for contemporaries, and rightly so, for they Gyo« rgy Ligeti: Of Foreign Lands and Strange Sounds. propounded one-dimensional, nostalgic, and Ed. by Louise Duchesneau and Wolfgang insulting images of contemporary African Marx. pp. xx þ 298. (The Boydell Press, Americans. Still, he observes, Berlin’s notion Woodbridge, 2011, »45. ISBN 978-1-84383- of minstrelsy was based on its theatrical 550-9.) framework rather than its racial stereotypes, and blackface was not integral to Berlin’s con- Heinz-Otto Peitgen speaks of Edward Lorenz ception of the genre. This comes out in shows and the famous ‘butterfly effect’ when he like The Cocoanuts (1925), in which the trial writes, in his contribution to this volume, ‘This scene is built on the interlocutor^endman is an example of how one single scientist can dis- model of minstrelsy without any characters concert a whole scientific community’ (p. 89). wearing burnt cork. Magee leaves it to the Substitute composer for scientist in the above reader to judge whether or not the framework quote, and you have the subject of the beauti- of minstrelsy is redeemable apart from racial fully produced Gyo« rgy Ligeti: Of Foreign Lands stereotypes. He also makes clear that Berlin and Strange Sounds, a grab bag of delights, as could also make audience members confront befits the gadfly nature of its subject and their own prejudices; ‘Supper Time’ from As projected audience of both academics and Thousands Cheer (1933 ), i n wh ich a wo man aficionados. Stemming from the 2007 Dublin laments the death of her lynched husband, conference ‘Remembering Ligeti’, organized by made many white audience members uneasy, Wolfgang Marx and others, Of Foreign Lands is and became one of Ethel Waters’s most famous edited by Marx and long-time Ligeti assist- songs. ant and musicologist Louise Duchesneau Magee also treats Berlin’s Jewish roots with a (Duchesneau also translated four of the essays similar nuance. He is careful not to fall into with great attention to context and detail). The the trap of attributing Berlin’s apparent stylistic scope of the collection, which includes former fluidity to the composer’s ethnic heritage. students, scientists, analysts, and distinguished Following Andrea Most’s Making Americans: musicologists, resembles that of a much earlier Jews and the Broadway Musical (Cambridge, collection edited by Constantin Floros, Gyo« rgy Mass., 2004), Magee also sees Berlin’s Ligeti: Die Referate des Ligeti-Kongresses Hamburg immigrant roots in the stories of many of his 1988 (Laaber,1991), with the poignant character shows, reading assimilation narratives into not of a retrospective rather than Referate’s compre- only Annie Get Your Gun, but also This is the hensive snapshot of a thriving career with great Army, and the unfinished Happy Holiday.Buthe works still to come. is also careful to emphasize that ‘such qualities The collection sets analytical essays alongside are not exclusively Jewish’ (p. 12), and are char- general considerations of Ligeti’s interests and acteristic of many immigrant groups of the era, new discoveries from the archives, allotting in a sense allowing for a broadening of Most’s fresh insights into the music equal weight to methodology. ruminative contributions by senior scholars. Until now, Irving Berlin has been treated I therefore discuss the sixteen essays in four mostly as a songwriter in the history of the groups. Two larger groupings deal with histor- Broadway musical. With Magee’s contribution, ical/cultural aspects and considerations of we can now recognize that he was a sensitive specific works, while the categories of ‘source and talented dramatist as well, and highly studies’ and ‘student reminiscences’ each attuned (for a time) to the social and political contain two complementary essays that will es- trends of his audience, with the exception of his pecially intrigue those already acquainted with blind spot for minstrelsy. The book provides a the literature on Ligeti. The essays are comple- valuable account of the aesthetics of the forma- mented by twelve figures, fourteen black- tive years of the Broadway musical and one of and-white images by the late photographer its most enduring progenitors. Ines Gellrich, and sixteen full-colour plates NAOMI GRABER representing sketches and diagrams from the University of Georgia Ligeti collection housed at the Paul Sacher doi:10.1093/ml/gct115 Foundation in Basel. ß The Author (2013). Published by Oxford University In the category of historical background Press. All rights reserved. I include essays by Louise Duchesneau, Otto Peitgen, Ildiko¤ Ma¤ ndi-Fazekas, and Tiborc Fazekas and Friedemann Sallis (whose An Intro- duction to the Early Works of Gyo« rgy Ligeti

