Jeremiah

Selvey Topic #18 Unlocking the Mystery in Ligetis Lux Aeterna

Unlocking the Mystery in Ligetis Lux Aeterna

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore a brief background of Ligetis
composition, followed by an overview of his style and an in-depth look at the musical and
theoretical construction of Lux Aeterna. These all provide a foundation for interacting with
his philosophical ideals and help the listener to enjoy both the canonic and the
kaleidoscopic aspects of the piece, thus unlocking its depiction of eternal light.

The following notes from a presentation I gave in January 2011 highlight the points of the
paper:
Gyrgy Ligetis Lux Aeterna:
An Analysis Toward a Conductors Interpretation
Jeremiah Selvey
January 27, 2011

Gyrgy Ligeti (1923-2006)
Jewish, Hungarian composer, was born into an artistic family; his fathers father was
a professional painter and his fathers uncle was a violinist.
From a young age he studied music and composition, but was faced with two
oppressive regimes as a youth.
o Musica reservata, an 11-movement work for piano that features an additional
pitch class set for each successive movement.
o left Budapest for Western Europe in 1956 to explore the avant-garde
electronic music.
o Requiem (1963-1965) largest choral work
Requires sizable performing forces
Challenges:
Relentlessly harsh harmonies
Sharply angular solo lines with extreme tessitura
Thick textures
Tightly spaced canons create swarming masses of sound
Reliving existence under Nazis and Communists instead of exploring
redemption (as in most Requiems)
Sudden ending: Lacrimosa kind of ethereal
Mark Swed, an LA times critic (April 20, 1998): strange,
exciting, compelling, and deeply disturbing musicnot so much
about afterlife as about life in the second half of the twentieth
century.
Borrowed from several compositional methods, embodying a style that would
typify him by the juxtaposition and interposing of these adjusted techniques;
particularly influenced by sound and its manipulation, a lifelong obsession.

Distinctive qualities in Ligetis music
 Jeremiah Selvey Topic #18 Unlocking the Mystery in Ligetis Lux Aeterna

use of micropolyphony, a term used by Ligeti himself to describe the use of

polyphony in such a way that the imitation of individual lines is lost in the aural
experience in favor of the combinatorial sound created by the tiering of voices.
The Ligeti signal, also called the Ligeti chord is a perfect fourth enclosing a major
second and minor third (025)
The use of clearly delineated and calculated clusters.
o Apparitions, his first piece to use orchestral clusters
o Atmospheres combined micropolyphony with orchestral clusters to morph
the sound mass into a single cloud drifting through different regions of
colour, harmony and texture, whether in the form of sustained tones
(remarkably for the period, there is only one percussion instrument: a piano
whose strings are brushed towards the close) or of what he called
micropolyphony (Grove).
Post-Lux aeterna became aware of other cultures methods of tuning and began to
incorporate non-Western tuning as another element to shape sound. Though he
used clusters, they are not presented aleatorically or simply as blocks of sound;
rather, they are calculated, pre-determined and notated.
Not tonal/modal or atoneal, despite use of scalar or chromatic material.
Perception of harmony and melody is often static; sonically, however, his music
seems to be transforming. Concepts shared by attempts to classify other
contemporary composers include new melody and illusory rhythm.
o New melody cognitive or aural approach to melody (as opposed to the
more traditional constructed or theoretically conceived approach to the
melody).
o Illusory rhythm -2 simple super-imposed seuences comprising extremely
complex polyrhythms (distinct from Ives polymetircal layering of voices in
heterogenous fashion).

Lux aeterna compositional devices:
micropolyphony
Ligeti chord both microstructural and macrostructural tool (Clendinning).

Philosophical Background to Lux aeterna:
o Ligetis view of space and time (Lobanova)
o Visual art is not limited to spatial realm and music not bound to the temporal
realm
o 2 types of musical space: real space, associated space (illusory)
o Time-Space Aesthetic
o Key concepts: stasis (cf. Messiaen) & abandoment of tonality as a construct
o Music can be frozen in time
Music as frozen time, as an object in the imaginary space evoked in our imagination, as a[n]
object which in a real sense unfolds over time and yet in an imaginary way is simultaneously
present in all its moments. The exorcism of time, the abolition of its passing, and its inclusion
in the present moment is my main intention as a composer (Lobanova 55, quoted from Gyrgy
Ligeti in Conversation, p. 15). Ligetis music not only reflects on spatial associations
 Jeremiah Selvey Topic #18 Unlocking the Mystery in Ligetis Lux Aeterna

metaphorically, but also actually embodies time as space, to portray everything as if

simultaneously present, such as in Atmosphres, Volumina, Lontano, and Ramifications
(Lobanova 62).
o Why is this time-space perspective important?
o Text suggest lack of time expression of lack of time is important
No dynamic movement in the temporal sense; static temporally
o Dynamism in shifts occur in elements associate with space (painting):
Color
Dimension
Texture

Jeremiah Selvey Topic #18 Unlocking the Mystery in Ligetis Lux Aeterna

Levels of Listening to Lux aeterna

o Aural level listen to dynamism and experience the painting
o Macrostructural level
o 3 sections separated by word Domine (Clendinning)
Sections 1 and 3 have 1 canon
Ligeti chord holds melodies and harmonies together
o Microstuctural level use of 3s in the piece, details of comparing sections
Section 2 has 3 canons and huge expansion
Section 3 never finishes
Polyphony in A1 and A2 is incomplete
Text of A3 and A4 ends on -ce
Elimination of the word Domine
o Traditional ending to this text
o Also used structurally in this piece up to this point
Composed-out 7 measures of rest
Originally planned on ending it on an F (Steinitz)

