ABSTRACT
Helga de la Motte-Haber chapter graces this volume with an extremely knowledgeable contribution about silence in music. She starts by considering whether to speak of silence in music could be thought of as a joke. Along the way, we learn that it is not, that it is more a paradox, a paradox of humanity, which she spells out with great precision. As music has deep origins in religious rituals of all kinds, it is no wonder that this dimension is again touched on. De la Motte-Haber analyses the role of silence in the creations of many composers, from Händel, Haydn and Mozart, to Debussy and Ravel, to Xenakis, Nono, Feldman and John Cage.
