Dynamics of disorder

RICHARD STEINITZ explores Ligeti's piano &tudes, book 1

This concept of many-layered polyphony is influ- and purposeful, volcanic and expansive, testament
Richard Steinitz is
a Professor of Music
enced by my preoccupation with geometry, especial- to an astonishingly wide-ranging imagination, re-
ly fractal geometry and the science of dynamical sys- at the
quiring almost superhuman feats of mental andUniversity of
Huddersfield.
tems and deterministic chaos.1 physical dexterity. For pianists able to encompass
In addition to being
their technical demands, and convey the inner sub-
Artistic Director
N AN EARLIER article (MT, March 1996) I at- tlety and expressive riches of the music as ifof such
the annual
tempted to explain the relevance of current re-problems scarcely existed, the completed Huddersfield
etudes
Festival of
search in the physical sciences to the recent mu- constitute some of the most rewarding and impres-
sic of Ligeti and to ally the composer with a newsive recital repertoire of our time. Contemporary
Music, he is
spirit of rapprochement emerging between humanist Initially, the etudes seem to have been conceived
currently writing a
and scientific cultures. The study of dynamical sys-as creative partners, alternative solutions as it were,
book on Ligeti for
tems has helped to restore a poetic and aesthetic di-to technical concerns which Ligeti was simultane-
Faber & Faber.
mension to our perception of the sciences. But is ously exploring in the Piano Concerto and had ear-
chaos theory a passing fad, or should we heed Sir lier addressed in the Trio for violin, horn and piano.
Karl Popper, who, in the lecture, 'Of clocks and Although, at first glance, his occasional adoption 1. From ofLigeti's
clouds', from which Ligeti borrowed the title of his apparently simple, even tonal material looksprogramme like a note for
the premiere of the
1972/73 composition, warns us to be wary of 'fash- reversion to the tradition of Bart6k and Debussy, this
first version of the
ions in science' and of scientists who 'climb on the is no weakening of his art. Harmonic, melodic and
Violin Concerto in
band wagon almost as readily as do some painters rhythmic building blocks may seem familiar, and
September 1990.
and musicians'?2 As it happens, the new mathemati- there are precedents, too, for the overall structures.
cal explanations of complex phenomena seemYet to the composer's simultaneous working-out 2. ofKarldif-Popper:
have become fundamental to many branches of sci- ferent mechanisms quickly carries innocent and Objective
un- knowledge:
an evolutionary
ence. And, whilst Ligeti's interest in them maysuspecting be material into hazardous labyrinths. His
approach (rev. ed.,
fashionable, this is certainly not a matter of 'band- pursuit of extremes, his technical ingenuity, his plu- 1979).
London,
wagons attracting the weak'. There could scarcelyrality be of method and musical vision, make the etudes
a composer of bolder independence and originality. constantly fresh and surprising. The results are daz- on white',
3. 'White
Rather, it indicates Ligeti's alertness to a genuinely premiered by Pierre-
zling, and utterly characteristic of their composer.
contemporary interaction between creativity and As in Ligeti's earlier music, the etudes evokeLaurent a va-
Aimard at

contextual experience. the Kninklijk

riety of extra-musical analogies, not least, of course,
Conservatorium in
In focusing my previous discussion on the musi- those suggested by his titles. These make a colour-The Hague on
cal 'spirals' created by Ligeti in three of the later pi-ful list: 'Disorder', 'Open strings', 'Blocked keys',
26 January 1996.
ano etudes, I suggested various analogies between 'Fanfares',
his 'Rainbow', 'Autumn in Warsaw', 'Galamb
musical thinking and contemporary ideas in physics, 4. (English ed.,
borong' (an artificial name for an imaginary gamelan
particularly between his deformation of musical ma- Cambridge 1991).
music), 'Metal', 'Vertigo', 'The apprentice magician',
terial, through the presence of hidden variables, and 'In suspense', 'Interlacing', 'The devil's staircase', 'In-
what scientists call 'sensitivity to initial conditions'.finite column' and, with the new 15th etude, 'White
It's time to examine these and other issues in the first on white'. The titles, however, suggest metaphorical
book of etudes. I propose to concentrate on four of ideas rather than technical character, and give no in-
them in this article - but first, some thoughts about dication of two other significant stimuli. One was
Ligeti's piano studies as a whole. Ligeti's first contact in 1980 with the music of the
When the first six etudes were published in 1986, American composer, Conlon Nancarrow, whose own
their subheading of premiere livre clearly indicated extremely intricate polyrhythmic studies composed
that the composer planned more to follow. But I for player piano (thereby circumventing the limita-
doubt if Ligeti at that time foresaw the ency- tions of human performance) became for Ligeti a
clopaedic breadth of the twenty or more etudes he major inspiration. Another was the music of the
now seems intent on producing. The first two books Central African Republic, also rich in polyrhythmic
of 14 studies (lasting in performance some forty-five features, which Ligeti discovered in 1982 through
minutes) together amount to an extraordinary series recordings made by the ethnomusicologist, Simha
of intricate technical and compositional achieve- Arom. In a foreword contributed to Arom's exhaus-
tive treatise on African polyphony and polyrhythm,4
ments. Now, with the appearance of a 15th etude3,
Ligeti has embarked on a troisitme livre. What more,
Ligeti marvels at the way the simple individual parts
one wonders, can he possibly invent?! We alreadyof sub-Saharan music acquire complex rhythmic re-
have music of Lisztian dimensions, at once rigorous
lationships within an ensemble, noting the 'strong

