Punctualism

Punctualism (commonly also called "pointillism" or "point music") is a style of musical composition prevalent in Europe between 1949 and 1955 "whose structures are predominantly effected from tone to tone, without superordinate formal conceptions coming to bear" (Essl 1989, 93). In simpler terms: "music that consists of separately formed particles—however complexly these may be composed—[is called] punctual music, as opposed to linear, or group-formed, or mass-formed music" (, 452, bolding in the source). This was accomplished by assigning to each note in a composition values drawn from scales of pitch, duration, dynamics, and attack characteristics, resulting in a "stronger individualizing of separate tones" (Frisius 1994). Another important factor was maintaining discrete values in all parameters of the music. Punctual dynamics, for example

mean that all dynamic degrees are fixed; one point will be linked directly to another on the chosen scale, without any intervening transition or gesture. Line-dynamics, on the other hand, involve the transitions from one given amplitude to another: crescendo, decrescendo and their combinations. This second category can be defined as a dynamic glissando, comparable to glissandi of pitch and of tempi (accelerando, ritardando). (Boulez 1971, 60)

"The almost analytical focus on individual events, and then the transition between them, brings a stillness to this music far removed from the gestural quality of other pieces" (Grant 2001, 78). From a purely technical point of view, the term "punctual" has the sense of "a point of intersection of parameters" in serial music (Eggebrecht 1974).

Retrospectively attributed to the music of Anton Webern, the term was originally coined in German (punktuelle Musik), by and Herbert Eimert (who also used the expression "star music") to describe pieces such as Olivier Messiaen's "Mode de valeurs et d'intensités" (1949) (, 34–35). However, it is most commonly associated with serial compositions such as Pierre Boulez's Structures, book 1 (1952), Karel Goeyvaerts's Sonata for Two Pianos and Nummer 2 for thirteen instruments (1951), Luciano Berio's Nones, and Luigi Nono's Polifonica–Monodia–Ritmica, as well as some early compositions of Stockhausen, such as Kreuzspiel (Hicks 1989, 258; , 34–35; Toop 2005, 3). Herman Sabbe, however, argues that "Stockhausen never strictly speaking composed punctually" (Sabbe 1981, 68). Eimert foresaw problems "because of the common term of "pointillism" [German Pointillismus] in French painting. It would wrongly be assumed that paintings by Seurat and his contemporaries were being transformed into music" (, 451). The confusion in French was immediate, as Stockhausen relates:

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