Mr. Gehry conceived of this bold ensemble of buildings as a self-contained composition — an urban Gesamtkunstwerk — not as a collection of independent structures.
Significant changes in the use of technologies like multi-tracking, drum machines, synthesizers, and digital software over the decades ushered in the rise of self-contained production and composition in genres like dub, hip-hop, rock, and dance, which meant that almost anybody could be a one man (or woman) band with access to a modest amount of technology.
By the time of Bach, the fugue as a complete composition, or as a named and self-contained section of a larger composition, had been well established in keyboard works by Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Pachelbel, Georg Muffat, and many others in Germany, as well as in orchestral concerti by Antonio Vivaldi and others in Italy.
The composition is self-contained and conforms to Alberti's definition of beauty as "that harmony of parts to which nothing can be added or taken away without destroying the whole".
Alex Ross has written how minimalism, in contrast to the history of classical composition as "a self-contained linguistic activity", was "open-ended, potentially limitless.
She contains multitudes, and remains self-contained.
And Mr. Forte, from Brooklyn, recently released "Pasted Lakes" (Schematic), an appealing collection of short compositions that sounds like a series of self-contained little worlds.
Telecommunications was self-contained.
