Luke Ma [blog.lukema.net]

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Luke

Abstract for Presentation on Ligeti

Posted at 02:56 AM on
February 08, 2004

I mentioned that I got into the West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis 2004 just a couple of days ago. I also mentioned something about Ligeti. For those who care (or dare to care), the following is the abstract I submitted. I make some pretty grand claims in there so don't hold me to them...yet...

Proposal for a 30-minute presentation at

The Twelfth Annual West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis in Santa Barbara

Presentation Title:

Musica Ricercata: Germinal Ideas of György Ligeti

The music of György Ligeti seems to defy all attempts at categorization. From the micropolyphony of Atmosphères and Lontano, to the “cooled expressionism” of the Requiem, and even the asynchronous ostinati of the notoriously difficult Études for piano, every new piece seems to explore a completely different idea. It is no wonder that none of these pieces could really be associated with a historical style for as Ligeti notes himself “in the Darmstadt of the late ‘50s…I was considered a particularly traditionalist composer. … Now in our much more conformist times… I appear very experimental. I do not think I am much influenced by prevailing fashions.” His music shrugs off, just as easily, any linearly evolutionary view of his output. What musical thought, if any, connects Le Grand Macabre to the Piano Concerto? The one quality that is common to all of his music seems to be that they all excel at being unique, individual, and thus highly difficult to relate to one another in a coherent or logical manner.

Part of this problem, no doubt, is that Ligeti is still a relatively “young” composer and thus studies devoted to his music are understandably few. There have been, however, many recent studies of Ligeti’s music, in addition to an ever expanding list of biographical resources. Most notably, Jonathan Bernard’s articles have shed light on a variety of structures and theoretical ideas in Ligeti’s music. But despite theoretical insights into individual pieces, we are still at loss when it comes to relationships between pieces separated by a large chronological span. Are there such connections? Are there musical ideas that Ligeti develops throughout his life or is each new group of compositions completely new? Are there theoretical bases to these ideas? These are all important questions in the formation of our view of Ligeti and his music.

This paper will discuss some possible answers to the above questions. The starting point of my explorations will be Musica Ricercata, a series of 11 short piano pieces composed in 1951-1953. I choose Musica Ricercata because it is one of the earliest serious pieces Ligeti wrote, as well as being one of the more technically accessible. Using a variety of analytical approaches including harmonic analysis, scalar content analysis, pitch content analysis, and rhythmic analysis, I uncover germinal ideas that exist in multiple movements—ideas that Ligeti must have found intriguing enough to repeat despite the parsimonious nature of the music. One example of such an idea is “altered modes.” Ligeti sometimes flips a mode upside down (an inverted Dorian scale, for example) and sometimes adds members to a mode so that there is modal ambiguity (in other words, more than one mode can be perceived from a uniform texture).

After a discussion of this piece and ideas found therein (which are in and of themselves of worthy of study and of characteristic Ligeti wit and humor), this paper will explore connections between later works and Musica Ricercata through these musical gestures. For example, a more developed version of the “altered mode” idea appears later in such works as the Piano Concerto, where a fully chromatic texture is divided into two separate “modes”: one on the white keys and one on the black keys. This paper will present this and other such connections in more detail, connecting chronologically distant compositions in a coherent manner, thus contributing to a broader understanding of Ligeti’s music.

The "real" document is also downloadable. It contains, for those who care, footnoted references of the quotes and the like. Here it is in PDF.

Comments

My heeeead hurts... and this is just your abstract ?!? Too smart for me.

Posted by: Sumi at February 8, 2004 06:31 AM

Riiiight. I guess it is a bit too smart for you since you're NOT DOING MUSIC THEORY! :) Silly sooms. And besides, it's not exactly a stellar abstract, what with such gems as "...are in and of themselves of worthy of study and of characteristic..."

Posted by: Luke Ma at February 8, 2004 01:51 PM