THE MUSICAL TIMES / MAY 1996 7

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5. Ligeti in inner tension between the relentlessness of the con-
phrases (initially of four, four and six bars long
conversation with
stant, never-changing pulse coupled with the abso- erated a total of 14 times, but with gradually co
Heinz-Otto
lute symmetry of the formal architecture on the onepressed metre and with each successive stateme
Peitgen and
Richard Steinitz, hand and the asymmetrical internal division of the transposed up one step of the hyperphrygian m
Huddersfield patterns on the other. What we witness in this mu- The first cycle starts on b', the second on c' (la
Festival sic' he writes, 'is a wonderful combination of order
note, second system in ex.1), the 14th on b'" two
(November 1993). and disorder which in turn merges together produc-taves higher, after which the music stops. The le
ing a sense of order on the highest level.' hand melody has a similar character but with fo
Order and disorder? Is this another instance of phrases per cycle instead of three (initially of fo
chaos theory? Actually, Ligeti's interest in volatile
four, six and four bars). This cycle, too, is repea
musical situations stems from a much older preoc- here transposed each time basically through the
cupation with polyrhythmic polyphony and was al- of a fourth (compare the last three bars of e
terval
with the opening), although successive transpo
ready a feature of the overlapping grids characteris-
tic of his music in the 1960s. But, whereas the tions,
mi- in this case, are necessarily mutated by the m
cropolyphony at the heart of works like Apparitions nor third gaps in the pentatonic scale. Althoug
involved an 'enmeshing of individual parts' to pro- right and left hands each have independent metr
duce one composite sonic mass, the music of the cycles, as logical processes they look orderly and
1980s explores a hierarchy of self-contained struc- terministic.

tures operating more independently and 'heard si-
multaneously on several levels'. That he now views
this interaction from the vantage-point of current
mathematical thinking is indicated by his naming
the first study after a crucial issue in the science
dynamical systems, the concept of 'disorder'.
sitions are deliberately based on ideas from fourth bar to 7/8, the top line begins to move pro-
In fact, however, other deconstructive forces are
at work. For the first three bars, the two hands
sound rhythmically together, notated for conve-
nience in eight quavers to the bar, but grouped and
of
accented in the hemiola patterns of 3+5, 3+5, 5+3.
Such agreement is short-lived. From bar four, by
deleting one quaver from the right hand to make a
7/8 bar, and similarly thereafter reducing every

