Space and Spacing in Music

Author(s): Herbert Antcliffe

Source: The Musical Quarterly , Jan., 1925, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Jan., 1925), pp. 116-123
Published by: Oxford University Press

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The Musical Quarterly

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 SPACE AND SPACING IN MUSIC

By HERBERT ANTCLIFFE

NALOGIES between the arts are always dangerous and have

not infrequently led to a complete misunderstanding of that
which they have been intended to explain. Because music
has never developed an independent vocabulary, however, inter-
changing its few individual words with those relating to other art
and sciences, such analogies in its case have been unavoidable.
There are conditions in the art of music which can be described in
no other terms than those which, strictly applied, relate to other
matters, and some of them to matters which have no direct or
exclusive reference to either art or science or to the two. And one
of the most common of these is the term SPACE. "Chaque sens,"
says Racine, "a son champ qui lui est propre: le champ de la
musique est le temps, celui de la peinture est l'espace." This may
be literally true, but it does not prevent the intercourse between
the two arts by means of an occasional or even frequent visit of the
one to the field of the other, and still less does it prevent a com-
parison of the effects of one with the other in terms which strictly
refer only to the one.
Like Light, Shade, Colour, Outline, Form, the term Space is
one that is commonly used to describe certain characteristics in
music. Yet although, and possibly because, it is one of the most
common it is one that is very frequently misunderstood and mis-
applied. We often speak of a spacious musical work, or refer to
the way in which a composer has used his spaces; and still more
often do we refer to a spacious manner of interpretation and
performance. (Humorists have here an undeniable opportunity
which few of them seize, of taking advantage of the physical attri-
butes and motions of conductors and executants!) And how many
who use the term really know exactly what they mean by it, or do
even so many convey even the slightest definite meaning by their
use of the term?
Space in material things is the extension, one may say the
limitless extension, of Form, or perhaps it would be more correct
though less easily comprehended, to say that Form is the demarka-
tion of Space, and as Form is necessary in Music so Space must in
some way be a characteristic of the same art.
116

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 Space and Spacing in Music 117

Music is a passionate art, whether the passion it expre

unfettered or restrained, and for its appreciable trans
"form," a "mould," is necessary; for such a form is merely
which it is contained. Passion is, as it were, a fluid, an electric,
intangible fluid, and must therefore be contained. A solid may
be shapeless because it is self-contained and self-supporting, but
not so a fluid, which uncontained and unsupported by other
matters will quickly lose itself. Similarly, Space in itself is nothing,
it cannot of itself be conveyed or represented, and to suggest it we
must have it solidified, contained or restricted. And it is in this
that we see most forcibly how rightful is the use of the term as
applied to music. It is the opening within the Form unfilled by
matter, and the Freedom beyond it. And the smaller, the more
confined, it is the less real and significant is it likely to be.
To get a sense of Space we must have a vision which takes us
"away from the immediate," which gets beyond the things in close
tangency with everyday life, and lifts us into the omnipresence of
that which we cannot know but can only sense or even imagine.
There must in Space be no excitement, no fuss, not even body or
movement. It must, in fact, be the very opposite of what we
know as realistic, while at the same time it must be equally con-
vincing of its reality. Space in art, in music, must never suggest
emptiness, for that implies desolation, and art must always be
social, even though the society consists but of an artist and an
observer. How far is this borne out by actual Space as we know
it in other matters?
In the physical world we are told that Space,--what the
ancients considered to be unlimited and infinite emptiness,-is full
not only of spiritual beings but of the more readily apprehended
chemical matter we know as Ether. Ether is the supporting and
uniting fibre of the Universe, and to the eye of the artist, of the one
who can see beyond the tangible and obvious, it is full of life and
significance which exists in nothing else. Every landscape painter
knows this, and the finer his sense of it and the greater his power of
expressing it, so much the greater is his art. In this respect no
group of artists is greater than those of Japan, though even they
vary largely in their capacity for and their style of such expression.
Yoni Noguchi has described the work of Korin, probably the
greatest of Japanese painters, as being largely dependent for its
effect upon its treatment of space:
His pictorial magic, so far as it is seen in technique, is evoked from
the manner in which he handles the empty space in a picture, let me say,
in which he leaves the space unfilled. This full and empty space of

