George Maciunas's lesser known scores - The Wire

During the night of 13 June 1941 in Zarasai, family members were arrested by Soviet NKVD forces and deported to Siberia. The father was shot, the wife and daughter died from typhus in a gulag, and the son disappeared during wartime. Archived NKVD records are described as dystopian doublespeak filled with ID information and communist propaganda, showing how forms can dictate life. Forms are also presented as enabling organization and achievement. George Mačiunas is described as loving forms and organisational strategies, shaped by displacement from Lithuania to the USA in 1944. From 1960 to 1962, he produced musical scoring systems and scores using grids and typographic devices like bullet points to organize music.

"During the night of 13 June 1941, in the Lithuanian town of Zarasai, my grandfather's brother, wife and two children were arrested by the occupying Soviet NKVD forces and deported to different areas of Siberia. The father was shot by a firing squad, his wife and daughter died from Typhus in a gulag, and the son disappeared into the quagmire of a Russia at war. I have read the archived NKVD file on my grandfather's brother, a classic example of dystopian doublespeak, endless forms filled in with ID information and communist propaganda."

"Forms, of course, dictate so many areas of life, we all dread many aspects of such things, but forms can also enable us to organise and achieve things. Lithuanian artist and composer George Mačiunas loved forms and organisational strategies, as the history of the art movement created by him will testify. From the ensuing chaos of World War Two in 1944, a young George Mačiunas and his family made their way to the USA from Lithuania as displaced persons, where he subsequently spent 11 years studying architecture, musicology and art history, laying the grounds for his future activities in New York City during the 1960s."

"From 1960 to1962, in rapid succession, he produced a series of scores or musical scoring systems. There are often precedents - and Morton Feldman's early graph scores made use of the grid - but Feldman fixed durations and allowed pitch to be freely chosen within parameters of high, middle and low. Feldman later went back to conventional notation, disliking the pitch choices that performers made. Other types of scores made use of the punkt or bullet point in typography, also a gathering sign for organising music: Stockhausen's ultra-serialist Punkte (1952) is a comparison; also Philip Corner's experimental Punkt (1962) for ensemble (single"

Read at The Wire Magazine - Adventures In Modern Music