709 (Cologne, 1996) remains the most complete Ligeti’s fascination with the science of chaos account of Ligeti’s Hungarian music). Sallis and fractal geometry is recounted in Peitgen’s writes comprehensively on the sometimes account of ‘A Fractal Friendship’. Peitgen fraught relations between Ligeti and his relates the genesis of the science of deterministic teacher Sa¤ ndor Veress from 1945 to 1948, as chaos, with examples taken from his own inter- the composers’ exiles from Soviet-dominated ests in risk analysis in surgery and auto Hungary took divergent paths. If Veress industry crash testing. He cites Ligeti’s Poe' me had an ambiguous relation to both wartime symphonique for 100 metronomes (1962) and Con- and post-war Hungary, he still served for the tinuum for harpsichord (1968) as early exem- recently exiled Ligeti as a model of moral recti- plars of chaotic structure in music, before using tude when he left for Berne in 1949, and Sallis the fourth movement of the to il- traces the influence of Veress on Ligeti’s lustrate how iterative processes can slip into (1951^3). For his part, Veress chaos. Ligeti’s growing interest in chaos and watched one of his favourite students succumb fractal geometry during the 1980s was to the ‘rationalization’ and spiritual sterility of accompanied by a parallel interest in the the West, and rebuffed Ligeti’s request for a rhythmic structures and scale patterns of sub- post in Switzerland (p. 13). Throughout Sallis Saharan music, touched on in a conversation is sensitive to the difference between artistic between Marx, Duchesneau, and the French- refugees who hope to returnçwhether they Israeli ethnomusicologist Simha Arom. Arom would or notçand those who left with no inten- recounts every meeting with Ligeti, and tion of going back. explains his technique of rerecording: a From the time of his earliest studies with method of recording multipart pieces with one Veress (the Three Weo« res Songs, 1946^7), Ligeti or two musicians in sequence, and of discerning was inspired by the sui generis Hungarian poet the underlying beat of the music. Given a per- Sa¤ ndor Weo« res. The contribution of Ma¤ ndi- spective based in years of fieldwork, Arom has Fazekas and Fazekas is a welcome addition to his own view on the so-called ‘illusory the sparse literature on the prodigal, cosmopol- rhythms’, inherent pulse, and aksak rhythms itan, multi-faceted poet and translator. (The often cited in African repertories and in music primary English-language source on Weo« res is shaped by similar principles. a Swedish dissertation by Susanna Fahlstro« m, Finally, Louise Duchesneau opens a Pan- Form and Philosophy in Sa¤ ndor Weo« res’ Poetry dora’s box of wonder and speculation with (Uppsala, 1999).) After leaving Hungary, Ligeti a survey of Ligeti’s record collection, which would not set the Hungarian language again spanned a huge range of genres and types until the Magyar Etu« do« k (Hungarian E¤ tudes) of (a complete listing of the 242 LPs in the Paul 1983, when he returned not only to Weo« res but Sacher Foundationçbut part of a much larger to poems of the early 1940s for inspiration, as collectionçserves as an example of the collec- he did for his final vocal work, the song cycle tion’s range, pp. 139^47). She includes a S|¤ ppal, dobbal, na¤ dihegedu« vel (With Pipes, Drums, poignant account of listening to records in Fiddles, 2000) for soprano and percussion post-war Budapest on a record player with a ensemble. In Weo« res, Ligeti found ‘Hungary’s thorn from an acacia bush, and chronicles the Mozart’ (Ligeti in Gesammelte Schriften,ed. discoveries Ligeti made via LP and CD in dif- Monika Lichtenfeld (Mainz, 2007), ii., 313), a ferent eras, many of which are notated in the fellow artist whose wide-ranging aesthetics and margins of works such as the Nonsense Madrigals delight in form and novelty matched his own and the sketches for the unfinished Alice in Won- proclivities. Perhaps the best evidence of this, derland. (Here references to the British group beyond the songs, can be found in the preface Supertramp, European schlager, and Balinese to Weo« res’ Tu00 zku¤ t (Fountain of Fire, Paris, kecak give some idea of Ligeti’s vast listening 1964 ), which Ma¤ ndi-Fazekas and Fazekas cite interests.) at length: ‘My intention is neither to bewitch In the category of analytical and critical dis- nor to annoy those who cringe when they en- cussion of the works, Benjamin Dwyer’s counter anything unusual: it is of no interest to analysis of transformational ostinati in the me whether I am understood or not. ...I sonatas for solo cello and viola stands out as a would like to see through you and to incite you hardcore analytic offering. Although it is a sen- to rearrange your closed, restricted and existen- sitive treatment, Dwyer looks at processes of tial ego into an open, social, cosmic and variation as all based on ostinati, which has the infinite self’ (Tu00 zku¤ t (Paris, 1964), 6^7, cited on effect of flattening out processes thatçwhile p. 57 ). based on repetition and variationçtake place

