Part I

The analysis of electroacoustic music is a problematic area. Unlike approaches to purely instrumental music, it is not possible to call upon several hundred years of analytical thought and methodology. Indeed, despite the connections made between electroacoustic music and its analysis by Pierre Schaeffer at the birth of musique concrète and his subsequent attempts to develop such methods in A la recherche d'une musique concrète (1952) and Traité des objects musicaux (1966), the intervening forty or so years have seen a surprising lack of analytical consideration of electroacoustic music, especially given the large number of musical works produced. Marco Stroppo wrote, rather despairingly, in 1984:

One might have expected such a wealth of pieces to have stimulated major theoretical comment, as was the case with instrumental music in the period after 1950. But the landscape remains surprisingly barren. There are a few important but rather general texts by established figures (like Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis and others) and practically nothing from the younger generation. If we count specifically examples of musical analysis, the number is reduced simply... to zero.
Stroppo, 1984, p. 176.

This situation is improving slowly, but even by 1997 a bibliographic survey of analytical writings on specific electroacoustic works contained only nineteen entries, for the most part concerned with acousmatic(1) pieces (Camilleri and Smalley 1997). Almost nothing has been written about mixed electroacoustic music. As a result of this lack of a substantial body of work on the subject, no 'standard' approaches to the analysis of electroacoustic music and mixed electroacoustic music in particular have developed. More helpfully, Stroppo does go on to identify the main problems in carrying out such analysis. These can be summarised into two points: the problem of the score (or its absence) and problems of perception.
In traditional analysis of instrumental and orchestral music, with few exceptions, it is the score which is the site of the analysis. The analyst works with the signs and symbols of the notated score. In electroacoustic music often there is no score, as the piece is usually made directly onto the recording medium. Or if there is a score, it will only be a partial aspect of the piece, as is the case with mixed electroacoustic music. In both these cases, without recourse to a fully notated symbolic representation of the work, it is the sound of the music itself (in performance and recording) which must be analysed, as it is only here that a full version of the piece exists. This has the "effect of catapulting the act of listening to the fore" (Camilleri and Smalley 1998) and calls for new approaches to analysis based upon listening, whereby the "sonic manifestation of music is the point of departure for analysis" (ibid.).
The second issue Stroppo (1984) identifies leads on from this and poses the question: how does one go about using listening as the basis of analysis? Stroppo himself is concerned that listening can only reveal "a few superficial oppositions of contrast, and little else" (ibid.) and rather dismisses its analytic use. Indeed, compared to the highly developed tools of traditional analysis and the security of working with a score, the shift to aural analysis (or at least an approach based upon sound) can feel rather insecure. Yet one thing that electroacoustic (particularly acousmatic) music does is to remind us, both in its lack of score and its opening up of compositional and formal possibilities, is that music is sound. It is in the sound and experience of listening to a piece that we confront the music, not in a notation of the sound. Following on from this, it seems straightforward (if not fundamental) that in analysing electroacoustic musical works, listening should be returned to the centre of analytic investigation, however complex or difficult the implications of this may be.
From those analyses which have been made of electroacoustic pieces, it is clear that it is possible to develop strategies to support and augment the heard experience of a piece of music in various ways and to make listening a viable basis for analytical investigation. By far the most common way this is achieved is through the making of some sort of graphic score, that is, some form of visual representation of the aural experience of the work under study. This type of score has a very different role to play analytically from a traditional score: instead of the score object being the source of analytic investigation, it becomes a tool in the process of making an analysis. Through repeated close listening to a recording of a performance of the piece, attempts are made to draw what is heard. The most basic benefits of this approach are that it allows aspects of the piece (a particular structural feature for instance) to be referred to outside of time, and a discussion of what has been found to begin.
Another approach has been developed which also addresses the 'score' problem which Stroppo identifies, but this time in a very different way. A pictorial representation of the sound of the piece is made through the use of computer spectrum analysis to produce a sonogram: a trace of the frequencies present in the sound of the piece is made against time. This alternative approach has the advantage that it is not itself based upon hearing (which we do not yet usefully understand) but upon scientific process (which we do) and in this sense provides an 'objective' view of the sound of the piece. Although it is not 'musically intelligent' it can function in ways similar to the role of the score in traditional analysis in that it can be consulted and information extracted from what is seen.
Before a discussion can take place to talk about what it is we find in either of these scores, problems of terminology and language need to be considered. Just as most traditional tools of analysis become redundant in approaching electroacoustic music, so too does much of the language we use to talk about music. Once again, Schaeffer recognised this problem and made it part of his early work, developing typomorphology as a way of achieving this, by providing a lexicon of descriptive terms. This project has been most successfully continued and extended by Smalley's spectromorphology (Smalley 1987 and 1997) which is now beginning to be more widely adopted in current analysis (2).
