Miguelángel Clerc

this music a preexisting process defines the score, and the sounds are a result
of this process. The score is higher in the hierarchy than sound, even if there
is a musical and gestural intention inherent in the process. Sound is finally the
result of the score. During the period in which integral serialism was devel-
oped, there was born a fetishistic admiration for complexity in the score. This
fetishism influenced aesthetic musical judgment by elevating complexity to an
aesthetic quality. The complexity is often visual as well as audible. Nowadays, in
certain musical situations, this inherited characteristic—to evaluate the qual-
ity of a score by its complexity—remains influential, even if the score is not
related at all to serialist or negativist approaches. But a clear, complex score
somehow represents good craftsmanship; and this is certainly considered a
positive quality, disregarding sound.

Graphic scores

The score must govern the music. It must have authority, and not merely be an
arbitrary jumping-off point for improvisation (Cardew 1971, p. iv, col. 2, par. 2).

The notation is more important than the sound. Not the exactitude and success with
which a notation notates a sound; but the musicalness of the notation in its notating
(Cardew 1971, p. vii, col. 1, par. 3).

Graphic scores like Treatise, by Cornelius Cardew, offer another case in which we
can see a clear focus on score before sound ([Fig. 1], which is the third page from a
score of 193 pages). The two quotes above (Cardew 1971) are supposed to help
musicians approach Treatise, and they make evident the hierarchical ranking
that Cardew proposes, in which the score takes precedence over the sound. In
Treatise the score can be freely interpreted, and the sounded results that emerge
from different interpreters and versions might appear to be completely differ-
ent pieces. The score is always visually the same, but the sound is an open result.

Fig. 1

112

Figure 1. Cornelius Cardew, Treatise, p. 3. © Copyright 1967 by Hinrichsen Edition, Peters

Edition Limited, London. Reproduced by permission of Peters Edition Limited, London.