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118 The Musical Quarterly
Korin's pictures is not merely a space of emptiness, but a subs
It has more value in fact, than the part of reality painte
a magician in whose hand the mystery of how to make the
empty spaces balance is hidden in a thousand variations.
his painted part is living with animation, his empty space is
suggestion: therefore, they meet on equal terms in his pictur

One sees something of this in practically all great ar

merely in that of Japan and the Orient where it is most
and it is to a large degree the criterion by which on
whether an artist is really what his efforts claim for h
the works of the older European painters we find it to
extent than among those of painters now at work, alth
returning with the wider experience of life and wider s
recent events have brought to artists as to artisans. Co
it in a way that gives his drawings what we call the
character, though this is quite different in its technique
nal evidence from that of Korin and other Orientals. It is a
curiosity of art and psychology that it is in the small and com
paratively crowded countries, like England and Holland, that o
finds a love of space, and of ample space, most marked. Hogar
and Jan Steen notwithstanding, the artists of these two count
as a whole display it greatly. Even the common people in t
games, their love of the sea, their instinct for civilization, show
constantly and continuously. Who by birth or descent of Engl
race has not heard and spoken of "the spacious days of Elizabet
or earlier periods when our present civilisation was in its f
beginnings? And in those days, when England was as great in
music as in her seafaring, her games or her literature, such m
was as spacious as the seas her pirates, her traders or her warri
roved, or the fields where her youths and maidens played.
Space in Music! It is a thing as difficult to define as it is e
to realise when we experience it. Even painting cannot do m
than suggest by means of perspective anything more than
narrowest confines of space, for the largest paintings have
limited areas which, compared with what they have to represe
are almost infinitesimally small. Music, on the other hand, mak
its appeal direct to the emotions and the mind, has an advantag
not being representative but in its nature suggestive and recal
the feeling rather than the fact. Its presentation of space may
analagous in some respects to that of painting, but it is in its na
something different. "Space in music," said the child, "why th
is what makes you lift up your arms and take a deep breath w
you hear it!" Like most children's remarks, this gets at the tr

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 Space and Spacing in Music 119

in the shortest way and gives us a starting-point from w

proceed further towards a complete and technical defini
One of the essentials of the expression of space is sim
simplicity in thought as well as in utterance, simplicity
rather than in means, though of a nature to find and em
simple means. The composer who uses a single melodic
or may not express space, but it is certain that the com
multiplies his melodic lines for the sake of multiplicity (w
is aware of it or not) will not do so, for his mind and his me
lack the necessary simplicity. Bull and Byrd and Pale
this power of suggesting space by simple means, as h
and, occasionally, but only occasionally, Bach. Like his
ate successors, Bach was too concerned with "facts" (which he
recognised and conveyed as none since him has done) to be quite
successful in creating a sense of space at all frequently. In much
of the B minor Mass, at some points in the Passions and in a few
of the instrumental works he gets it, but that is about all. Haydn
and Mozart got it fairly frequently, but when we come to later
days than theirs, it is the exception rather than the rule. Had
Brahms possessed a sense of space and a power of using it, he
would have been incomparably greater than any of his contem-
poraries. There are passages in the first and last symphonies that
suggest he is getting near it, but as a rule the lack of it reduces his
work below the highest. Wagner had it when he wrote much of
Parsifal and parts of Der Ring des Nibelungen, and it is in those
parts that he rises to the highest inspiration. And with both these
composers it is found when they are most simple; for both had the
failing of multiplying their lines to the degree of making a solid
mass.

