Silence As a Hermeneutic Oasis of Music

Abstract

This text is an attempt to point to the possibility of the moments of musical silence in a music flow and musical sound, being presented as a specific hermeneutic ‘oasis’ of music. Musical silence is considered here primarily as compositionally shaped segments where silence is embodied by means of sound. And where the stillness of the sound state of the musical silence breaks into another space: the space of the unintentional, which actually stimulates associative and cognitive paths. It concerns a specific ‘suspension’ space that offers ‘some more time and place’ for various streams of emotion and thoughts, for their ‘authentication’ and justification; for establishing and ‘specifying’ narratives, and even renouncing them. This thesis is elaborated here on the basis of three compositions which belong to the Serbian music of the 1990s. These are: The Abnormal Beats of Dogon for bass clarinet, piano, mouth harmonica, percussion and live electronics (1991) and I have not spoken for alto saxophone, bass-mouth harmonica, actor-narrator and mixed choir (1995) by Zoran Erić and Nocturne of the Belgrade Spring 1999 AD for chamber ensemble, live electronics and audiotape (1999) by Srđan Hofman.