Abstract
This essay examines the points of contact between three theoretical proposals concerning musical listening and creation: Morton Feldman's distinction between music that emphasizes construction and music that emphasizes surface, Iván Sparrow Ayub's distinction between music grounded in evolutionary/sequential structure and music grounded in sonic matter, and Jonathan D. Kramer's temporal typology differentiating linear time from vertical time. The central argument is that these three formulations describe, from complementary perspectives —compositional, theoretical, and perceptual— the same reordering of priorities in the relationship between sound and its organization. It is proposed that these categories do not represent binary oppositions but modes of emphasis that coexist in variable proportions, and that Kramer's typology allows for a more precise situating of the genealogy of composers —Debussy, Varèse, Feldman— that Sparrow Ayub identifies as precursors of a material aesthetics. The essay incorporates pictorial references drawn from Feldman's original text —Piero della Francesca, Cézanne, and Rothko— to illustrate the concepts of surface and vertical time.