L IGETI has said that only two of his compo-

contemporary mathematics, the first piano
6tude, 'Desordre', 'which is self-similar - an
gressively ahead of the lower, as Ligeti's barring
shows. Also, the truncated 7/8 bar, by occurring ev-
iterated structure based consciously on the Koch ery fourth bar, changes position in the repeating
snowflake' - and the fourth movement of the Piano phrase structure, so modifying the hemiola rhythms
Concerto - 'a fractal piece'.5 Nevertheless, 'Desordre' in different places. Of course, right and left hand cy-
establishes procedures common to many of the cles move out of step more drastically since, as we
etudes, namely the simultaneous unfolding of inde- have seen, the left-hand melody contains an extra
pendent but related processes in each of the pianist's phrase making its cycle four bars longer. The initial
two hands. At first glance their musical material cycles in the two hands add up to 109 (31, 31 and
looks alike. However, it is their dissimilarity which47) is quavers in the right, but to 144 (32, 32, 48 and
crucial. The allocation to each hand of different but 32) quavers in the left. So, in almost no time at all,
complementary scales gives to these pieces what one the metrical patterns of both hands move far apart.
might call their own 'combinatorial tonality' (i.e. theAny remaining stability is upset by yet another at
illusion of a third or resultant tonality created from first apparently small discrepancy whose effect is to
the combination of the other two); whilst the simul- turn orderly if frenzied hemiolas into a headlong
taneous unfolding of similar but marginally different stampede of incessant accents. By a further deletion
metrical patterns results in increasingly divergent of quaver beats, and consequent compression of bar
polymetric counterpoints. When, into these already lengths and phrase durations, the rhythmic cycles
unstable textures, Ligeti plants other variables, itare is repeatedly squeezed. My diagrammatic represen-
as if he had injected his metrical processes with tox- tation in ex.2 shows how this operation affects the
ins, calculated to deform them insidiously fromright-hand phrase structure of the whole study and
within but at different rates. how, by the third phrase of the tenth cycle, every
Throughout 'D~sordre' the right hand plays only note has been reduced to its minimum possible du-
(heptatonic) white notes, the left hand (pentatonic) ration (i.e quavers) and the prevailing hemiola char-
black (see ex.1). The study proceeds as a continuum acter completely eliminated.
of quavers grouped asymmetrically, mostly in pat- The restoration of the 3+5 Bulgarian rhythm of
terns of three and five. The main notes of each group the opening occurs close to the golden section, after
are accented, doubled at the octave and prolonged inwhich the original bar length of eight quavers is sta-
order to project more spacious melodic lines in bothbilised for 18 bars in both hands before they begin to
hands, a technique whose ancestry stretches back to diverge again. Now it is the right hand which re-
Schumann and Chopin. Ligeti's melodies, however, mains constant, and the left which pulls away, this
are not legato but detached and jagged. time by the addition of quaver beats extending every
The melodies in each hand are of different third bar to nine quavers. The way this 9/8 bar shifts
lengths. The right-hand melody consists of three
within the left-hand cycle, and its runaway abduc-

8 THE MUSICAL, TIMES / MAY 1996

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Ex. 1: 'D6sordre', beginning

T U E 1" . ES O ,R PR" ex''a PIf>erre Soui ,,l, ezal,

v ,* vo-~cem~~ r,?:o-

EH - L E ' P
I fir II-rr
I IF- F I rr I- IM /- . r I W rt '' I a rI 11 111

?A- -16-f-l- -- /
Jr.

pe A

I I r i
b4.

.,, , . .. . . . . . .

. .. .. > > ; .... . . . > .

Ex.2: 'Desordre', diagrammatic representation

uesorare: Inrase structure or ne rignt nan b 1

Stetsg Number of quaver beat_..per
beats perphrase barIioral Hu"VV

6 16 517

c""MW 17
1 6 "14
--a g10

c - - - ------

4 4 4 _ _ _EI 8
4_14__
I . ..I I I: i d' ........., I9
8 8iEE18 ! 12
a 832 32

______I I8 8

i1 II i i /3232

8 1 8 18 1 8
e OI I 29
8 18 8 8,3

I8 18 8 8 8
T' rm
i ,=
i32
8 o18 B B] 8

8 18,8 1eil rpotos ] h

8 H8 m 18 p ,pdks 18 " 18~,

THE MUSICAL TIMES / MAY 1996 9

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 Ex.3a: Koch curve

third etude, is built on a quaver continuum;