Through the adoption of this 'common lexis' that Smalley provides, some of the fears of basing analysis upon listening are countered, particularly the lack of a central point of reference (which the score provides in traditional analysis) and the danger that this might result in "unique, single and subjective readings" (Camilleri 1993). Even if Camilleri is right in stating that these would be "limited by the structure of our perceptual-cognitive faculties" (ibid.), through adopting the specific set of terms and framework for description that spectromorphology provides us with, we improve the chances of achieving some commonality in being able to communicate what it is that we hear, if not how.
Some scientific work has begun into understanding how it is we hear and understand what we hear, in the new disciplines of psychoacoustics and psychocognition. However this has so far produced little that can be directly applied to the complex sound objects encountered in electroacoustic music, nor to any widely accepted basic principles that might form the basis of (or inform) an analytical approach. Without a secure scientific model of our listening process, Smalley's work, based as it is upon his (musical rather than scientific) experience as a listener and composer of electroacoustic music, does implicitly propose a framework for analysis.
In attempting to describe what it is we hear, we begin to differentiate between sound objects, materials or processes, and to be able to compare them. This leads to a breaking down of the work into these perceived units, its basic units of construction, and to the identification of the different materials of which the piece is built. We then establish relationships between these units and materials. These fundamental functions, of description, segmentation, and relationship-building, which would seem to have some place in describing our listening process are provided for in the descriptive tools with which spectromorphology equips us and will be adopted as the basis of the approach proposed here. As an extension of this, Smalley's concept of continua and especially their use in describing process, would seem to be especially useful in dealing with a piece of music which is so obviously concerned with gradual change. The continua Smalley provides (pitchÛeffluvium, attackÛeffluvium, gestureÛtexture) allow the basic nature of the material to be identified and combine to create a three dimensional space in which musical materials can be positioned. Processes of change can be identified by plotting movement within this space.
Both of the approaches outlined above result in the making of scores (albeit partial ones) and each presents a different contrasting view of the piece. In the case of the graphic score, one which is involved and connected with listening. In the case of the sonogram, an uninvolved (at least in the process of listening), 'scientific' view of the sound present. Mixed electroacoustic works already have some form of representation, in the shape of the orchestral or instrumental score. As has already been noted, this offers only partial information about the piece and mostly ignores the electroacoustic element. In the case of Verblendungen, only large-scale timing cues and overall dynamic levels of the electroacoustic material are actually shown in the orchestral score. It does of course give us a very detailed picture of the orchestra’s role in the piece.
One approach which will I will not be adopting in what follows is the creation of  some kind of meta- or final score, containing all the pertinent information about the piece (mimicking the traditional score model). Instead the approach that is proposed here acknowledges the partial nature of this instrumental score and indeed of the other two score types mentioned. Each of these score types offers its own view of the work and so it would seem unwise to exclude any of the help each of them might give in developing our understanding of the piece.
As a result, all three scores will be used in the analytical process, in an attempt to give the fullest picture of the piece possible. Instead of closing down the piece under study and providing a single (if multi-faceted) representation of it, this approach will endeavour to keep it as open to analytical investigation as possible. By proceeding in this way, an analytical space is created between the poles of these different scores. Mixed electroacoustic music is often concerned with multiple perspectives (instrumental vs. electronic sounds, real vs. imagined, texture vs. gesture etc.). In particular, it brings together two musical worlds, the acoustic or instrumental and the electroacoustic. One of its particular challenges to the listener / analyst (and also to the composer), is how it combines these two worlds, each based upon different fundamental units and ways of hearing - the instrumental based upon the note, and the electroacoustic upon gesture and sound objects. This would suggest that an open analytic approach is appropriate. A further factor in support of this open, multi-perspective approach is the absence of a singular final version of either the graphic or sonographic scores. Both can exist at different resolutions and time-scales, as will be shown.

Each of the 3 scores mentioned above - graphic, sonographic and orchestral- provides a different viewpoint on the musical object, and after introducing the work to be analysed, Verblendungen, each perspective's strengths will be reviewed in more detail and examples of these strengths given. However, it is in the combination of these different viewpoints and in the exploration of the analytical space mentioned above that a fuller picture of the piece can be seen. This will be applied in making the final analysis in part two.