710 on radically different time scales, and are history of the role of film music via Herrmann rooted in different historical and folk inspir- and Hitchcock, and the role played by temp ations. Movements based on a chaconne and a tracks, but supplements his historical survey lamento ground, quasi-strophic melodies, and with his own reading of music in 2001: A Space the repetition of cyclic rhythms and rhythmic Odyssey (wherein the sounds worlds of Ligeti, J. segments are all subsumed under the category Strauss, R. Strauss, and Khachaturian repre- of transformational . Yet Dwyer’s sent Universe, Earth, God, and Man analysis offers the first sustained focus on the respectively) and Eyes Wide Shut (where pitch cello sonata, and one that considers the viola references from Musica Ricercata No. 2 represent sonata as a whole, rather than focusing on temptation, sin, and retribution). Paul Grif- specific movements. (Studies of the viola fiths’s contribution is unique in taking on a sonata are found in Peter Edwards, ‘The Music larger and more persistent genre: Ligeti’s focus of Gyo« rgy Ligeti and his : A on orchestral music, a constant of each phase Study in Analysis, Reception and the Listening in his career. Griffiths notes that the standard Experience’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Oslo, orchestra was viewed with suspicion by Ligeti’s 2005) and Steve Schani, ‘Gyo« rgy Ligeti’s generation, who sought to amend or question Sonata for Solo Viola (1991^1994)’ (D.M.A. its makeup. Unlike many of his peers, Ligeti diss., University of Missouri-Kansas City, didn’t emphasize percussion, but experimented 2001).) with various sizes of large chamber ensembles Wolfgang Marx considers Ligeti’s representa- and small orchestras. The works of the 1970s tions of death, discussing the and include fewer violins and more winds, leading Ligeti’s only finished opera, , to the incorporation of non-tempered winds in relation to alienation effects, ambiguity, ex- (ocarinas, basset horns, and natural French aggeration, and the grotesque. Marx compares horns) in the final concertos, an interest that Ligeti’s representations of death at two different parallels the rise of the early music movement. periods of his career as part of a large discus- A list of performances worldwide in 2007 shows sion of how a composer in Ligeti’s position how deeply Ligeti’s orchestral works have engages with this topic in the late twentieth penetrated the standard repertory. century. The Requiem had roots in Ligeti’s early In the category of source studies, Jonathan fascination with the Dies irae sequence, but a Bernard’s attempt at a taxonomy of the Ligeti commission in 1961 led to the work we now materials available at the Paul Sacher Founda- know. As Marx emphasizes, Ligeti’s non- tion will come as a welcome aid to those liturgical Requiem took a personal approach to scholars who continue to make regular pilgrim- a collective expression of grief. In Le Grand ages to that inclusive collection. (See also Macabre farce substitutes for the exaggerated ex- Richard Steinitz, ‘The Study of Composers’ pressiveness found in the Requiem. Marx notes Sketches, and an Overview of those by Ligeti’, that, in borrowing from Beethoven’s Eroica Contemporary Music Review,32/2^3(2012), symphony for the ostinato in Scene 3, Ligeti 115^34.) Bernard identifies five basic types of chose ‘the least heroic theme’ as a commentary sketches, any or all of which may be attached on Nekrotzar, the presumed bringer of death to a work, and discusses them, from the most and destruction (p. 80). Ligeti’s approach to general (verbal jottings,visualdrawings, and death is compared to that of the Nobel prize- charts of pitch names) to specific (tables listing winning author Imre Kerte¤ sz, whose writings pitch, rhythm, and duration; and two types of deal with surviving Auschwitz and Buchenwald. musical notation: rhythmless pitches in staff In ‘Who does Auschwitz belong to?’ (‘Wem notation and pitchless rhythms). The most geho« rt Auschwitz?’, in Eine Gedankenla« nge Stille, general categories may simply represent lists of wa« hrend das Erschieungskommande neu la« dt qualities or ambiguous descriptions, although (Reinbek, 2002),107^17), Kerte¤ sz famously had even the latter may be quite detailed and are harsh words for Spielberg’s movie Schindler’s often typed (Bernard notes a jotting of List, suggesting that a ‘fairy tale’ may be the sAtmosphe' re that represents ‘almost a continuity only way to capture an authentic moment of draft in words’, p. 151). The sketch record for such horror. the Kyrie of the Requiem serves as an example Ciara¤ n Crilly tackles ‘Ligeti’s Music and the of Ligeti’s process: textual description embel- Films of Stanley Kubrick’, a topic well covered lished with marginalia is followed by a blurry by film music scholars and others, although drawing. This in turn is followed by pitch series those films that employ Ligeti’s music are and descriptions of voice-leading rules rarely treated as a group. Crilly offers a brief (elaborated in a letter to Erkki Salmenhaara;