except that, in this study, some of the keys

L . IKEtouched
'DESORDRE', 'Touches bloquees', the
don't sound, being already de-
pressed by the other hand.6 Ligeti here returns to an
earlier experiment, the second movement of Monu-
ment - Selbstportrait - Bewegung (1976), whose
novel techniques clearly deserved further explo-
ration and whose notational system is also adopted
in the study. Although physically the pianist plays
incessant quavers, what we hear is a perforated mu-
sic like a moth-eaten cloth. The audible effect re-
calls the asymmetrical complexity of Conlon Nan-
carrow and the score itself is like a pianola roll pep-
pered with tiny holes - holes which increase in
number as the music proceeds. Irregular bar-lengths
add to this impression. Although the study has no
written time-signature, bar lines coincide with
phrase patterns and therefore (unusually in Ligeti)
have some accentual significance. At first, 7/8 and
8/8 bars alternate to coincide with the descending
and ascending phrases, but soon the music grows
6. Perhaps Ligeti more elastic so that, overall, the study contains bars
learnt the piano tion of extra quavers during the final six bars of theof almost every length between two and twenty-two
using DohnAnyi's study is typically capricious. What remains constant quavers! Near the middle, there is an impetuous
Essential finger
throughout the study is the ascending scalic charac- episode which suggests that the whole study should
exercises for
obtaining a sure ter of the quaver accompaniment, whose vigorous not be taken too seriously and that the poor pianist's
piano technique, in counterpoint provides much of the music's tremen- apparent inability to maintain regular quavers only
the first of which, dous ebullience. compounds his seemingly unsuccessful efforts at
three digits hold 'Disordre', therefore, celebrates the excitementplaying
of in octaves - for such is the effect of the hi-
down the same keys living dangerously; its sense of reckless accelerationlariously frantic Poco meno presto episode (with its
(C, D and E)
during an exercise
composed 'smudged' octaves) on page 14 of the
is like the heady exhilaration of riding a roller-coast-
to strengthen er. On the surface the music is wonderfully homoge- score.

the fourth and fifth neous, but underneath are hazardous currents as What of the dynamical forces at work
fingers. Ligeti pursues structural logic to the point where it piece? Basically, there are four: firstly, ha
becomes increasingly anarchic, where orderly phras- pansion in which successive tonal aggrega
es become frenzied and panic-stricken, racing each fined, only to be veiled again through '
other towards chaos and destruction. secondly, a gradual emergence of brief le
The resizing of the same shape (in this case, es; thirdly, enlargement of the 'holes' as
phrase structure) through continuous iteration isare a blocked; and, fourthly, the developmen
fractal characteristic. Repeating an operation over mentary counterpoint of isolated quaver
and over again, on ever smaller scales culminates into al- the holes left by the other hand. Th
most inescapably in a self-similar structure, a classicnotes later assume a different function as
example being the 'Koch curve' proposed in 1904 reinforce
by or counteract the impression
the Swedish mathematician, Helge von Koch (see produced by the increasing number of le
ex.3a), in which smaller and smaller equilateral tri- es. And, whereas their choice of pitches
angles are erected over the middle third of shorter echoes key pitches in the continuum, so
and shorter straight lines. Starting out with a trian- quire their own linear independence, the
gle and iterating this process produces the Kochcoming more dense until the end, where
flake (see ex.3b). Aside from its relation to this ele-
falls away.
gant structure, 'Disordre' also demonstrates how For the first 17 bars, all silent 'gaps' in
tiny discrepancies quickly breed confusion. Albeittinuum in are of single quavers. Gradually
microcosm and in a finite context, Ligeti illustrates area blocked, and the gaps come in pairs, then
fundamental idea of chaos - that small differences in threes, until towards the end are long chains of in-
initial conditions rapidly lead to dramatic outcomes. audible ostinatos, sensed only by the ghostly patter
This is the characteristic of deterministic chaos first of oscillating fingers tapping the ivory. The texture
recognised by Henri Poincare in 1903, rediscoveredbecomes increasingly threadbare, like a carpet
in 1961 by Edward Lorenz whilst studying comput- worn through to its web, and one is reminded of
er models of 'unpredictable' weather patterns, and the way in which the background fabric is exposed
which have obsessed certain mathematicians and to view in the skeletal, see-through music of
scientists during the 1970s and '80s. Lachenmann.

