Hallmarks : inspiration, progression and innovation in the flute works of Jack Behrens

Abstract

With this prophetic phrase, John Cage opened his essay "Diary: Emma Lake Music Workshop 1965." His words can be considered a statement of the changing functions and recent developments in all the arts. No longer were composers bound, as they had been in the classical era, to the requirements of sonata form. Even the comparative freedom of through-composition and impressionism had been replaced by the mathematical precision of the twelve tone system. Finally, Cage himself advocated the removal of ego in the compositional decision making process through the use of chance elements and the I Ching. If, as Paul Griffiths states, avant-garde music began with Prelude a l 'apres-midi d'unfaune (1894),2 then the last century has seen impressionism, jazz, serialism, neoclassicism, electronic music, world and ethnic influences and pop culture all take their place at the forefront of compositional fashion. Moreover, changes which in previous eras would have taken decades to be recognised and validated have, in this century and the last, adopted speeds as fast as those of the media used to transmit them - instantaneous projection, assimilation and rejection, with the click of a mouse button or the tum of a dial. As Max Ernst stated "significant changes in the arts formerly occurred every three hundred years, whereas now they take place every twenty minutes"3. How, then, does a composer find and present his own voice, when so many have spoken, in so many languages, before him? Again, Cage provides the answer for some when he states: "I have nothing to say, and I am saying it, and that is poetry" 4• For Jack Behrens (b. 1935) the compositional road of inspiration, progression and innovation has been one started by mentors, travelled with friends but often experienced in solitude. This paper will endeavour to trace the genesis of Behrens' style - its growth through the discussion of key works, the processes used to create the works themselves and their relationships to his compositions for flute during selected time periods.