Plasticidad y metáfora en la teoría textural de Thomas Clifton

Abstract

La concepción de Thomas Clifton de la textura, tal como se encuentra formulada en su libro póstumo Music as Heard. A Study of Applied Phenomenology, se destaca por su singularidad en la teoría de la música norteamericana, el campo intelectual en el que se inscribe. Esa singularidad está dada, por una parte, por el hecho de que la textura está tratada como un aspecto fundamental de la experiencia perceptiva, lo que contrasta con la consideración relativamente marginal de la cual es usualmente objeto en dicho campo. Por otra parte, porque confronta la concepción predominante de la textura en ese ámbito, orientada a la configuración estructural de la simultaneidad musical, con una representación eminentemente plástica.

The concept of musical texture showed, in its relatively short history within music theory, a kind of resistance with regard to the possibility of an abstract and formalized representation. Thomas Clifton’s approach, such as it is formulated in his posthumous book Music as Heard. A Study of Applied Phenomenology (1983), stands out within the field of American music theory. Its particularity is given, on the one hand, in the treatment of texture as a fundamental aspect of perceptive experience, in contrast to the comparatively marginal attention it usually receives in that field. On the other hand, because it confronts texture’s dominant conception in that field, orientated to the structural configuration of musical simultaneity, with an inherently plastic representation. The article reviews the fundamental aspects of Clifton’s approach, highlighting the role of metaphorical thinking in a non-abstract representation of texture.