10 THE MUSICAL TIMES / MAY 1996

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 Ex.3b: Koch snowflake
HE FOURTH &tude, 'Fanfares', is a splen-
didly engaging piece that should be in the
repertoire of every adventurous pianist. Its
opening bars strike one as disarmingly or-
dinary; they could easily be mistaken for one of
Bartok's Six dances in Bulgarian rhythm. Overall,
however, this study is an impressive demonstration
of the difference between plagiarism and originality. ished triads and seventh chords. Moreover, the norm
Could anyone except Ligeti have evolved, from this is for major triads to articulate the motif when it is
routine beginning, music so ingenious and dazzling? in the right hand, minor triads when it is in the left.
Such is his irrepressible invention that the casual lis- Only towards the end does a more dissonant bitonal-
tener could be forgiven if he failed to notice that the ity prevail.
whole study is composed around an unchanging os- The first complete statement of the main melodic
tinato repeated bar after bar, with only octave trans- motif is in the right hand and consists of four phras-
positions, no less than 208 times. es, each of four chords, all of them major. They are,
For the very reason that he uses familiar materi- in fact, all the major triads in the various inversions
als and procedures, the composer's resourcefulness which it is possible to construct on the first, fourth
in marrying intellectual virtuosity with expressive and sixth notes of the ostinato, i.e. in step with its
elegance couldn't be clearer. Yet the melodies are 3+2+3 hemiola character (see ex.4). In this intrigu-
surprisingly euphonious, the phrase structures neat- ing interplay between orderliness and invention,
ly proportioned, the harmonies audaciously conso- some things are surprisingly systematic. Successive
nant. Surely we have before us a postmodern Ligeti? variants not only change hands, but exchange major
Where now the revolutionary daring of Apparitions, and minor modes:
the extravagant conceit of Aventures, the iconoclast
whose mischievously named Poeme symphonique for RH bars 2-8 16 chords consisting of 9 different
a hundred metronomes so discomforted the major triads & their inversions
burghers of Hilversum at the opening of their City LH bars 10-17 18 chords consisting of 13
Hall? Is this the once bad wolf now cavorting in the different minor triads & their inversions
fleecy triads of diatonicism? RH bars 18-26 20 chords consisting of major
Such accusations can be countered by observing triads & inversions, plus seventh chords
that, throughout this study, Ligeti pursues a charac- LH bars 28-36 23 chords consisting of minor
teristically eccentric obsession. 'Fanfares' explores triads & inversions, plus diminished chords
every aspect of a singular vision, driving onward RHre-
bars 37-45 23 chords consisting of major
lentlessly to the point where we experience some- triads & inversions, plus seventh chords
thing new and unique; it is certainly not the com-
fortable path of reinstating the familiar. Nor isDespite eu- this exceptional emphasis on consonance
phony for Ligeti an aesthetic position, as it is for and oth-
chordal categories, Ligeti's rapid juxtaposition of
ers, but rather the incidental byproduct of a particu- triads from unrelated keys sounds delightfully pi-
lar purpose, appropriate to one set of premises, quant.
notIndeed the overall tonality of the study is
to another. In any case, Ligeti manages to usemuch con-more sophisticated than such a systematic
sonant harmony and yet remain radical through technique
the might imply. Earlier, with reference to
sheer speed and rhythmic intricacy with which he
'Desordre', I suggested that a 'combinatorial' tonality
hurtles unrelated triads before us. results from the vertical superimposition of two dif-
With its breathlessly insistent ostinato, 'Fanfares' ferent modes. Here, in 'Fanfares', combinatorial
is the archetypical moto perpetuo. Above or below tonality emerges from the speed of the horizontal se-
its 208 ostinato repetitions gallops a bright, quence, which compresses individual diatonic com-
sonorous motif, a trumpet-like fanfare mostly of ponents as if we were hearing them together. To this
dyads and triads but occasionally unlaced in dancing pantonal mixture, we should add the tritonal contri-
figurations. At each appearance, this motif is melod- bution of the ostinato (with its two tetrachords re-
ically and rhythmically varied, generally alternating lated by an augmented fourth), and the straining
between right and left hand. Habitually, it contains apart of the contrapuntal lines. The whirl of these
four melodic phrases whose symmetry evokes folk, many harmonic ingredients around the rotating
even Viennese classical antecedents. The ostinato it- spindle of the ostinato sets up centrifugal forces, as
self contains two identical ascending tetrachords an harmonies are spun outwards above and below the
augmented fourth apart, whose tritonal axis centre,
is at times flying off to the extremities, as hap-
matched throughout the rest of the texture by pens a on page 21 of the score.

Bartokian balance of diatonic and chromatic ingredi- An approximate count reveals that there are a to-
ents, here exceptionally favouring the diatonic and tal of around six-hundred chords in 'Fanfares'. Evi-
consonant. All the first 45 chords are consonant (seedently, since the study lasts little above three min-
ex.4). Indeed, virtually the whole piece is built on utes, we hear on average nearly two-hundred chords
concords, interspersed with a sprinkling of dimin- per minute! Individually, the majority are consonant