It is coming back with some contemporary

ticularly with those of the younger schools.
never gets it, Elgar does sometimes, Vaughan
Ravel, Pierne, Santoliquido, Pizzetti, Boughton,
others among a large number of contemporarie
have observed it, while among Americans MacD
Sonata, and many of his smaller pianoforte wor
of his songs, often displayed it. We are getting
space in music as we return to the appreciation
as we begin again to realise the value of open ho
mountains, of the sea and the upper air. When
cramped in its methods and feeling was when peo
cramped houses, to regard the open as vulgar an
prefer a crowded garden or ballroomtoa hilltop o

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120 The Musical Quarterly

It may be objected that, with our dancing-saloons,

theatres, our music-halls and even our concert-rooms,
our flats and imitation cottages, we are still contin
tradition. This is true to a certain extent; but these
a portion of the people and with most of these only
time. We are daily finding more individual ways of li
more of holidaying, by which the crowded ways of
with the enormous and ever increasing growth of po
avoided permanently or temporarily, while comp
temper of Rutland Boughton in England, Francesco
in Africa and Egon Wellesz in Austria are, so far a
selling their wares to others will allow them, fleeing
men and the centres of convention and fashion.
All this, however, does not take us much further on the way
of a definition of space, though to the careful student of the subject
it will suggest some points of observation. Let us then, first of
all, say that it is not necessarily the frequent occurrence of rests
and pauses, nor is it mere "bigness" of conception. The analogy
of the works of Korin which was made earlier may suggest that
the former of these has at least something to do with it, and one
must concede that "spacing," the proper (or improper) setting out
of the details of rhythm in such a way as to make them most
effective and convincing, may not be without its bearing upon it.
Properly managed, a rest has a suggestion of "that full and empty
space" of which Noguchi speaks; and so has the fermata held as
Wagner in his jber das Dirigieren says Beethoven would demand
it. This, however, is only incidental. The size, that is, the length
and the number and dynamic power of the forces employed in a
work, has still less to do with it. A big work is not in consequence
of its bigness a spacious one, any more than is a big building. A
factory with several thousand small workshops is not a spacious
building, nor is "Ein Heldenleben" a spacious musical work.
Rests and pauses may help to make a work spacious, but without
other features, and still more without certain other qualities, in the
work they will be quite ineffective for this purpose. They may
even break it up into small closets which have a less spacious effect
than a continuous and closely woven web of sound. Space in
music is something more essential, more inward, than this, which,
try as we may, we cannot achieve by any technical means unless we
have the sense of it within us and the impulse to express that sense.
ZEsthetically it is the grouping of ideas into their appropriate
positions and the combined joining and separating by means which,
when it is badly done, we call "padding." Every piece of music

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 Space and Spacing in Music 121

of any serious length has some of this, or it conveys

of a crowded picture or, worse still, a crowded mind. It i
ture of focus and climax. Climax may be worked up to
sudden or gradual unfolding of an idea through many othe
far from giving a sense of space, convey a sense of nar
and crowding. Space generally demands that the main
be observable at any moment from one or other point of v
the sense of space must not be a sense of emptiness. This
say it has an element of focus. From the picture must st
the main object, but it must be accompanied by some i
and invisible atmosphere, and clothed with the ethereal s
ality which makes the sky azure and the sunset orange
create that space, how to clothe the object with someth
makes it more evident, shows it in every detail of its beau
it in a position in which its smallness of size is overlooke
unescapable greatness of its significance, is the problem o
create space in music.
And although one refers to it in terms that are ap
primarily to representative art, it is equally essential in a
music. Being the exact opposite of what we generally
realism (which is seldom near to reality), it is rarely c
suggested by the more obvious types of programme musi
when they deal with big subjects in which it ought to
important part. This is why so many of the longer pro
works fail to give the emotional effect which is necessary
purpose, and so fall into the crowded lower ranks of com
To maintain the same concentrated interest from beginnin
of a work of considerable length is beyond the powers of
poser, interpreter or listener except on some rare occasion
subject as well as the circumstances are out of the ordinar
interest may be, and generally it must be, cumulative, bu
not be so if the spaces between the points of rest or climax ar
in with fussy 'doing for doing's sake,' or by vapid, me
sound. In the former case we fill up space that should be
and open, and in the latter case we make such space ennuU
purposeless. The space is necessary to allow the emotion
and expand itself; but the emotion must still be there. W
that in other matters relaxation does not mean cessation of
or activity; and the rest, the sustained note, the technical f
or the broad outlining of theme or development (using this
its general sense rather than in its scholastic signification
suggest space, may be as restful as the spaces of the sea a
and in their way as significant.

