Desire, gratification and the moment: a music analytical and psychological enquiry into the role of repetition in the music of Howard Skempton, with a response by the composer

Abstract

ABSTRACT The music of English experimental composer Howard Skempton has been described as strangely simple in acknowledgment of its combination of apparent artlessness and subtlety. Drawing on foundational and more recent psychological research on music and emotion, Cavett explores representative examples from Skempton’s approximately 140 piano miniatures, written from his student days in the 1960s until this year. She proposes that Skempton’s music creates a sense of expectation and thus desire through the creation of pattern repetition that is disrupted, only to be later re-engaged with, creating gratification and a sense of being ‘in the moment’. Skempton then responds to Cavett’s interpretation of his music from his unique perspective as the creator of the repertoire under consideration looking back across the trajectory of his creative career.