THE MUSICAL TIMES / MAY 1996 11

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 Ex.4: 'Fanfares', beginning

n s+ I cr_ mno..., r- mLt,,WA .ka IIIh , W p? I.7n--rir . -

,p Lt 05tr rel f." I K "W , Tj p L . ? ..r h"
PtTukftJ-n n d --e ] 1k~~tee ' l ai ' r M tfl1- rt" l a . elnu Tsic,, , jir i 10/ flC It
el-I A-T. - ._ _ .t

3+ ......
. .. .. .. L. ..,.
J a g i " !I- a W ."I -.A--
I p

I__ _ /.f,.... 1*9,1, 1 A- L we ...,@ a - I.A 1 I !'C!.. . ... -1"0 '-"'"r I rg,' I r -__ rl
;i III T, I I At , I u ,,I TP, I I H-_-,'I

U " - " !_1__11___i L-- !I I _. " __ -.

i-~~an
at..- -,.___.-t- A mgMS_--
..,,.4..-.w- 11.,1 . --" .,/
-- v _T1,, .. "--"#.A*
_S1 IOU --4 :" " /1 . ..

? / , f I" I I ..u i i _, ~I I- poor- II i d i,, # ,,It I J ,,"n,,1i

Ex.5: from 'Fanfares'

r Irt - - + . aW -a-f-

12 THE MUSICAL TIMES I MAY 1996

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Ex.6: the 'lament' theme of 'Automne a Varsovie', with its durational scheme

8va

, durations 5 5 5 10 5 5 5 5 10
8va

10q 5I 5 5 555

10 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 10 5 10

(but less so scending chromatic

towards scales, stock-in-trade of 19th- the
7. See 'Ascending en
tion of all centurythese
melodrama, yet produce a study so person- ingredien
and descending',
in MC Escher:
tones creates an
al, distinctive and profound. Certainly, the eighty-or- illusion no
able supratonality butThe graphicof work e
so chromatic phrases treading their weary descent
(Berlin, 1990).
Ligeti worked through this study - like tired labourerson returning the &tude
systems began
home, united in resignation and only distinguish- to occur to
sonic terrains which
able by the speed of their gait - impart an enduring he wa
in &tude no.7 and,
bleakness to the music. So many phrases, always de- later, in
If pantonal scending yet neversynthesis
seeming to get lower, call to mind chara
the real thrust
not only the Shepard-Risset glissando (see myof first this study
At its heart is
article), but also the infinite shifting
melancholy of Maurice acc
metrical expansion
Escher's faceless figures, toiling for the umpteenth and con
3+2+3 divisiontime around an endless staircase that of gets neither an 8/8 met
metrical relationships
higher nor lower.7 Ligeti has repeatedly stressed the whi
vent is legion.
affinity between his music and Escher'sEx.5 enigmatic shows le
tively 9/8, drawings;
then but this study also embodies anxieties 6/8, then 6
crotchet units,
stemming from the political unrest in Poland all
during against 8/
there is the notated deceleration of the chordal fan- the early 1980s (hence the dedication 'to my Polish
fare motif towards the end of the piece, a process friends' and the Chopinesque character of its arpeg-
similar to the prolongation which ends 'Desordre'.giated figurations), concerns which are also at the
Thus, although 'Fanfares' uses quite ordinary mate-heart of Nono's Diario polacco 2 of 1982.
rial, the result is never commonplace. One feels that The technical fascination of the music lies in the
some earlier 20th-century composers might have relationship between the continuous semiquavers
written this piece. Yet none did. It needed the men-and the polymetric canonic entries of the melody,
tality of a Ligeti - with his East European folk-roots,whose phrases glide through every register, above
his obsession with polymetrics and Dadaistic delightand below as well as weaving their way across or in-
in improbable logic - to treat the ever-shifting rela-side the semiquaver patterns themselves. Most often
tionship between immutable ostinato and melodic the semiquaver background is grouped in fours, but
variables to such a dazzling acrobatic display. other groups (of two, three, five, six, seven and eight)
are used to explore new polymetric situations. In
THE LAST in the first book of ftudes, 'Au-
tomne a Varsovie' is also the longest and,
three places the whole texture is drawn into acceler-
ating crescendos. In the second and third crescendos,
perhaps, the most far-reaching and haunt- groups of three are reduced to two and then to scalic
ing. Like others, it explores many different semiquaver runs. By contrast, the first crescendo ex-
manifestations of a single concept, that of superim- pands, fives growing into sixes, sevens, then eights
posing one or more melodies at different speeds and so on, until suddenly arrested by the unexpected
against a background of continuous pulses, here no- frozen stillness of the central section from which all
tated as semiquavers. Its asymmetrical layers are semiquavers have been numbingly expunged.
ever-fluid, the combination of shorter or longer sub- Whilst the metrical character of the continuum
groups of semiquaivers with slower and faster fluctuates, the melodies heard in relief against this
melodies being handled with tremendous skill and semiquaver background are more formally struc-
sensitivity. It seems extraordinary that Ligeti can get tured, choosing their tempos also from durational
away with basing the music so predominantly on de- units of three, four, five or seven semiquavers. Each

