ASYMPTOTE: ASYMPTOTE OF SILENCE / SILENCE OF THE ASYMPTOTE

The starting point of this paper is Asymptote, a composition of Ljubica Maric, for violin and string orchestra (1986), more precisely an examination of the nature of the temporal-spatial latency of its title. I will make an attempt to consider this nature as silence, pointing to its poetical-aesthetic function in the composition. Through the method of deconstruction the topic will be examined from two viewpoints. The first considers the gist of Asymptote, with the emphasis on the continuum of ontological silence as an assumed curve that draws increasingly nearer to the music of Asymptote without ever meeting it (except in infinity). The second viewpoint is the obverse of the first, with the emphasis on the composition Asymptote as an assumed curve that draws increasingly nearer to silence. While the consideration of the first assumption reveals Asymptote as a piece that specifically persists 'meeting' with silence in the sense of a single sound in the poetics of Tom Takemitsu, the consideration of the second assumption reveals in the music flow of Asymptote the place of its biggest approach to silence. Therefore, the composition Asymptote suggests that silence of the temporal-spatial continuum might be considered as the asymptote of this composition and conversely, that the composition might be considered as the asymptote of silence. These both function in the aesthetic level, within the idea of longing towards the ideal as a crucial aesthetic point of Ljubica Maric.