Micro-structural analysis: {025}ness and Interpretation
Section 1
o The cantus firmus is constructed and set in measures 1-24 in a way that uses the
pitch F as the central note of the trichord E-flat, F, and A-flat; the effect is that from
measure 8 to measure 24, the trichord is always present regardless of other activity.
I will label this as LC 1 (for Ligeti chord 1).
o In measure 11, the trichord D-flat, E-flat, and G-flat emerges and is present through
measure 16, henceforth LC 2.
o Yet another trichord (LC3) emerges (G, B-flat, and C) in measure 15, upon the
soprano entrance on G-natural and is interrupted both times the G is not present in
the texture (mm. 16-18, 22-23) before its disappearance in measure 24.
o Because of the continued presences of the note F from LC1 in mm. 1 -24 and of the
note B-flat as part of LC2 in mm. 15-24, the intermittent addition of the G-natural
contained in LC3 forms LC4 (F, G, and B-flat) interposed onto LC3s every
appearance

Section 2
o The middle sections canon in the mens voices produces even more overlapping
Ligeti chords, including the following: B-flat, C, and E-flat; A, B, and D; G, B-flat, and
C (LC3, displaced by octave); and E-flat, F, and A-flat. Signficantly, the whole alto
canon uses the LC3 in the latter half of the middle section.
o The final sections canon has a few short-lived appearances of the Ligeti chord
toward the middle of the cantus firmus, and it is not until m. 101 that two
unambiguous Ligeti chords appear. These interlocking chords share the two notes
comprising the outlining perfect fourth ( F-sharp and B), differing only by their
inner voices (G-sharp/A-flat and A).
o At measure 110, two more interlocking chords (A, B, and D; G, A, and C) are created
by the addition of the C-natural, this time sharing only one common tone (A).
Jeremiah Selvey Topic #18 Unlocking the Mystery in Ligetis Lux Aeterna

Towards an Interpretation:
o ESSENCE: All of these Ligeti chords in their various manifestations present a
{025}ness.
o Ligetis setting the structurally significant word Domine to this {025}ness,
as well as the fact that this is the only word set purely homophonically in the
whole piece, seems to draw attention to the source of the construction of his
musical material.
o In addition, by shuffling the text so that the word Domine appears out of
order and serves as a structural and dividing line between the three larger
sections, it would appear that the source of the textual meaning is Domine,
that the origin of eternal light literally and metaphorically is the Lord.
o Furthermore, the Lord (in his {025}ness permeates and is the essence of
every manifestation of that eternal light.
o SOURCE: Perhaps Ligetis choice not to portray a finished version of eternal light is
due more to its source than to anything else, which may be seen as Trinitarian by
associations with the number three.
o The macrostructure is clearly in three sections, sharing the same essence
(based on Ligeti chord) and clearly forming a single concept.
o The three-in-one can also be seen by the use of three canons in the central
section of the piece.
o On the most basic level, the use of a trichord (three notes) as the main
foundation for the piece gives further credence to the Trinitarian
associations as the origin of the Lux aeterna.
o SPACE WITHOUT REGARD TO TIME: The whole piece begins on F5 (?) and ends on
F4 and G4 (?), an incomplete trichord, followed by approximately 30 seconds of
silence. Throughout the piece, the intense repleteness of and striving for the Ligeti
chord is similar to the use of motivic generation and tonality in common-practice
composition. Could it be that the fact that it never really circles back home is a
portrayal of both the eternal light and the inability to capture such huge concept?
Lux aeterna just exists and we can catch but glimpses of it.

Other Directions?
An auralizing chart for getting the piece in the conductors ear (perhaps with colors
representing different sets)
Suggested exercises and warm-ups for teaching the piece
Interact more with Requiem the Lux Aeterna was originally going to be a part of
the Requiem
List of articles I have not yet read might help fill in some weaknesses in current
paper.

Jeremiah Selvey Topic #18 Unlocking the Mystery in Ligetis Lux Aeterna

Bibliography
Bernard, Jonathan, Inaudible Structures, Audible Music: Ligetis Problem, and His
Solution, Music Analysis 6/3 (October 1987), pp. 207-236.
----------, Voice Leading as a Spatial Function in the Music of Ligeti, Music Analysis 13/2,3,
Twentieth-Century Music Double Issue (July- October 1994), pp. 227-253.
Clendinning, Jane Piper, Structural Factors in the Microcanonic Compositions of Gyorgy
Ligeti, Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz Since 1945, Rochester: U of Rochester Press,
1995: 229-256.
Griffiths, Paul (2011): Gyorgy Ligeti, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed January
20), http://grovemusic.com.
Griffiths, Paul, Gyorgy Ligeti, London: Robson Books, 1983.
Gyorgy Ligeti in Conversation with Peter Varnai, Josef Hausler, Claude Samuel, and himself,
London: Eulenburg Books, 1983.
Lobanova, Marina, Gyorgy Ligeti: Style, Ideas, Poetics. Shuttleworth, Mark, transl. Berlin:
Kuhn, 2002.
Richart, Robert W., Gyorgy Ligeti: A Bio-Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.
Roig-Francoli, Harmonic and Formal Prcesses in Ligetis Net-Structure Compositions,
Music Theory Spectrum 17/2 (Autumn 1995), pp. 242-267.
Steinitz, Richard, Gyorgy Ligeti: Music of the Imagination, Boston: Northeaster U Press,
2003.