THE MUSICAL TIMES / MAY 1996 13

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Ex.7: from 'Automne A Varsovie
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sob

IV jw w
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8. From Keats's 'Ode is of three distinct phrases, the third always longer From bar 18, melodies begin to be superimposed
to a nightingale', than the others, that is until their separate identities at different tempos. First an alto part hurries by in
a poem to which become subsumed in a flowering of mensural dotted quavers, overtaking the slower pace of the
Ligeti said he canons. Each melody sticks rigidly to its chosen du- right hand which remains here in units of five and
returned many ten. Soon three, or even four melodies (some of
rational unit - which may be all dotted quavers for
times during the
instance - except that prominent notes, generally them doubled at the perfect fifth) are heard together
composition of
Lontano. the last of each phrase, are of exactly double dura- at different speeds as in the polymetric counterpoint
tion. Thus, for example, the first right-hand melody at the top of page 35, where four descending chro-
contains three phrases measured in five-semiquaver matic lines in durational units of three, four, five and
units which are laid out as follows: seven are heard against a semiquaver background
grouped in threes (see ex.7).
Phrase1 5 5 5 10
But how to halt, how silence these doleful per-
(.? duration units) sonnages endlessly trudging up and down? Ligeti's
Phrase2 5 5 5 5 10 solution is to compound their confusion by means of
Phrase3 10 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 10 5 10 an increasing anarchy of pitch and rhythm, until ev-
erything collapses in a thunderous descent into the
Their subsiding drift adds to bottom
the lachrymose
octave. The strangest ef-moment, however, is
fect of this 'lament'. The first two phrases
not the share
end but that start-
chilling emptiness in the mid-
ing pitches but the second, being one
dle, where theunit longer,
semiquavers unexpectedly stop and
ends a note lower. The third startswe arehigher
left with thebut twists
melody alone, each of its three
as it falls chromatically to endphrases
lower still
doubled (ex.6).
at the As
tritone but at the extremities
melodies are increasingly overlaid, the sense
of the keyboard of as-octaves apart. It is
five-and-a-half
piring higher yet falling loweranother
- as ofif Ligeti's
unablemysterious
filti-voids, like the gaping
mately to gain either height or holedepth
in Lontano-where the whole orchestra falls
becomes
more and more paradoxical and silentdisturbing.
leaving only theFurther-
disembodied whistle of a high
violin harmonic
more, clearly identifiable variants of these above the tuba's lowest note.
melan-
choly lines (still typified by their three-phrase struc-
ture) occur in other works by Ligeti. Adieu! They
adieu! thybelong to
plaintive anthem fades
an archetypical concept of passacaglia, founded
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Musical examples upon the great laments of Monteverdi and
Up the hill-side; Purcell,
and now 'tis buried deep
are ? Schott & Co. whose reemergence in virtually all
In theLigeti's music of
next valley-glades:
Ltd and reproduced the last two decades I propose to investigate in
Was it a vision, or my fi-
a waking dream?
by kind permission. nal essay Fled is that music:- Do I wake or sleep?8

CAMBRIDGE NEW MUSIC PLAYERS conducted by PAUL HOSKINS

BRIGHTON FESTIVAL SATURDAY 11 MAY 96 AT 5.30PM HIGHBURY FESTIVAL SUNDAY 12 MAY 96 AT 5PM
ADRIAN JACK Zigzag JONATHAN POWELL Necronomic Fragments (FIRST LONDON PERFORMANCE)
EDWARD DUDLEY HUGHES Movements in Red (FIRST PERFORMANCE) JULIAN GRANT Tournament of Shadows
Cambridge New Music Players...
the highpoint of my Brighton weekend THE TIMES an unmitigated joy THE INDEPENDENT top ensemble of our day THE OBSERVER
an excellent young British ensemble SUNDAY TIMES tel 0171 607 8848

14 THE MUSICAL TIMES / MAY 1996

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