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192 The Musical Quarterly

And as space is light in weight, so also, as a rule,

which represents it. We get this sense of space in m
of the types of Bax's "The Garden of Fand," Deliu
mer Garden," "Sea Drift," and perhaps still more i
the High Hills," though in this last case the atmosph
music as in Nature is not necessarily space) is so rarifi
fere with the comfort and power of observation of
listener. Yet though the majority of instances occ
constructed works, some of the most notable are quit
No one would suggest there was any lightness of
instance, in the Judgment section of Elgar's "Th
Gerontius." It is spacious, however, because of its
fullness without crowding, of rank after rank of ange
a blaze of light that can be apprehended but canno
hended, of its representation of things infinite, of a
place that stretches not only beyond our observation
our ken or our imagination. It is the same spaciousne
gets in his painting of the same scene, but which ne
Newman nor Milton was able to translate into words.
It would be out of place here to discuss the possibilities of
space in verbal utterance, but it may be noticed that one of th
advantages music has over words is its power of suggesting space
and even of expressing the emotions felt on seeing or imagining
space that is beyond our normal experience. It will describe or
suggest the breadth of ocean which we see when land is far from
sight and the waves are not too large to give a view from horizon to
horizon. Better still will it suggest the space of the Universe and
of Eternity, which we can barely imagine, for what can be imagined
may often be expressible in words, while that which is beyond the
imagination can find no expression except through the emotions of
which music is the ordered and organised outward sign. May we
not, indeed, say that music is more in its right element in expressing
those things which are outside the narrow limits of this life and in
bringing home to us the unutterable and the unthinkable which
requires universal space for its content?
And so, just for a very brief moment we must turn to its
expression in interpretation. This is not essentially different from
its expression in composition, but its circumstances and method ar
different. We cannot very well express what does not exist in
the music itself except by creating it in some way with the help of
what the music does contain. A spacious interpretation is possible
in nearly all except the most unworthy music, and sometimes even
in that. If there is space in the music it will find its expression

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 Space and Spacing in Music 123

by the way in which the interpreter fits himself to the m

discovers its qualities and arouses his own sympathies wit
In any case the essentials are the same; simplicity, a k
detachment, freedom from any "finnicking" regard for
tant detail, and yet a clearness of vision as to the relative
cance of each and every point effected by the composer. In
interpretation the observation of pauses and rests has a little
more influence on the creation of the sense of space than it has in
composition, but it is a subtle one and the mere extension of these
will not help unless there is something more behind such extension.
Often the pause which comes between the close of a work and the
first sound of applause is the result of a conscious or unconscious
realisation of this spacious treatment, for nothing holds the
emotions more in restraint, nothing seizes the imagination and
holds it in greater awe-an awe that is often quite agreeable, but
none the less great-than wide space, It cannot be achieved
without freedom of thought and action on the part of the inter-
preter, a freedom that claims its own rights but strictly regards
those of the composer, which gives to the composer the same
authority as it claims for the interpreter. And if the interpreter
finds it difficult to make space where the composer has not
provided it, equally can the interpreter take away from a work its
spaciousness by a narrow and unsympathetic treatment. Like
all other aesthetic characteristics of music, it depends on both the
composer's treatment of his subject and that of the interpreter.
Without cotiperation and sympathy none of these things can be
properly achieved.

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