post rock song. Both moments are special to me for different rrasons. I'll put a basic time below each video to give you a rough estimation of the time that I feel this way. The Yndi Halda track is one that really needs to be heard as a full piece to understand what I'm getting at but if you check out the minute before and after that should help it make sense





6.25 until the drums come in (it's just about 10 seconds)





2:51 - until the moment the "earth's opens up". Again, only a short bit.

There are more but those were the first two that sprang to mind. I suspect, for me, its just a moment when I make a deep personal connection with the music and yes these are certainly quieter, sparse moments. Il try and think of some others, later.


----------



## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

This by Holst is slow and languid. Pedal points help sustain the stillness just as they do in Mahler's 1st and the Andriessen above posted by Rick.


----------



## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

A lot of Morton Feldman.
After Rex Harrison's "And yet" in "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face."
A number of others


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Thanks for these examples, which I will explore soon and comment if I have anything to say.

The most clear example for me is at about 10 minutes into this performance of Prokofiev Sonata 8


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Thanks for these examples, which I will explore soon and comment if I have anything to say.
> 
> The most clear example for me is at about 10 minutes into this performance of Prokofiev Sonata 8


Now I see what you mean. That frozen time is the last moment after an exhausting development right before the opening theme returns. Does the passage starting at 13:18 do something similar for you (along with the corresponding passage in the exposition)? It always struck me as a kind of magical and deadly incantation outside the normal flow of time. That sonata is among my very favorite Prokofiev. 

btw, Richter's piano needed some maintenance — a weird sproinging sound on one note every time the pedal is released.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Now I see what you mean. That frozen time is the last moment after an exhausting development right before the opening theme returns. Does the passage starting at 13:18 do something similar for you (along with the corresponding passage in the exposition)?


Yes, maybe, need to think.

Just listening again to the Prokofiev, I wonder if people will think it's the same phenomenon as at around 24:10 here


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Yes, maybe, need to think.
> 
> Just listening again to the Prokofiev, I wonder if people will think it's the same phenomenon as at around 24:10 here


How very strange! I just came to TC intending to ask you about a passage in Beethoven's Fifth — but a different one. I was thinking of 5:00, the oboe soliloquy, which almost literally stops musical time and steps outside to look back in. But yes, the passage at 24:10 you cited is similar to the Prokofiev passage in that it marks a crucial decision point, an extended, harmonically static transition before a big event. In the Prokofiev it is the transition back to the beginning theme, which in the formal terms we use to dissect sonata form is called the "retransition." The Beethoven passage precedes the landing on C major, the goal toward which the whole symphony was aiming. The common thread in all three is a striking, temporary suspension of harmonic motion before a critical arrival or reanimation.


----------



## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Mahler 5th Adagietto


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

The start of the Nielsen 5th symphony...


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Merl said:


> I have a few examples (below) of where *I* feel time 'stands still' but they're only personal observations and are quite different moments both stylistically and as far as musical accompaniment is concerned. One is a chamber music moment in Janacek's 2nd String Quartet and it's where Janacek said that the earth moved for him (his obsession with his young, unrequited love was total at this point) and the other one is from a post rock song. Both moments are special to me for different rrasons. I'll put a basic time below each video to give you a rough estimation of the time that I feel this way. The Yndi Halda track is one that really needs to be heard as a full piece to understand what I'm getting at but if you check out the minute before and after that should help it make sense
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The Janacek seems the sort of thing that Edward and I have been discussing -- good find!


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> In his _De Tijd_ (Time) Louis Andriessen tries to give musical expression to his own experience of 'when time stands still'. He describes it this way: "_What stimulated my writing the piece was a unique experience which gave me the feeling time had ceased to exist; the sensation of an eternal moment. It was more than perfect inner peace. A euphoria which was so potent that I later decided to write a piece about it."
> 
> De Tijd _draws on this text from St. Augustine’s _Confessions_:
> 
> ...


Tremendous. I don't think I've ever heard it before. When he died recently I listened to quite a few things but somehow passed over this. Thanks very much for this interesting music -- he certainly was a composer who experimented with different styles.

Once again harmonic motion seems suspended, time marked by a pulse.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

How about Now the great bear, from Peter Grimes at around 2:36 here 

3 6 Great Bear Vickers - YouTube


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

.


----------



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

"Time standing still" is often attributed to Wagner's music, often not as a compliment.

However, in Parsifal Act II time really does seem to grind to a halt. Kundry casts a spell over us which we awaken from only when Klingsor makes his abrupt appearance towards the end of the act, drawing it to a quick conclusion. When Act III arrives, and Parisfal arrives at the Grail Castle, it really feels like we are in a land beyond time; "where time turns into space".


----------



## Lisztianwagner (2 mo ago)

Couchie said:


> However, in Parsifal Act II time really does seem to grind to a halt. Kundry casts a spell over us which we awaken from only when Klingsor makes his abrupt appearance towards the end of the act, drawing it to a quick conclusion. When Act III arrives, and Parisfal arrives at the Grail Castle, it really feels like we are in a land beyond time; "where time turns into space".


I quote every word.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Im not sure about De Tijd, @RICK RIEKERT . It’s as if you can only have the effect of time standing when harmonic motion has been firmly established. You can’t have a piece of music which makes time stands still for its whole length - like waving a magic wand.


----------

