4.2.5 The time bells

the performance. We wait for the music, and for a while there is no time, at least no subdivided time. Then the piece starts and the 1957 beats plus epilogue that make up the duration of the work are defined by the time bells that dominate the piece. However, within the piece there are two bars in which the work returns to the non-subdivided time and provides two windows on eternity (bars 415 and 592). When the sound of the piece has faded away, time is again no longer subdivided and the eternity of the future stretches out before us.

4.2.5 THE TIME BELLS De Tijd is divided into six parts and an epilogue I II II IV V VI epilogue 773 216 300 184 164 320 32 beats

These duration proportions have no special meaning. The duration is a result of the rhythmic formulas within the parts.

Within the six parts, the rhythmic formulas are marked by chords that are played with strong marcato. I call these time bells.

The slowest bell, apart from the golden section bell which strikes only once, consists of 3 loud chords, which I will call the ‘fortissimo’ bells (plus an entry at 1472 of which I am not sure whether it should be included in the count) and sounds at irregular intervals: 0 -988 -1288 -1472 (0:247:75:46) In the time structure within the six parts we find two types of time bells. The first are the sustained chords, in which the line that is sung by the choir serves as cantus firmus. These are dominated by soft sounds of the flutes and the strings, and later also of the double basses and bass clarinets.

The second type is a real bell sound. These sounds are dominated by all instruments that produce sharp accents followed by a resonance: crotales, vibraphone, cymbalom, pianos, harps, and later also the trumpets.

Rhythmically speaking there are two movements: the constant movement and the short-long movement, which are to be found as iambus and trochee.234 In both movements Andriessen builds in small irregularities, so the rhythmic pattern never sounds as a rhythmic model that automatically winds down. The irregularities are not random. Often, the shortening is compensated for by the next chord (for example: 8-8-16-4-4 beats) or there is a tendency to make the bells run faster.

And then there is the Golden section chord at 1957:3 = count 652 1/3.

234The iambus is short-long; the trochee is long-short.