711 Salmenhaara’s dissertation became the first The inclusion of such reminiscences alongside published analysis of Ligeti’s work: Das probing source studies and historical and ana- musikalische Material und seine Behandlung in den lytical commentary makes Of Foreign Lands and WerkenApparitions,’ ‘ ‘Atmosphe' res,’ und ‘Requiem’ Strange Sounds a feast for not only Ligeti fans von Gyo« rgy Ligeti (Regensburg, 1969)). but also chroniclers of late twentieth-century The redoubtable Richard Steinitz follows his musical life. My one caveat with the physical intriguing remarks on the troubled genesis of book: the spine of my copy completely the Piano Concerto in his MusicoftheImagin- deteriorated before I was halfway through. ation (London, 2003) with a study of its AMY BAUER history, achieved primarily via a painstaking University of California, Irvine survey of materials in the Sacher Foundation. doi:10.1093/ml/gct110 The Piano Concerto was commissioned in the ß The Author (2013). Published by Oxford University early 1970s by the American conductor Mario Press. All rights reserved. di Bonaventura, but not completed until 1988. Steinitz found over fifty successive beginnings spread over six years, plus three preliminary Stockhausen: A Theological Interpretation.By plans projecting four-, five-, and seven- Thomas Ulrich, trans. Jayne Obst. movement versions. As work on the concerto pp. xii þ138. (Stockhausen-Stiftung fu« r overlapped with other works, Steinitz includes Musik, Ku« rten, 2012, E25/$39. ISBN 978- detailed sketches on the Horn Trio as well, 3-9815317-0-1.) and traces the history of sketches that have escaped the capacious embrace of the Sacher In the last decade, Thomas Ulrich has made a Foundation. Steinitz’s consideration of the significant contribution towards demystifying sketches is informed by his conversations with the rich theological associations in Karlheinz Ligeti and by his own translucent prose. The Stockhausen’s works. Recently, the Stockhausen reader will be impressed by the Herculean Verlag translated and published the first half task involved in teasing out a chronology of his book, which deals with Stockhausen among varied and often undated sketches, as (Neue Musik aus religio« sem Geist: Theologisches well as by the taut narrative Steinitz con- Denken im Werk von Karlheinz Stockhausen und structs, which leads to Ligeti’s ‘eureka John Cage (Saarbru« cken, 2006)). Not simply a moment’: a first movement design in which theologian with academic facility, Ulrich has piano and orchestra are distinguished by com- also distinguished himself by serving as the plementary harmonic casts, metres, and dramaturge for several recent staged produc- accent patterns. tions of Stockhausen’s works, including the My final category of student reminiscences memorable 2011 premiere of Sonntag aus Licht in steps away from the work and career to Cologne. Ulrich’s book provides a valuable but consider the man, as seen through the eyes of somewhat limited perspective on theological two students from Ligeti’s group classes in com- thinking in Stockhausen. position at the Hamburg Musikhochschule: It has long been known that Stockhausen’s Wolfgang-Andreas Schultz and Manfred creations are inundated with theological Stahnke. Both essays betray their authors’ meaning. The composer himself fancifully unease with certain aspects of their subject; re- called his works a ‘fast airship to the divine’. markably intimate revelations appear alongside While many have emphasized the variety of re- distanced, at times unsympathetic accounts ligious influences on his works, and Stock- of Ligeti as teacher and mentor. The heated hausen often alluded to a diverse array of discussions on aesthetics and compositional religious inspiration (perhaps most memorably ethics that marked Ligeti’s classes, and which in the calling of divine names in Stimmung but often set students against one another, remain also at numerous other moments, particularly vivid for Schultz and Stahnke. In both in the Licht cycle), Ulrich treats the compos- articlesçbut particularly in Stahnke’s lengthy itional project primarily as an expression of accountçwe see the class evolve from the mid- Christian epistemology. His main thesis is that 1970s to the late 1980s, through assaults from ‘Stockhausen’s theological aporia fuelled his the compositional ‘left’ and new developments artistic development until he found a stable in style and technique. Ligeti appears, in basis for his work in formula composition’ Schultz’s words, as something of a musicien (p. viii). Ulrich’s methodology seems cautious maudit (p. 219), an artist whose high standards but prudent: begin by examining the works often seemed to negate his own past work as themselves, not the ‘abyss of motives to which well as that of his contemporaries. Stockhausen occasionally refers’ (p. ix). He 712